The Old Stomping Ground

Guitar and bass FX pedal suppliers discuss the market.

Now available in a multitude of sizes and configurations, providing innumerable options for sound manipulation, 

effects pedals – “stompboxes” – are part of nearly every electric bassist or guitarist’s rig (unless you’re Angus Young). MMR recently spoke with a number of suppliers of these popular accessories to get the skinny on what’s driving sales in 2016…

What trends have you been noticing with respect to guitar and bass effects pedals – technological innovations, materials used, sizes preferred, types of pedals gaining or losing momentum?

Mike Matthews: Certain product categories are hot. Loopers are a good example of this and are a product segment that’s captured the attention and interest of players. That’s why we’ve been addressing the looper market with the EHX 360 Nano Looper, 720 Stereo Looper, 22500 Dual Stereo Looper and 45000 Multi-track Looping Recorder, pedals that run the gamut from elemental to really feature laden. Electro-Harmonix actually started the whole looper thing with our 16 Second Digital Delay released in 1982 and though I can’t divulge the details, 2016 is going to be an exciting year for EHX loopers.

Speaking of trends, there also appears to be no end in sight to small, “boutique” pedal makers coming into the marketplace, though I wonder how successful many are. The cost of entry is relatively low and it’s an easy step to take. No doubt that’s a great attraction, especially for someone who has some tech chops. Growing that little startup is the real challenge and requires wearing a whole bunch of different hats, I know!

Over time I’ve also seen a trend toward more and more acceptance of digital technology among pedal buyers. Players have really adopted it and I attribute that to advancements in the technology, algorithms and programming. Put another way, when done right it sounds great and pitch shifting effects like our POG2 polyphonic octave generator and Pitch Fork polyphonic pitch shifter are tremendously popular.

Mark Nelson: It’s interesting how many players today are far less focused on whether a pedal is analog or digital. The latest generation of guitar players doesn’t seem to care about how you get to the sound; ultimately it’s the sound itself that matters to them. They’re not so worried about the technology. There’s also been a swing back in popularity for the more traditional pedal companies. The companies making quality products with longstanding reputations are becoming more of the standard now, with fewer boutique pedal companies emerging. I also think the mini pedal trend is not as popular as it once was. When players started actually using the minis, they realized they’re not as practical and sturdy, unless an external switcher is involved. As far as “types” of pedals gaining and losing momentum, we don’t think there’s a type to call out necessarily; it really comes down to how exciting a pedal is for the player. BOSS’s Waza Craft line is doing well with its nod to boutique analog modded-style pedals, but BOSS has many digital pedals that are also doing really well.

Scott Wunschel: What we noticed before we joined the effects pedal market was everybody was going small. Small pedals at small prices seem to be popping up everywhere. There’s also the wild graphics craze that’s been happening for a couple of years and seems to be growing. Overdrives and distortion continue to be leaders for dealers.

Gary Lenaire: Guitar and bass pedals have been getting smaller. Not only are the pedals decreasing in size, but also the pedalboards they are placed on. Airline weight requirements and overhead space

 also play a part in this trend. Professional players must plan for travel and smaller pedal boards are becoming more popular. As far as types of pedals, modulation is becoming more popular with players. Chorus and shimmer-type sounds are gaining steam.

David Packouz: The market seems to be reaching a saturation point with the usual effect pedals. There are only so many of the thousands of variations of the same effect that a customer will buy. This provides an opportunity for companies that produce something truly unique and innovative. When we launched the BeatBuddy, we had a bit of confusion at first because no one had ever made a hybrid of a guitar pedal and a drum machine before with the BeatBuddy’s powerful live, hands-free beat control capabilities. But once it got into the hands of musicians, the response has been overwhelming.

John Stippell: In my observations, it seems that analog is still king, however many players are beginning to loosen up a bit concerning digital technology. The main reason for this is simply because they sound really, really good and can often be produced more consistently than some pedals that rely on analog components that are often difficult to source in large quantities. Similarly, it seems that players are also willing to sacrifice a bit of pedal board real estate for the right pedal, whereas a couple years ago, it seemed like everything had to fit into the smallest case imaginable. Robust reverbs, delays, and modulations, especially those that offer presets and tap tempo have to be built bigger by necessity and with the expanding pedalboard offerings, players are willing to find space for the right pedal. As far as types, it seems to come in waves. Last year, it seemed like chorus was the particular flavor players were after, whereas in the past few months I am noticing a lot of spatial and shimmery reverbs. One of the great things about the effects category is that there is so much to explore.

How would you characterize the market for FX pedals at the present time?

GL: Compact or “stompbox” pedal sales continue to increase. Multi effects are gradually declining, partially due to players interested in smaller format pedals. Electric guitar products have been flat over recent years but are now showing signs of growth. The acoustic pedal effects market continues to expand.

MN: The market is volatile but still growing, and BOSS has increased market share, as we’ve been effective in responding more quickly to our customers’ requests for products. This has made a big difference for our business. The guitar playing market may not be growing as quickly as it once was; however, a continued focus on getting more people interested in playing guitar – kids and adults included – has been important for us, and certainly should be for the industry as a whole.

JS: Korg USA has not been particularly active in the effects category over the past year or so, so I cannot really speak to this with any authority, but it doesn’t seem like effects are slowing down at all. It has remained one of the most consistent categories in our industry for several years now and I do not anticipate that changing anytime soon.

DP: I can’t speak for the general market, but we have seen our sales take off like a rocketship. It seems that the more customers we get, the more they tell their friends about the BeatBuddy which further increases our sales. Sales have even started spreading beyond our core guitarist and bassist customers, to keyboardists, cellists, flutists and other instrumentalists. We’ve even had drummers post videos on our Facebook page of themselves using the BeatBuddy as their percussion section while they play drums!

SW: We’re the new guys when it comes to the effects pedal market. We started distributing Providence and Nobles pedals in January so it’s all up business for us. We are re-introducing the brands to the North American market and the response has been great. Both brands have been around for 20 plus years, so dealers are familiar with the products which helps in a very crowded market place.

 MM: Overall sales are up somewhat from the same time last year. Growth hasn’t been phenomenal, but it has been consistent. Moving forward, it’s difficult to predict, especially with this being a presidential election year. However, experience is the best teacher and we’ve had a great deal of it going all the way back to 1968!

What are the newest releases in this product category for your company, specifically? What’s selling the best?

SW: Providence is not a huge line of pedals it’s really condensed and with Nobels we are only selling the original Natural Overdrive. With Providence we are really fired up about the new Brick Drive which is a bass preamp, overdrive, and D.I all in one box at a very suitable street price of $259 and hits the market mid-July. The Providence overdrives and distortion pedals do well but the surprise “Hits” have been the Anadime guitar and bass chorus and the Chrono Delay. The delay is unique with features like the Echo Harness(- adjusts the delayed signals’’ mids & highs) and Beat Split which gives you seven delay time variations ranging from half notes to eighth-note triplets making rhythm-based delay settings done in an instant.

DP: The BeatBuddy is a professional grade product with a MAP of $299 – and while we’ve been doing incredibly well with it, we realized that this price point made the BeatBuddy out of reach for a large segment of the market. So we recently released the BeatBuddy Mini, a streamlined model with a MAP of $99. We’ve seen incredible sales to the student market because rhythm is the skeleton of music and there’s a lot more to learning a style than the time signature and BPM provided by a metronome. With the BeatBuddy Mini, students are learning much faster, improvising earlier, and having much more fun with a personal drummer that will stay with them for a lifetime – all for the price of a single lesson.

JS: Korg’s been very busy in developing new pedal tuners, which certainly crosses over to the stompbox consumer. Our new Pitchblack Mini and Pitchblack Custom expand on the extremely popular Pitchblack pedal tuner that debuted years ago. The Mini is geared towards the aforementioned consumer who is very conscious of the size of their pedalboard, while the Custom features Korg’s brand-new three-dimensional display meter which allows users to tune with higher accuracy than ever before.

MN: The newest releases from BOSS include the Waza Craft CE-2W Chorus, Waza Craft VB- 2W Vibrato, VE-8 Acoustic Singer, VO-1 Vocoder, and the Waza Craft TU- 3W Chromatic Tuner. The Waza Craft CE-2W Chorus is brand new, and incidentally just won a Best in Show award at Summer NAMM. This pedal celebrates BOSS’s 40th anniversary by recreating sonically accurate versions of the very first chorus pedal, the CE-1, and BOSS’s very first compact chorus pedal, the CE-2, and adding to that enhanced features not offered before. The Waza Craft VB-2W Vibrato and VO-1 Vocoder debuted at Winter NAMM this year and are currently selling neck and neck for us, which is interesting because the VO-1 is brand new for us; we’ve never offered anything like it before. And with the VB-2W, BOSS is bringing a very popular pedal back from the past and tweaking it with newly enhanced modes. Players seem to have “a-ha moments” with most BOSS pedals whenever they take the time to demo them personally, and the new VO-1 is a great pedal to jumpstart an in-store demo, as it’s always a crowd pleaser.

MM: The newest release is our MEL9 Tape Replay Machine. It uses the same hardware technology as our B9 and C9 Organ Machines and KEY9 Electric Piano Machine to replicate the sounds of vintage tape-based keyboards, but with its own unique software. The distinctive sound of those early polyphonic tape replay keyboards is now part of the tapestry of rock ‘n’ roll. We’ve been able to give that to guitarists and other musicians in a portable, affordable way which is why it’s been an extremely hot selling pedal. Because of our long history, we also have classic pedals like our Big Muff Pi, LPB-1 Linear Power Booster and Memory Man series that have been consistently strong performers year after year.

 GL: The ToneDEQ Preamp and Platinum series are the latest pedals from Fishman. These products are doing very well as they are solutions for many musical needs. For acoustic players, sound quality is everything. ToneDEQ delivers a pro-quality discreet Class-A analog preamp, D.I., EQ, boost, and effects. The Platinum series provides a discreet Class-A analog preamp, EQ, and D.I. for guitar, violin, cello, bass, resonator guitar, banjo, mandolin, or other acoustic instruments.

Lastly, what are your expectations for this segment in the coming months?

MN: With our recent new product launches at Summer NAMM, and the enthusiasm we saw for those pedals, we at BOSS are very optimistic for the second half of the year, but it’s hard to say how much more this market segment, as a whole, will grow in coming months. As we enter into Q4, we expect to see the traditional seasonal lift that we see coming into that quarter.

GL: The pedal effects market will most likely continue to grow. Players are always looking for new and better ways to get their tone and pedals are an important part of that goal.

DP: We expect to continue expanding the market and attracting new customers to the BeatBuddy line of products. We’re working on some exciting new accessories and software updates that will make the BeatBuddy line even more powerful and fun. What’s really exciting is that cool gadgets, like the BeatBuddy, seem to be inspiring young people to pick up an instrument and stick with it, which expands the MI market for the whole industry.

MM: Our expectations are high because we are excited about a number of new pedals we will be bringing to market as the year unfolds. Innovation drives our growth and success. We are constantly challenging ourselves to make unique pedals like the MEL9 and Ravish Sitar. At the same time we actively study existing styles of pedal and, when we can, improve on those platforms thru enhanced sounds and features as well as achieving more affordable price points. Examples of these would include our new Lester G rotary speaker emulator and Soul Food transparent overdrive.

JS: Quite simply, I expect to see more product, specifically pedals, from more builders and brands. As I mentioned earlier, from my experiences with this category, I do not anticipate a slowdown anytime soon.

SW: We don’t see the market shrinking any time soon. We never intended to be in the pedal market – we manufacture and market pickups. But the opportunity with Providence and Nobels came to us and we spent time with each company to make sure we could represent them to the fullest. We’re very positive on the remainder of 2016 there’s a lot of great effects pedal makers out there and we’re excited to represent two of them.