Some companies celebrate an anniversary with a new product release and maybe a party – a few streamers, party hats, and a cake – but Bob Weil wanted to do something a little different. “Well, it’s kind of crazy, but we decided to celebrate by changing the name of the company!” says Weil, founder and president of Truetone, formally Visual Sound. The original company name has a bit of a back-story. “Visual Sound,” says Weil, “was derived from the first product I invented, Visual Volume; the volume pedal with a 10 LED scale to indicate volume level. That was the product that launched Visual Sound at the beginning of 1995.” And while the Visual Volume may have been the cornerstone of the company at the time, over the past 20 years or so it has become more of a secondary product. “Our company motto was ‘Real Tone for Real People’, which underscores our approach to making reliable, high-quality products, at a fair price. With this in mind, we feel that our new name, Truetone, clearly states our vision in one word. Besides its great fit, the name also has a rich history, going back to the 1920s with vacuum tubes and the old tube radios. I love the history of the name as well as how Truetone ties into the ethos and vision of Visual Sound,” says Weil. But don’t think this name change happened overnight. No – Weil explains this was years in the making. “Several years ago we began this process by acquiring the trademark for Truetone and even created a pedal by that name, the Truetone Clean Boost, in 2008,” he says. “We also were able to secure Truetone.com and other related URL’s, clearing the way for us to make this move.”
“As with any change, there will be a time of transition as existing Visual Sound products are gradually re-branded Truetone,” Weil explains. “Products with both names may be found on dealer shelves in the interim. Regardless, the same exemplary level of products and support that made Visual Sound famous will continue with Truetone.” The company, which used to be well known for the Visual Volume, is now probably best known for the 1 SPOT power supplies and accessories. “The 1 SPOT products are the most popular,” Weil comments. “They just work so well at powering pedals and are so affordable. The V3 versions of our legacy pedals like H2O, Route 66, and Jekyll & Hyde are also quite popular, as has been a relative newcomer, the VS-XO Premium Dual Overdrive, which still bears the Visual Sound brand name for now.”
Though Weil explains the process of changing the company name was long and exhausting, there will of course be new product releases on the horizon to celebrate the anniversary. “The first Truetone branded products will be available by the end of June,” says Weil. “The new V3 Jekyll & Hyde will be the first pedal to bear the new brand name, while two new 1 SPOT products will also be branded Truetone: The 1 SPOT Pro CS7 and C12 models. They are power bricks with isolated outputs, that use our proprietary 1 SPOT technology. The price points of the 1 SPOT Pro models, combined with their extreme power handling capabilities, will make them very popular, I think. We’ve also scaled back the number of pedal models to concentrate on the few that dealers can always sell, year after year.”
This decision was a response to the fragmentation of the pedal business, something Weil notes as an MI trend he’s been noticing as of late. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he says. “Since there is now no real barrier to entry, everyone has entered the market. A 15-year-old can buy everything he needs online, set up a basic website using buzzwords from other websites, and you would never know it was just a kid with no electronics or business experience. Over the past six years, there have been over 1,700 new pedal brands with over 11,000 new pedals. If you have a music store, how do you keep up with that? You don’t. You pick a few brands that have some history and cherry-pick the lines. If you try to track the flavor of the week, you’ll drive yourself crazy and end up with lots of stock once the crowd moves on to the next flavor.”
Truetone also scaled back their presence at the NAMM show over the past few years. “We haven’t exhibited at NAMM since 2012, although we may again for 2016 since we have a new company name,” Weil explains. “The reason why we stopped after 2012 is that we already have an excellent distribution network around the world. We also found that the return on investment just wasn’t nearly as good as it used to be for us. The funny thing is, around the time of 2013 NAMM, we got more U.S. direct dealer orders than we did during 2011 or 2012 NAMM… and we didn’t even go to the show in 2013!”
Under a new name, Truetone’s values according to Weil are still the same. “[We’re] designing bulletproof products that help musicians get the tones they want, and standing behind those products with real customer service. Yeah, that sounds like a cliché, but it’s actually true… We back that up with our unique lifetime warranty on the V2 and V3 Series pedals as well. The 1 SPOT is a product that most of your readers stock in their stores because it’s tremendously popular, it’s reliable, has good margin, requires very little effort to sell, and takes up very little space. Dealers can order directly from us or from our distributors, which gives them flexibility to do business in the way that works best for them. Being around for 20 years makes a statement that we’re not just another fly-by-night pedal company.”
