Pedal for my thoughts

Recently I was invited to a guitar pedal shootout hosted by Visual Sound, an effects company located just down the road, in Spring Hill, Tennessee. The shootout was held at the Sound Kitchen, one of the premier recording studios in the country.

Basically, the shootout was a blind A/B type event, and the audience got to pick which pedals between A and B sounded better, then the winner would move on to face another pedal in that category. Then we’d vote on which sounded better between those two, and so on, until all pedals in that particular category had been played and voted on. Categories included overdrive, distortion, chorus, compression and fuzz/octave. Again, this was a blind shootout, so we could not see any of what we were hearing until all pedals in the category had been voted on, since they were hidden behind that wooden partition above. Afterwards, the pedals would show up on the monitor you see in the photo above, and Bob Weil would talk about the results based on voting. The event was also being filmed for future promotions opportunities.

The first 50 people there, including yours truly, got a free pedal, which was the Route 808 overdrive pedal. I thought this was really cool, and very generous on the part of Visual Sound, and served as a great way to broaden the brand awareness with the people in attendance that night, many of which are session players or touring musicians, or both. I was probably the only one there that was neither a session or touring player, but I didn’t care. I was there to support my friend Zac that invited me, and to check out their products, while getting a “pedal for my thoughts.” 

However, on a few of the votes, I was the ONLY ONE IN THE ROOM that voted on a particular pedal, and I felt like such a complete loser. But, it was all based on opinion, and shortly after my internal embarrassment, a few other guys wound up being the only ones voting on a pedal, and each of those times I was in the majority of voting, thus wiping away my prior embarrassment.

I’m not going to spoil any of the results of the event, so if you are into Visual Sound products, stay tuned to their website in the weeks ahead and I bet there will be info about the shootout and where you can see or listen to the results. Visual Sound makes a lot of great products and if you are in the market for some new gear, go check out what they have available on their site, and then play their pedals in the store of your choice. You will not be disappointed.