2017 Retrospective - The Most Popular Gear Of The Year

December is the month for “best of lists” and an opportunity to reflect on what defined our year. As 2017 comes to a close we’re here to provide another breakdown on what we saw as the most popular gear of the last 12 months.

This year we’ll break things down by:

Effects & Synths which outlines the popularity of the two primary types of equipment available for rent at our shop.

Pedals by Category which highlights the types of pedals musicians have been most interested in taking for a spin.

Top Manufacturers which shows who captured the hearts of the community during the past year.

Below these charts and stats, you'll also find the most popular individual items of the year. You can also look back to our 2016 retrospective to see how some things change, and how some things stay the same.

Effects & Synths

By and large our community continues to be predominantly made up of guitarists. Effects pedals made up over 80% of all rentals throughout the year. With that said synth rentals edged up by 6 points in 2017. In general, interest in synthesis, and in particular eurorack, continues to grow. Many guitarists are finding interesting ways to incorporate this gear into their setups. It will be interesting to see how this may further shift going into next year.

Pedals by Category

Again this year we find pedal rentals dominated by ambient and technical devices with nearly 70% of all rentals being made up of delay, reverb, and modulation. Pedals adding some dirt to the chain held at just under 20% for the second year in a row.

Top Manufacturers

20% of all our rentals were represented by three manufacturers this year. Taking top honors were:

Most Popular Pedals Of The Year

Most Popular Synths Of The Year

Please keep in mind that the data we’ve reviewed is based on rentals booked on thesoundparcel.co only. While not reflective of the music industry as a whole, we do think that this is a compelling snapshot into the type of equipment musicians are most interested in experimenting with, as they search for their personal sound.

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