About Strumtrove
A small crew of touring musicians, session players, and repair techs who got tired of reviews written by people who'd never actually plugged in the gear.
Who's Behind the Reviews
Our panel includes a former guitar tech for three national touring acts, a jazz upright bassist, and an audio engineer who's mixed for indie labels since 2011.
Our story
Strumtrove started in 2019 in a Portland garage, after our founder — a gigging guitarist — returned a badly-reviewed pedal that turned out to be excellent, and a glowingly-reviewed one that fell apart in two weeks. Convinced the review landscape was built on affiliate incentives rather than actual playing time, he recruited a handful of musician friends to start testing gear the way they'd want it tested: plugged in, gigged with, and pushed past the showroom demo.
How we review
Every review starts with a purchase or long-term loan — never a manufacturer's cherry-picked demo unit. We test across at least three playing contexts (practice, recording, and live), log objective specs like build tolerances and output levels, and have a second panelist blind-test the same unit before we publish a verdict. Affiliate links never influence scoring, and any gear sent for free is disclosed at the top of the piece.