What Was March's Best-Selling New Gear?

The musical instruments industry in 2022 continues to be exciting and dynamic, breaking out of the relative lull of 2021 with new instruments, effects, and more brand new releases.

For some unknown reason, the past few weeks have seen an incredible assortment of delays—from the MkII of Line 6's modern classic DL4 to Chase Bliss' first new pedal in two years. You can always find new releases like these, along with teasers, rumors, and confirmed new releases, in our Just In gear news bulletin.

But what new gear is resonating the most? To answer, let's take a look at the best-selling new gear of March 2022.

Note: As always, best-sellers are based on the number of items sold, not the total price. We withhold any products exclusive to Reverb. And for this article, we're looking at sales of brand new items only. How do March's sales compare to previous months? Check out our best-selling gear of January and February.

The Remake of a Looping Legend

In a month that saw an incredible amount of cool new delays—including Boss' Space Echo RE-202 and RE-2 and Chase Bliss' Habit—Line 6's DL4 MkII had the benefit of dropping first.

Revisiting the design for the first time in more than 20 years, Line 6 added a ton of new features: Your loops can now be much, much longer. There's double the amount of delays to choose from. And there's now an equally deep "secret" menu of reverbs to pair with those delays.

Suffice to say, no matter when the DL4 MkII dropped, it would've been a hit. But coming as it did before the entrants from Boss and Chase Bliss, it easily topped the best-selling list, moving more units in March than any other new effect or even any other product, period.

The next runner up, in fact, was neither the RE-202 nor the Habit, but Hologram Electronics' Microcosm—an incredibly unique granular sampler, delay, and looper, that has continued to be a best-seller on Reverb since its relaunch in 2021.

Chase Bliss Gives Us a New Habit

When discussing the Chase Bliss Habit with other people that work at Reverb, we came to a pretty drastic conclusion: The Habit could have whole new genres of music built around it.

It's a delay effect unlike any other. Yes, you can get classic delay sounds from it, but what sets it apart is its onboard memory, which you can use to record the previous three minutes of your playing. Once recorded, the passages you played get repeated back to you—in known or unknown ways—and become a second voice you can play against in real-time.

The demos of the pedal, our own included, can truly only scratch the surface of what's possible. Though released on the 30th, the Habit was the third best-selling gear of any kind on Reverb in March. (And in related news, Chase Bliss' Mood and Blooper also had very strong sales last month.) What does that mean? A ton of people are just beginning to explore what the Habit can do. We can't wait to hear all the music that comes from it.

JJ Electronic Tubes Skyrocket

Usually, when we put together our best-selling gear lists, we leave out parts and accessories. Truly, it's not that interesting to see what strings or cables everyone's buying. And maybe even moreso, there are very few parts or accessories that even have a chance to show up on such lists.

In March, however, there was an industry-wide panic over the availability of vacuum tubes. After EHX's Mike Matthews announced that his Russia-based New Sensor tube factory would no longer be able to supply tubes to the many companies and gearheads that depend on them, there was a collective run on available stock.

To pump the brakes, a few observers noted that most of us don't need to change our amp's tubes often at all. Many people, including owners of repair shops and boutique manufacturers, asked that people not stockpile, so that prices wouldn't skyrocket. But that didn't stop folks from buying tubes everywhere they could, Reverb included.

Slovakia's JJ Electronic is, at the moment, the only large manufacturer in the world able to supply the types of tubes we need for our beloved tube amps. After Matthews' announcement in mid-March, JJ's most in-demand tube types—like 12AX7s, EL84s, 6V6s—sold like toilet paper at the start of the COVID pandemic. (Tung-Sol's 12AX7s and EHX's 12AX7s were very popular too.) But by late March, daily sales of all tubes on Reverb returned to relatively normal levels.

Between JJ's continued output, Western Electric's plans to make amp tubes in the US, and another tube factory in China expected to come online soon, there will likely be plenty of tubes for everybody in the future, even if they are a little scarcer or more expensive for the time being.

The SE Silver Sky Is Here to Stay

In January, PRS released the long-expected SE Silver Sky. A budget-friendly version of its already best-selling John Mayer signature mode, PRS' SE Silver Sky sold very, very well in January. In fact, it was the top-selling item on Reverb, which is quite a feat for any guitar.

A few months on, and new SE Silver Sky models continue to sell and sell and sell. Once again, it's the best-selling guitar of the month, and it's not hard to see why. It offers the kind of premium features players came to know and love about the original, US-made Silver Sky, but with a cheaper price point thanks to its Korean manufacturing.

Will any new guitar this year be able to dethrone the king?

Boss' Latest & Greatest Space Echo

Following mainstay pedals like the ProCo Rat 2 and Peterson Strobostomp, Boss' latest and greatest Space Echo pedal, the RE-202, arrives on our best-selling list.

Securing the bronze medal of March's new delay units, the RE-202 may have had a little trouble thanks to the RE-2, which brought many of the traditional Space Echo features into an even smaller pedal format. Boss officially released both on the same day, after the RE-2 leaked earlier in the month. (If we were to combine sales of the RE-202 and RE-2, the combination would have a much higher spot on our best-selling list.)

The new models both bring vintage tape echo tones to your pedalboard, in smaller and more reliable form factors. Just as Boss' last attempt, the RE-20, is still popular today, there's every reason to believe that the RE-202 and RE-2 will be best-sellers for a long time to come.

Roland's New 404 Continues to Dominate

Announced back in October, Roland's new 404—the SP-404MKII—has been hailed (by us and others) as a return to form.

Deep 404 heads can rejoice in the fact that all the classic features are here. And the rest of us can appreciate that a visual sample editor, modern connectivity options, and many other new features are now at our fingertips.

As we wrote last month, the downside is that the demand has outpaced the supply. But with each new day, more orders are shipping.

In last month's best-selling list, this writer noted how he was still waiting for his. Well, reader, it finally arrived. After you load the new firmware—yes, word to the wise, there was likely a new firmware update between the time you ordered and the time your 404 arrives—you'll come to know what we've found to be true: The hype is well deserved.

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Note: In the table, "--" in the Change column means that there was no movement in the ranking at all. "--" in the February Rank column means it did not rank in February. Brand new products that were released for the very first time in March (like the DL4 MkII) will have N/A for Change. The tube types that are normally nowhere near the top of our best-selling lists have approximate rank changes of "+Hundreds."