Bobby Joe Witt and David Zumsteg are highly successful, multi-faceted musicians and performers.
Both are sold on the Stratus multi-effects guitar pedal developed by Chaos Audio and value its utility and versatility.
This month, the Stratus pedal, introduced to the music marketplace late in 2022, is being relaunched even as Chaos Audio is making available a flight of effects plugins, 39 in all, that run on both the pedal and a Mac or PC.
Witt is a studio owner, a singer-songwriter and the lead vocalist and guitarist for a Christian metalcore band, To Fight For. He also plays drums and bass and is comfortable with musical genres ranging from country to jazz to rap.
As a player, Witt had experience with the XTOMP pedal manufactured by Hotone.
“Then I saw Stratus and I was, like, ‘OK, with this thing you can actually build full signal chains as one pedal,’ and I thought, ‘How cool is that?'” Witt said.
“I fell in love with Chaos Audio and the product. It sounds great, and it more than meets my needs in the sound studio and on the stage. It’s part of my rig, man. For me, Stratus is a staple.”
Witt sees Stratus as a good fit for both experienced and beginning players.
“It’s an all-arounder, dude,” he said. “If you know how to use Bluetooth, you can adjust all the effects right there.”
Zumsteg owns 442 Studios in Los Angeles. He’s a guitarist, bass player, vocalist and voiceover artist who uses his Stratus pedal when composing, recording, rehearsing and gigging.
He has found that Chaos Audio’s receptivity to suggestions from users is “absolutely spectacular. In fact, the customer service is what sold me on not one, but two Strati.”
Added Witt, “I feel like Chaos Audio is building a team of musicians who will endorse and support what they are doing in the field.”
User suggestions have led to product improvements and added functionality, like hands-free preset switching and AI amp modeling, that warrant a Stratus relaunch.
Meanwhile, Chaos Audio founder/CEO Landon McCoy knows there is a lot of pent-up demand for plugins. The company offered a Starlight shimmer reverb plugin free of charge in exchange for email addresses, and more than 12,500 people took advantage of the offer.
The Stratus pedal and Chaos Audio Plugin Bundle, which unlocks the new batch of plugins, are both priced at a highly competitive $249. But during Cyber Monday week, Stratus is only $219 and purchasers are able to add the plugin bundle for just $80.
“If you buy a plugin — or all the plugins — for Stratus, you can also use it on the Mac/PC platform,” McCoy said. “Go on your computer, download the plugins from our website, sign in with your account and you don’t have to pay for them again. No other company offers such cross-platform deals.”
