How Tariff Chaos Is Throwing the Music Gear Industry Into Turmoil
“This could have a devastating effect not only for the companies in our industry, but also for music-makers,” NAMM’s president/CEO says.
For years, to make the Canvas Power 15, Walrus Audio has spent $95.32 per unit on parts. So the rainbow-stamped power supply device for multiple guitar pedals has rarely cost customers more than $270, a price consistency that has helped the 14-year-old Oklahoma City company earn $10 million in annual sales and employ 31 guitar players. “We were cruising, and stuff was selling, and we’re like, ‘Man, we’re having a fun year,'” owner Colt Westbrook says.
But a surge protector that resembles a small, black brick is a key part of every Canvas Power 15 package and can be made in only one country: China. Last month, when the Trump Administration raised tariffs for Chinese imports from 84 percent to 145 percent, the cost to make the Power 15 soared to $139.54. That gave Westbrook a choice: Raise Walrus’ prices, potentially alienating customers, or slash expenses. “We’d have to lose some people,” says Westbrook, whose customers include Maroon 5, the Roots, Haim and Bon Jovi. “We’d have to cut some products, because they wouldn’t be financially viable anymore. Which would be sad.”
Given the unpredictable nature of recent U.S. tariffs on China, and, to a lesser extent, other countries, Walrus is one of many music-gear manufacturers freaking out about the sudden instability of its long-steady industry. Although Trump announced a trade deal with China last week, lowering the U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports to 30 percent, Westbrook was not reassured. “Everybody’s just, ‘We’re holding onto our cash because we don’t know what’s going to happen,’” he says.
Small music-gear companies fear the worst. In testimony Wednesday (May 14) before the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Julie Robbins, owner/CEO of EarthQuaker Devices, a 35-employee Akron, Ohio, guitar-effect pedal manufacturer, declared the tariffs are “putting us at risk of bankruptcy,” demanded they be “reversed immediately” and dismissed “offensive” suggestions that she borrow money to cover fees “abruptly imposed on me by the government with no notice and no consideration.”
Although many music instruments are manufactured in the U.S., as well as relatively low-tariffed countries like Canada, Mexico and Indonesia, John Mlynczak, CEO/president of the National Association of Music Merchandisers (NAMM), recently told Billboard: “China is the largest manufacturing hub for products worldwide.” Gear-makers big and small say circuit boards, capacitors, resistors, transistors, fret wire, tubes and, as Walrus discovered, surge protectors, are made outside the U.S. — and many come from China alone.
“Nearly all musical products imported into the world’s largest market for [these] products are affected,” Mlynczak says by email. “This could have a devastating effect not only for the companies in our industry, but also for music-makers who buy these products.”
Trump recently declared U.S small businesses would not require government relief: “They’re going to make so much money — if you build your product here,” he said. But Josh Scott, owner, creator and president of Kansas City-based JHS Pedals, which employs 40 people and releases 100,000 products annually, argues Trump’s prediction can’t come true in his industry, which relies on parts that haven’t been made in the U.S. for years, if ever. “It’s like telling someone in Detroit to make diamonds out of the ground,” he says. “It’s physically not a thing.”
“It’s not just going to affect gear prices. It’s going to put a lot of these people out of business,” adds Rhett Shull, whose YouTube guitar-tips channel has 728,000 followers. “We’re heading for a massive nationwide shortage of goods in about a month. Even if Trump said, ‘Oh, nevermind, tariffs off, we’re all good,’ the damage is already going to be done.”
Due to the tariffs — and the uncertainty surrounding the tariffs — music-business products from T-shirts and other merch to vinyl records are bracing for higher manufacturing prices. U.S. companies that specialize in music gear are already seeing the impact: Philippe Herndon, founder/chief product designer for Caroline Guitar Co., recently posted on Threads that his company was “startled” to receive a March tariff bill that was “twice as much as we were expecting”; John Snyder, owner of Electronic Audio Experiments, adds in an interview that the cost of metal enclosures used for a new pedal “basically tripled overnight,” forcing his $1 million-in-annual-sales company to discontinue the product. “You don’t want to pass that cost onto the customers,” he says. “At some point, you have to take the ‘L’ and move on, and focus on stuff where the margins are better.”
The tariffs haven’t fully kicked in for the music-gear business, in part because of Trump administration uncertainty: In addition to the fluctuating tariff rates, particularly on China, Trump has granted, without much explanation, exemptions for certain industries, like smartphones, laptops and other electronics. NAMM has lobbied U.S. senators and the Commerce Department for an exemption on the types of lumber, known as tonewoods, that are used in guitars.
Another reason consumers may not have noticed a widespread increase in guitar-gear costs: Like many aggressive U.S. businesses, some music-equipment companies began preparing when Trump won the 2024 election. Electronic Audio Experiments, according to Snyder, spent last December and January working with a longtime supplier to buy as much inventory as possible so the company could maintain prices through the end of 2025. “Our circuit-board assembly house is located in North Carolina. We loaded them up with as much raw material as we could stand and just tried to coast from there,” Snyder says. “It was a very anxious time. Nobody knew exactly what was happening. We just knew it was going to be bad.”
For now, some music-gear manufacturers detect a shift among consumers to the used market. On Reverb, which sells new and used gear, April prices dropped by about 1 percent compared to the same time in 2024. “There have been a few manufacturers who have raised prices in the last few weeks on synthesizers and pedals,” says Cyril Nigg, Reverb’s senior analytics director. “A lot of the other manufacturers are trying to hold prices where they are for now. The retailers who are selling those products on Reverb are trying to keep the prices stable.”
Used gear prices are typically about 50 percent to 80 percent of the new price, according to Herndon, whose company earns less than $500,000 in annual sales. “The used market is indexed to the price of new goods,” he says. “Somebody goes, ‘I want to buy a Stratocaster, and everything has gotten more expensive — screw this, I’m going to buy it used.’ Well, the tariffs have raised the price of the new goods, and now the used goods are going to come up.”
Elizabeth Dilts Marshall contributed to this report.
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