This video of kids playing with pedals for the first time is the most adorable guitar moment of the year

We’ve always had a sneaking feeling that effect pedals are, in some respect, just grown-up toys.

Now, the good people over at Reverb have seemed to confirm our suspicions with a new video in which a group of children play through a table’s worth of stompboxes – including a Pro Co RAT, Ibanez TS808, Caroline Guitar Company Hawaiian Pizza Fuzz, Walrus Audio Julia Chorus/Vibrato, MXR Phase 90 and EarthQuaker Devices Spatial Delivery – for the first time.

Regarding the RAT?

I'm just imagining, like, a giant colony of rats running around everywhere and taking over the space

"I'm just imagining, like, a giant colony of rats running around everywhere and taking over the space," says one child.

"And eating cheese," adds another.

As for the Julia Chorus/Vibrato?

“It kind of reminds me of Spongbob’s laugh,” says yet another.

While there’s plenty to chuckle at throughout the 15-minute clip, there’s also knowledge to be gleaned about how and why effects work.

And if nothing else, the kids get to live out every guitar player’s dream, guilt-free: to crank the volume, turn on a bunch of pedals at once, and make a glorious, insanely noisy racket.

Richard Bienstock

Rich is the co-author of the best-selling Nöthin' But a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion. He is also a recording and performing musician, and a former editor of Guitar World magazine and executive editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine. He has authored several additional books, among them Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, the companion to the documentary of the same name.