23 Mar Effects Pedals you need on your Board
Building a pedal board? Looking for inspiration?
Spend just 30 minutes trawling the internet for advice on effects pedals and you will quickly be overwhelmed by all the different opinions and recommendations out there, let alone effects pedal makers – we have 120 featured on our site with more added all the time.
At the end of the day though, it is your sound and your choice of how you get that sound. Having said that a bit of basic advice on where to start, if you are building a pedal board or collection, shouldn’t go amiss.
Hundreds of Makers
With well over a hundred effect manufacturers out there, all producing new pedals on a regular basis as well their ‘classics’ you can be forgiven for being confused, particularly when prices go from £30 to £450 within each category.
If you buy one though and don’t get on with it you should be able to sell it fairly easily as the market is buoyant at the moment.
Types of Pedals
There are many categories of effects pedals such as:
• Overdrive/Distortion
• Fuzz
• Reverb
• Delay
• Boost
• Compression
• Modulation – chorus, flanger, phaser
• Pre-amps
• Wah-wah
• Loopers
• Synths
Most Popular
The most common effects pedals that many guitarists use on their boards are:
• Tuner
• Wah-wah
• Compression
• Overdrive or Distortion
• Fuzz
• Chorus
• Flanger
• Delay
• Reverb
• Looper
Pedal Board Order
Which order you put them in is up to you and how many overdrive and distortion pedals you have also, but the ‘default’ is:
From the input end: Tuner – Wah – Compression – Distortion/Overdrive – Fuzz – Modulation (chorus, flanger etc) – Delay – Reverb – Looper
Multi FX Pedals
If you can’t be bothered with all of this then you can always buy a MultiFX pedal where you can add and store different combinations of effects together to create specific sounds – all in one box!
Best Pedals
Here is our rundown on some of the best and classic effects pedals around today:
TUNERS
Budget: Behringer TU300 c£23
Mid-Price: TC Polytune 3 Mini c£65
High-End: Peterson Strobo Stomp HD c£120
Also try:
Mooer Baby Tuner c£52
Boss TU3 Chromatic Tuner c£56
WAH-WAH
Budget: Vox Classic Wah-wah c£55
Mid-Price: Dunlop Cry Baby Multi Wah c£155
High -End: Xotic XW-1 c£249
Also try:
Dunlop Cry Baby c£75
COMPRESSORS
Budget: Mooer Yellow Comp c£54
Mid-Price: Keeley Compressor Plus c£129
High-End: Empress Compressor £249
Also try:
Boss CS3 Compression Sustainer c£70
Fender The Bends c£99
Wampler Ego Compressor c£170
Walrus Audio Deep Six V3 C£179
Empress Compressor c£249
OVERDRIVE
Budget: Mooer Green Mile c£45
Mid-Price: Fullton OCD c£129
High-End: Venuram Jan Ray c£339
Also try:
Boss BD-2 Blues Driver c£72
EHX Soul Food c£76
Ibanez Tube Screamer c£100
MXR Sugar Drive c£119
J Rockett Archer c£175
Origin Effects Revival Drive c£459 (Compact version c£315)
DISTORTION
Budget: Boss DS-1 Distortion c£52
High-End: Friedman BE-OD c£199
Also try:
Mooer Rage Machine c£54
Blackstar LT Metal c£69
Blackstar HT Metal c£185
FUZZ
Budget: EHX Big Muff c£65 – £100
Mid-Price: Way Huge Russian Pickle £129
High-End: ThorpyFX Fall Out Cloud c£185
Also try:
Dunlop Fuzz Face Mini c£99
Earthquaker Devices Hoof c£185
CHORUS
Budget: Mooer Ensemble King c£50
Mid-Price: MXR M234 Analogue c£97
High-End: Boss CE-2W c£189
Also try:
MXR M134 Stereo c£175
FLANGER
Budget: Mooer E-lady c£56
Mid-Price: Carl Martin Classic Flange c£119
High-End: Earthquaker Devices Pyramid c£319
DELAY
Budget: TC Electronics Flashback 2 c£99
Mid-Price: MXR Carbon Copy Delux c£199
High-End: Strymon Timeline c£399
Also try:
Boss DD-500 c£291
Boss DD-200 c£219
REVERB
Budget: TC Electronic Skysurfer c£29
Mid-Price: EHX Oceans 11 c£130
High-End: Strymon Big Sky c£449
Also try:
Walrus Audio Slo c£179
Mooer Ocean Machine c£195
LOOPER
Budget: TC Electronic Ditto c£79
Mid-Price: MXR Clone Looper c£159
High-End: Boss RC-10R c£263
Also try:
TC Electronic Ditto X2 c£114
Boss RC-1 Loopstation c£92
Links to other Guides, Reviews and Effect Manufacturers
Effect Manufacturers
How to choose an effects pedal
Choosing a looper
Polytune vs Mooer Baby
Skysurfer – bargain reverb
Mooer Chorus Pedal
Ditto Looper
Guitar Preamps
