I’ll be honest with you. I didn’t know how much harder 52 pedal manufacturers was going to be when compared to last year’s 52 amplifiers. I fell behind on my weekly posting schedule—the real world can be such a needy thing—and finding so many different manufacturers who were all providing something that appealed to me in a way no other pedal manufacturer was proved to be a lot more time consuming than I had anticipated. Having said all of that, I’m glad I persevered. I’ve put together a list I’m proud of that is hopefully going to be of use to other guitar gear addicts.
So, 52 different pedal manufacturers all offering that something special in an attempt to gain access to your valuable pedalboard real estate. If you had to choose one new pedal, what company would you choose a pedal from? What pedal would you go for first? Me, I’d certainly make it one of the following 52 pedals. At least one …
What I’ll do to make this list easier to navigate for you is add the pedal type to the pedal name/link in the list below. You’ll notice I have a favourite pedal type as you go through this list. As I progressed through this series, I ended up with several personal favourite pedals in this list of 52 pedals. More about those after the complete list.
52 Pedals
- BOSS DM-2W Delay (delay)
- Wampler Sovereign Distortion (distortion)
- Electro Harmonix Tone Tattoo (distortion, chorus, delay)
- Main.Ace.FX One Shot (fuzz)
- El Ray Effects The Mystic (fuzz)
- Digitech Bad Monkey (overdrive)
- MXR Phase 90 (phase)
- Fulltone OCD (overdrive)
- JHS Pedals Mini Bomb Boost (boost)
- Throbak Stone Bender (overdrive, fuzz)
- BIG EAR n.y.c. CHAKA (octave, fuzz)
- Pigtronix Gatekeeper (noise gate)
- Eventide Space (reverb)
- Vox V8 (distortion)
- F-Pedals Edstortion (distortion)
- Pro Tone Pedals Paul Masvidal Signature Chorus (chorus)
- Midnight 30 Music Overdrive No.30 (Star Wars Edition) (overdrive)
- EC Pedals Time Traveler Delay (delay)
- Joyo Pedals Gate of Kahn (noise gate)
- Chuck Pedals Blue Dream (reverb)
- Keely Phase 24 (phase) … Oops, lost it!
- Red Panda Context (reverb)
- Randall RGOD (overdrive)
- Coldcraft Echoverberator (echo, reverb)
- Dunlop Cry Baby Mini Wah (wah)
- Crazy Tube Circuits Black Magic MkII (distortion)
- Blakemore Effects R.O.U.S. (distortion)
- Way Huge Supa-Puss (delay)
- Alairex Halo (overdrive)
- Strymon Ola (chorus, vibrato)
- Oddfellow Effects Caveman Overdrive 2 ( overdrive)
- Rockett Pedals WTF Fuzz (fuzz)
- Tortuga Effects Death Adder (distortion)
- Earthquaker Devices Tentacle (octave)
- Carl Martin Noise Terminator (noise gate)
- Orange Bax BanGeetar (overdrive, distortion, boost)
- Walrus Audio Janus Tremolo Fuzz (tremolo, fuzz)
- Penny Pedals Cherry Blossom (boost)
- Epigaze Audio Effigy (delay)
- McCaffrey Audio Reactor Boost Compressor (boost, compressor)
- Truetone V2 Son of Hyde (distortion)
- Mr. Black Ambience (echo, reverb)
- Morley Pedals Mark Tremonti Wah (wah)
- Nemphasis Dark Lady ‘Red Knobs’ Distortion (distortion)
- Rockbox Brown Sugar (overdrive)
- OGRE Tubeholic Overdrive (overdrive)
- Red Witch Pedals Seven Sisters Ivy (distortion)
- Mission Engineering Delta III (distortion)
- Mojo Hand FX Dewdrop Reverb (reverb)
- Behringer Vintage Distortion (VD1) (distortion)
- Love Pedal Hermida EPH-3 Tape Sim Delay (delay)
- Wren and Cuff Mercy Phuk (overdrive)
As you can see, there is a lot of overdrive and distortion in that list. That’s how I like my guitar sound. Lots of distortion and overdrive. But there are other effects in the list. There’s tremolo, boost, reverb, wah, delay, chorus and more. There’s enough to put together a pretty impressive and complete pedalboard. If I was going to do that, here’s the pedal list I’d put together (in my preferred pedalboard order).
Dream pedalboard
- Morley Pedals Mark Tremonti Wah (wah)
- Wren and Cuff Mercy Phuk (overdrive)
- Nemphasis Dark Lady ‘Red Knobs’ Distortion (distortion)
- Carl Martin Noise Terminator (noise gate)
- Pro Tone Pedals Paul Masvidal Signature Chorus (chorus)
- MXR Phase 90 (phase)
- Love Pedal Hermida EPH-3 Tape Sim Delay (delay)
- Chuck Pedals Blue Dream (reverb)
My goal was to buy one of the pedals from this list and I managed to do that before the list was complete. I purchased the Digitech Bad Monkey a few months back. I love it. But I purchased that because the pedal has been discontinued and I didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to own such a cool pedal. Some time early next year I hope to buy another pedal from this list now that the list is complete.
Which pedal would you choose if you had to own just one?