Updated Apr. 20, 2021 | by Paolo De Gregorio

Inspiring Guitar Pedals

Here at Delicious Audio we like to organize guitar pedals according to effect type (in our shopping guides).

But what about those guitarists who are simply looking for something inspiring, without necessarily having a specific effect in mind? We created this list with them in mind.

Here are 12 recently released, unusual, inspiring guitar pedals by lesser-known boutique builders that could galvanize your imagination – enjoy!

As usual:

  • mouse-over or first tap on the images for a description
  • click or second tap will open a video of the pedal
4242711036
Hungry Robot Wardenclyffe Deluxe
$279 | An original and utterly creative, feature-packed lo-fi pedal that offers pitch based modulation, vinyl noise simulation, ambient reverb, a bit crusher and a filter. Tap Tempo functionality and LED rate indicator round up the features.
Perf. Circuit | Reverb | Amazon
1693823960
Neon Egg Planetarium
$450+ | A bit of an oddball, this is a vintage-synth-shaped, non-reroutable creative multi-effect. It consists of a stereo modulated reverb running into an echo (with stereo modulation) and then into a compressor (with external sidechain). It excels at creating huge lush swirling reverbs and echoes, most at home in ambient and electronic genres.
eBay | Reverb | Amazon
937572171
bananana FX tararira
$299 | 8-Step pitch shifter sequencer. Each step can be assigned to a scale (27 presets + 3 for your own). A single note can be transposed to up to 3 notes for each step, and steps can be assigned to a different scale/chord. Steps can be controlled by 4 different envelop shapes (Sustain, Staccato, Fade Out and Fade In), while the sequencer can operate in 8 modes.
eBay | Reverb | Amazon
2453063787
Greenhouse Effects Logos
$199 | A Chorus/Vibrato with 3 modes, 8 sub-modes and a wild sound palette. Order Mode for classic chorus sounds. Chaos Mode generates 8 chaotic modes of pitch modulation, envelope LFO, waveforms etc. Logos Mode offers 8 combinations of modulated intervals, octave up/down, 5th intervals, delivering anything from flanger-like modulation to angelic reverb.
eBay | Reverb | Amazon
1302764774
Polarbear Effects Young Hearts
$275 | A lo-fi echo pedal with modulation and several other interesting and unusual features provided by its Feedback and VCR Toggle Switches, which allow Tape Rewind and Fast Forward modes and also changes in delay time accessible via the momentary footswitch (the one on the right).
eBay | Reverb | Amazon
1541332067
AC Noises Respira
$374 | A “percussive ambient machine,” that feeds an atmospheric shimmer-type reverb into a multi-mode, tap-tempo controlled tremolo featuring 16 LFO waves. The Tremolo has four modes: Optical, Harmonic, Bass and Treble, and Symmetry and Tone knobs allow for extra tweaking, with the latter acting as blender between frequencies when using the tremolo in BASS or TREBLE mode.
eBay | Reverb | Amazon
1791200254
Paradox Effects Obsidiana
$199 | It splits your signal into two octaves (1 up and 1 down) and sends them through a Low Pass Resonant Filter and a Delay. Two bottons allow tweaking of the octaves' character from clean to modulated. The RAIZ function creates granulated maps of octaves that evolve in time. A Direct knob lets you reintegrate the clean guitar tone.
eBay | Reverb | Amazon
4205368379
Beautiful Noise Effects Endless Sleeper
$260 | An analog voiced dual delay (up to 1200ms) with modulation and sample reduction. The delays are feeding each other and then fed to the modulation and lo-fi circuits. The Glide knob adds lush chorus/vibrato on shorter delay setting, or psychotic waves of pitch shifting with longer Delay time. Crush applies a sample rate reducer.
eBay | Reverb | Amazon
3915459867
Screwed Circuit Flip Out Fuzz
$291 | A hand-built fuzz with resonant filter in a (big) mahogany box. The Flip Out momentary effect generates "a tunable high rate digital effect produced by amplitude-shift keying in the form of on-off keying"
eBay | Reverb | Amazon
3155578336
Red Noise Butterfly
$199 | A creative, expanded version of an auto-wah for creating sonic textures. The lo-pass filter can be shaped by 8 LFO waves and synched via Tap Tempo. A Soft/Hard Toggle sets two modes of operation with varying filter settings. The Range knob sets the frequency range of the filter. The tone, 800 kHz Boost and Dry/Wet knobs provide extra sonic options
eBay | Reverb | Amazon
392187248
Folktek Alter X
$399 | $399 | An experimental Multi-FX pedal, with deep CV compatibility and 7 different modes focused on pitch shifting and time stretching, including: long delay, tight, notated granular delay, huge plate reverb, shimmering reverb, distortion and multi-filter, pitch delay, stutter, glitch.
eBay | Reverb | Amazon
3342035111
OPFXS Asteroide
$205 | An original take on the Sampler/ Harmonizing stompbox, it loops a sample of your performance and harmonizes it creating organ-like droney chords from a single note. A Dual Mode lets you sample two notes that will then be played at the same time and go through the same multi-octave effect circuit.
eBay | Reverb | Amazon

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