Below are some of the best guitar pedals that I believe to be available on the market today. However, not all of the guitar pedals featured here are still available. In fact many have been discontinued and as a result bring quite a lot of money on the second hand market. However, if you want to see the best guitar pedals on the market today, see http://guitarpickzone.com/best-guitar-pedals-under-50/ for those guitar effects pedals that are available today.
But for now, we'll look at my best guitar pedals of all time.
1) Zvex Fuzz Factory Pedal
The Vexter Fuzz Factory from ZVex is a 5-knob fuzz pedal housed in a hand-polished aluminum case. Although the circuit found in the ZVex Fuzz Factory pedal isn’t modeled on any one particular classic fuzz, it delivers fuzz tones which sound striaght out of the 1960′s.
FEATURES OF THE ZVEX FUZZ FACTORY FUZZ PEDAL
Made with 2 new old stock ’60s germanium transistors
Hand-silkscreened, hand-polished aluminum chassis
Controls
Gate: Dial the gate to the right to reduce and eliminate any unwanted squeals, hiss, and buzz.
Compress: When dialed to the left, the compress control adds attack characteristics which get softer to right, and suddenly pinches tone when dialed all the way right. Also tunes in fat, feedbacky fuzz. Lower the Stability and see what happens to this control.
Drive: The drive increases the distortion when used as a “normal” fuzz and adjusts feedback pitch and tonal thickness.
Stability: Use to control feedback pitch. This is one of the more accute controls so it will take some patience and experimentation to set it to your liking.
The ZVex Vexter Fuzz Factory pedal is a very versatile fuzz pedal and covers an array of sounds from vintage fuzz like Jimi Hendrix through modern artists such as Muse. In terms of how the fuzz pedal actually sounds, the Vexter Fuzz Factory can create anything from squashed nasal tones, to chewy, rich fuzz, and lo-fi squeals and feedback. On top of that, it can also control factors such as the oscillation and the feedback pitch/intensity.
The Fuzz Factory also has some gain boost to it to ensure that (unlike some other fuzz pedals) your signal doesn’t disappear once you’ve stepped on the pedal.
At first the Fuzz Factory pedal may seem a little loud however once you know how to tame those bizzare sounds you’ll fall in love with this pedal!
2) Lovepedal Eternity Fuse Overdrive Guitar Pedal
The Lovepedal Eternity can actally be used as 3 pedals in one depending where you set the dials. In the Lovepedal Eternity Overdrive you have treble booster, a clean booster as well as standard overdrive. It also breaks up the harder you dig into the strings, which sounds killer.
FEATURES OF THE LOVEPEDAL ETERNITY FUSE OVERDRIVE PEDAL
- Glass control
- Level control
- Drive control
- Toggle switch
- LED
- Footswitch
- Small, rugged structure
SOUND
The Lovepedal Eternity Fuse is a Wonderfully smooth and powerful overdrive that is extremely easy to get a decent sound of. The Lovepedal Eternity Fuse pedal can provide everything you’d ever want from a very warm sounding vintage overdriven tube sound through to a clean booster or treble booster.
With the drive control knob set low you can create a cool strat-sounding wail. Pushing the control further is a great clean boost with a warm tube-driven vibe. If you’re looking for more overdrive then keep on twisting the control and you’ll enter the realms of blues and classic rock. Pushing the control to the max will give you a huge rock tone that stays smooth and sounds warmer than most tube amps do!
3) MXR Flanger Pedal
For the MXR EVH-117 Flanger Dunlop have teamed up with Eddie Van Halen to bring back the classic sound of the MXR Flanger that powered all those classic Van Halen songs. The result of this collaboration is the astounding MXR EVH Flanger which provides all the sweeping and whooshing sounds you could ever want.
The updated MXR Flanger comes with the EVH switch which instantly produces Eddie’s very own sound with exact settings for the effect used on the song, “Unchained”. Also staying true to Eddie Van Halen, the MXR EVH Flanger is covered in Eddie’s own black and white stripe design which is found on many of his custom guitars.
SOUND
If it’s the EVH sound you’re after then you’ll be pleased to know that the MXR EVH Flanger nails it perfectly. However, don’t be fooled into thinking that’s the only sound you can produce. Unlike a lot of signature pedals which offer only those sounds of the associated artist, the MXR EVH Flanger can do a lot more.
It sounds great through both clean channels and distortion channels on amps and also works equally well on humbuckers or single coil pickups.