Types of Guitar Pedals: The Ultimate Guide

Types of Guitar Pedals: Volume Pedals

Volume pedals do exactly what you think they do – They control or affect the volume of our guitar. 

• These types of guitar pedals are constructed on what we call a rocker.
• Put your horns down, it’s not that rocker.
• Rockers are pedals that we can lay our foot on top of and ‘rock’ back and forth with.

Volume pedals are made this way to enable us to slowly ‘swell’ our volume up and down, as well as to quickly turn ourselves up when needed.

Writer’s Recommendation: Volume pedals like the Ernie Ball MVP can also have a Gain function that can help us add a touch of bite to our signal.

These pedals are fantastic for the guitarist who is building a medium to large-size pedalboard and wants more overall control of their signal.

The springs that control the rocker function of the pedal can wear with use, but they are a cheap and easy fix!

A volume pedal should definitely live in every guitarist’s pedalboard.

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Types of Guitar Pedals: Filter Effects

These types of guitar pedals focus on filtering in (or out) different parts of our guitar’s sound, and will change the shape of any sound that is run through it.

• EQ pedals help us to craft our guitar’s sound through better frequency control. The guitar is a dynamic instrument, and sometimes when playing with other musicians, it can become muddy in the mix.
• EQ types of guitar pedals help us filter out any unwanted or unneeded frequencies.

Wah pedals add their own element to our playing, and were made famous by Jimi Hendrix in ‘Voodoo Child’

Like a volume pedal, Wah pedals are built on a rocker so we can adjust the filter of the wah as we play.

Envelope filters are also referred to as auto-wahs and can serve a similar purpose as a Wah pedal without the rocker system.

Envelope filters can be set to affect and change certain parts of our signal, resulting in an often quacky-sounding guitar tone.

These types of guitar pedals are great for funk music. Click here to hear to the EHX Q-Tron.

Types of Guitar Pedals: Time-Based Effects

Time-based effects are amazing for adding some space in our guitar’s sound.

• Delays produce an echo effect that can be set to different note values and durations of time.
• Many delay pedals will have a reverse function as well, so you can experiment with ambience in your tone.
• For more ambience, reverb pedals add ambience and space under our guitar to make it sound wider and larger.

These types of guitar pedals can also be set to different time values to prevent them from washing out your signal.

Pro Tip: For the ambient musician, pairing delays and reverbs together with plenty of time and space can create a beautifully massive guitar tone that can fill a room.

For the lead guitarist who wants a wider sound, pairing these pedals together with a short decay time will give you the boost you need to stand out.

Check out Andy Othling pairing a reverb and delay pedal together here

Pedal Recommendations: BOSS DD-7 Digital Delay // TC Electronics Hall of Fame

Types of Guitar Pedals: Loopers

Loopers bring us into a whole new universe of sound and possibility by letting us record ourselves and have recently been made famous by artists like Tash Sultana.

• ‘Loops’ are layers that we can record and play back through the use of a looper pedal.
• These types of guitar pedals have given rise to many different one-person bands over the years who specialize in creating grooves and melodies from the ground up.

Loop pedals will record and play whatever is played into them, so many can be hooked up to keyboards and microphones as well as massive guitar pedalboards, creating lush landscapes of sound.

Writer’s Recommendation: The BOSS RC-30 Loop Station is a fantastic tool for any musician looking to start looping.

• With two channels for recording and built-in effects, we are able to trigger 2 unique sections of recording on and off.
• This can lead to really interesting song structures and dynamics.

You can check out the RC-30 in action here.

Types of Guitar Pedals: Multi-Effects Processors & Modellers

Multi-effects Processors are larger-scale types of guitar pedals with a variety of built-in effects.

Over the years, these units have made pedalboard experimentation a lot easier for many musicians who don’t want the fuss of wiring several individual pedals together..

Pedal engineers have answered the call to make things even more accessible, and this has given birth to what we call “modelling”

Although multi-effects processors are fantastic, these types of guitar pedals have begun to fall in the shadow of newer amp and pedal modelling technology.

Newer pedal and rack-based units like the BOSS GT1000, Line 6 Helix, Fractal Axe-FX and Kemper Stage have given guitarists a whole new level of control over their guitar tone.

With the capability to model a library of different amplifiers and guitar pedals, as well as the ability to create our own custom pedalboards, modellers are incredibly efficient.

In the long run, modellers may also save us time and money from buying a variety of different pedals as well as the materials to build our own pedalboard.

Another advantage to modellers is their ability to integrate with other types of guitar pedals. Many of these units have an effects loop that can be used to pair our modeller with our favorite pedals.

Writer’s Recommendation: The Line 6 Helix is a powerhouse pedal unit designed to help you create your guitar tone from the ground up.

Not only is it great for building rock-solid guitar tones and simulating amps, but it’s also a great tool for learning more about how guitar tone works. Click here to hear it.

Where do I go from here?

Want to further your knowledge of different types of guitar pedals? We recommend:

• Check out the Anderton’s Music Co. guitar channel for pedal reviews and education.
• Watch That Pedal Show on YouTube.
• Rent some different pedals from your local guitar shop and experiment with different sounds.
• If you already own guitar pedals, try building a pedalboard!
• Play around creating ambience with a delay pedal and watch time fade away.

Recommended Resources

If you liked this article about different types of guitar pedals, check out some more of our free lessons below!

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