Best Effects Pedals for Synths Vol. 2
Another top-10 pedals to use with your synthesizers!
A few weeks ago we made a list of our favorite pedals for synthesizers. Since there are tons of pedals that pair well with synths, we decided to do a Vol. 2 with a few more. We again decided to not include some of the most standard & classic options but try to get a bit more experimental and out of the box. By the way, the list has no particular order. Let’s go!
10. Old Blood Noise - BL-44 Reverse
I think I’ve said this before but yes, everything sounds better in reverse! And Old Blood Noise - BL-44 does exactly that. It takes your incoming signal and produces a reversed copy of it. You can blend the two signals together, you can pitch up or down the reversed signal, and use the Clock slider to play around with the audio rate to degrade and glitch your wet sound. A very simple - but also very effective pedal to add texture and movement to any sound. We’ve seen a lot of reverse delay pedals but a dedicated reverser wasn’t around until this one. This line of pedals by Old Blood Noise shines through its simplicity and straightforward concepts and I think that the BL-44 is their best one yet. Synths sound way too good blended with a reverse effect so just get this one and thank me later.
9. Collision Devices - TARS
First of all, TARS by Collision Devices looks absolutely stunning. But it’s not just looks! TARS is an MS-20-isnpired Filter and Fuzz. It’s not a mellow and mild pedal by all means. It can absolutely destroy your singal in the best way possible by adding grit and crunch to it. Having an analog filter onboard helps you take out any unwanted frequencies and it can be a 4-pole or 2-pole. TARS is here to make your synth patches sound massive and gnarly so get wild with it!
8. Red Panda - Bitmap 2
I love Bitcrushers. They’re the fastest way to add character and liveliness to a patch and Bitmap 2 by Red Panda is probably the most advanced and fully-featured Bitcrusher pedal ever made. It has an internal LFO to modulate the sample rate, a wavefolder, and even an envelope follower that responds dynamically to your playing. It’s also Stereo which is not that common for a Bitcrusher and also has a Filter onboard. This pedal deserves its own dedicated review at some point since it can get quite deep. If you are serious about this type of effect, look no further. There’s not a better Bitcrusher pedal on the market.
7. SOMA laboratory - Cosmos
SOMA is all about innovation and out-of-the-box thinking. Cosmos is a desktop multi-effects pedal that works around the idea of a looper pedal but as you’d expect, it’s not your traditional looper. It has four modes - two delay lines, four delay lines, reverb, and a granular mode. it also hosts a Highpass and Lowpass filter, a Drive circuit, and a Compressor, and it can also reverse your loops. Cosmos is a very deep device and most importantly, it has its own unique philosophy around looping. It’s more of an ambient Frippertronics machine rather than a looper so don’t expect to replace your trusty looper pedals. What to expect though? A world of exploration and experimentation that will take your synths and other instruments and mangle them in all sorts of beautiful ways!
6. Vongon - Polyphrase
Polyphrase & Ultrasheer by Vongn are, in my opinion, the most beautigul looking pedals ever made. Polyphrase is a stereo delay pedal with independent delay times for each channel that allows you to create all sorts of rhythmic stereo delay lines. It also has an infinite feedback loop that lets you use it as a looping device adding more layers on top and let them repeat forever. It has a simple modulation control that uses a Sine wave or a Random Waveform and accepts MIDI too. Polyphrase is very easy to use and understand and at the same time a pedal that can do a lot. Polyphrase is inpisred by the Lexicon Prime Time rack effects unit that is one of the most incredible delays ever made so you know there’s something good going on here.
5. Herbs and Stones - Solid Felt
This is an effects unit you’ll probably never heard of before but I think deserves more love! Solid Felt is a semi-modular filter desktop effects unit that hosts two filters. Both filters can be Lowpass, Bandpass, or Highpass and you can control their Cutoff frequency and resonance. Where it gets more fun is when you introduce the two LFOs that can modulate the filters by patching them with Eurorack cables. And that also means that you can use external modules or other gear to control its parameters! Since we’re talking about pedals and synthesizers, you’d think that since all synths have a filter, this might be obsolete. Well, no one was hurt by having two extra filters for their synth I will say. Especially a filter module that can be modulated at will and can distrot to add some extra character to your sound. Most synths have very plain, vanilla filters so having a dedicated device for that will definitely make things more interesting!
4. Universal Audio - Del Verb
Now we’re going to something more conventional and straightforward. Del Verb by Universal Audio is a Delay and Reverb pedal that borrows three algorithms from the Golden Reverberator and three from Starlight and puts them into one box. It’s a stereo, digital pedal that just sounds beautiful and also supports extra functionality and control through UA’s control app. There’s not much to say about this one rather than it’s a pedal that has two of the most important effects you’ll need for your synthesizers and happens to sound absolutely amazing.
3. Chase Bliss - Lossy
Chase Bliss Lossy is a pedal made to replicate the degradation that happens to digital audio when it’s processed. It is made in collaboration with Goodhertz - a plugin company that makes Lossy as a plugin and it has become wildly popular in the past few years. We’ve gotten to an era where the digital age of the 90s is now what the Tape age of the 80s was in the past decade and Lossy encapsulates that in a signal pedal. Lossy will add artifacts, glitches, and mess with the frequencies of your sound to make it sound like it’s coming from an old compressed digital file. As a concept alone, this is great. But Chase Bliss knows best how to take a concept and make a beautiful pedal out of it. If you want a new way to degrade and give character to your sound, Lossy is a refreshing counterpart to the hundreds of pedals and plugins that do the “Tape degradation effect” that’s highly overused by now.
2. Endorphin.es - Ghost
While I’m testing Ghost for a full review coming later this month, I thought it certainly deserves a spot on this list. Ghost was made in collaboration with Andrew Huang and it’s the pedal version of their Eurorack effects module that was released around a year ago. It is a multi-effects pedal that has a Delay, a Reverb, a Filter, a Distortion, and a Bitcrusher, and the most well-thought and implemented control panel ever made. You can change the effects’ order by just tapping on a button and a fully-featured LFO can be routed to modulate any parameter on the pedal with separate LFO amounts (positive or negative) for each parameter. The way they designed the Modulation routing is simply genius and I think it should implemented in every synth or pedal from now on! Every little detail was taken care of in the smartest and most efficient way and it’s a joy to use Ghost with any instrument. Ghost has all the ingredients you’ll need on a pedal and can easily replace your pedalboard without sacrificing your sound and flexibility so make sure to check it out.
1. Meris - MercuryX
Meris is a company that produces a few pedals but every pedal is incredible. After their LVX Modular Delay, they decided to create the most advanced and versatile reverb pedal ever created and the result was the MercuryX. This pedal is a modular reverb that allows to create any type of reverb effect you can imagine and control every single part of it. It has a huge screen that shows you all the necessary information and helps you navigate to all the parameters and if you spend time with it, you’ll be able to shape the exact type of reverb you want (and, of course, save it as a preset). MercuryX is an expensive pedal for sure, but it’s probably the only reverb pedal you’ll ever need. If I count how much I’ve spent on reverb pedals, I’ve certainly spent more than its price… It’s a truly amazing pedal and, as we all know, no synth can live without a good sounding reverb after it.
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