5 of Our Favorite Effects Pedals from 2016

Guitarists and bassists are always chasing for the “Holy Grail” of tone—the often undefinable sound (you'll know it when you hear it) that represents their personal playing style. Purists will rightfully tell you that your tone is in your fingers, but stompboxes have long played an integral part to the sound of the most lauded guitarists in history. Whether it's Steve Ray Vaughn's masterful use of the oft-cloned and copied Ibanez TS808 Tube Screamer, or the continually evolving pedalboard of David Gilmour, pedals have helped expand what the guitar and bass are capable of sounding like.

As someone who is constantly suffering from gear lust, I feel we are living in a renaissance age of stompboxes and effects for strings. From countless boutique manufacturers to the giants in the game (and more and more often, collaborations between the two!), there is a focus on quality, variety, and uniqueness. Here are five of my favorite pedals that were released in 2016, a list that is by no means exhaustive.

1. Ibanez ADMINI Analog Delay Mini Pedal

The concept of “vintage tone” is generally held in high esteem among guitarists, most likely because the albums and artists of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s still have such impact today. The ADMINI Analog Delay Mini Pedal is a re-issue, of sorts, that replicates the all analog sound of the Ibanez AD9 analog delay pedal. Like its source of inspiration, the ADMINI gives you up to 600 ms of analog delay, and controls for delay time, repeats, and blend. However, it leaves the realms of being a re-issue, thanks to its very pedalboard-friendly format, as the "Mini" in its name implies. Aside from its form factor, the ADMINI has true bypass (unlike the original AD9), and requires a (not included) 9V power supply, since its battery compartment was sacrificed for size.  

Sonically, the ADMINI gives you just what you'd expect from a good analog delay—lush, warm repeats with gently rolled-off highs. Its 20 to 600 ms gives you a sizable range of delay styles, and you should be able to dial-in delay styles from slap backs and doubling to ever so slightly breaking-up repeats.

2. Electro-Harmonix MEL9 Tape Replay Machine Pedal

Electro-Harmonix is one of the most respected names in the game, and its line is a good reflection of why. From staples like the legendary Big Muff fuzz to the Memory Man delay, EH has seemingly made every conceivable guitar effect. What separates this company from the pack is its ability to create “out there” pedals that continue to push what is possible on guitar, and the MEL9 Tape Replay Machine Pedal is a perfect example of just that. The pedal emulates 9 different sounds from vintage Mellotrons, keyboards that triggered tape-based sounds that were heard on countless records in the ’60s and ‘70s, notably from the Beatles, among many others.

The MEL9 is fully polyphonic, meaning you can strum chords (up to five notes), as well as single notes. Your signal goes in as guitar, but out can come the sound of Mellotron orchestra, strings, flute, or choir settings (among others). You can control the attack and sustain, giving you the ability to create massive swells, as well as hold notes out after you've let go of your strings. A dry control allows you to dial-in as little or as much of the effect as you want.

3. DOD Looking Glass Boost/Overdrive Pedal

The Looking Glass Boost/Overdrive Pedal might have been the breakout overdrive of the year, in a very, very crowded market. The pedal is a collaboration between DOD and boutique pedal company SHOE Pedals, and offers a number of tweakable controls that manage to remain straightforward and intuitive, with the premise of being very responsive to your picking. It gives you two overdrive modes, accessible with a switch, simple Low and High, to give you clean and higher-gain options. The volume and gain knobs are also fairly standard in their operation.

That's about where the typical aspects of the Looking Glass end. The pedal features an input filter, which helps you shape your sound on the way in. All the way to the right disengages it, but as you turn it counterclockwise, the filter rolls off some brightness and begins to gently boost the midrange, helping you tame overly bright pickups. The pedal gives you bass and treble control as well, in a concentric knob configuration (meaning they’re stacked). The bass knob is pre-gain, but the treble control is in the circuit after the gain (meaning adjusting the high end will adjust how the pedal breaks up or boosts). These few controls give you a wide range of adjustability.

4. BOSS CE-2W Waza Craft Special Edition Chorus Pedal

BOSS is responsible for some of the most used pedals of all time, and the CE-1 chorus pedal played no small part in cementing chorus as a love-it or hate-it effect on guitar. The CE-2W Waza Craft Special Edition Chorus Pedal is one of the latest to grace BOSS's Waza line, all of which are made in Japan and all nods to some of the company’s most popular pedals of all time.

The CE-2W gives you a solid bang for the buck, and features three modes, one designed on the CE-2 chorus, one on the CE-1, and a vibrato mode. The pedal also gives you stereo outputs, which were not available on the original CE-2.

5. TC Electronic BonaFide Buffer and the WireTap Riff Recorder (Tie)

Ok, so I'm calling this one a tie, because these are two pedals that don't change your sound at all, but are incredibly useful. First up, the BonaFide Buffer. The standard operation for most pedals is true bypass, which means when you disengage it, your signal (and therefore tone) passes through unchanged. This is ideal if you only have one or two pedals. However, if you have a large pedalboard, or are using long cable runs, the high impedance output of your guitar can degrade, and your tone along with it. Unsure? Plug right into your amp and see if it sounds different than when you go through your pedalboard with all the pedals disengaged. The BonaFide Buffer (and buffered pedals in general) converts the high impedance output of your guitar into a low impedance signal, which preserves your tone. Slap this pedal in front of your pedal chain (but after any fuzz pedals you may have), and experience your true tone.

The WireTap Riff Recorder is one of those ideas that's so simple it's surprising it hasn't been done before now. Every guitarist has written an amazing riff or lick only to come down with a case of amnesia the next day. The WireTap is a 44.1kHz/24-bit recorder in pedal format, so just engage it, play your riff, and hit the pedal again, and your idea is stored. You can even beam your recorded riffs to your iOS or Android device through TC's WireTap app, where you can do some rudimentary editing on the audio. It'll record up to 8 hours, which is long enough to get all those ideas for your latest epic committed to (digital) memory.

Have you any favorite pedals from 2016? Share in the Comments section, below.