Hand-picked reviews and demos of the pedals we love — with full credit and links back to the original reviewers. Scroll on, and check back daily for a fresh one. New posts appear at the top.
Some 'Buy on Amazon' links are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, City Music Annex earns from qualifying purchases.
🆕 Featured New Release
NEW Hotone NC-200 Verbera — Studio Convolution Reverb, Stompbox Money
The Verbera is an odd bird for a compact pedal: it runs two reverb engines in stereo at once, one built on 120 convolution impulse responses captured in real rooms, halls and plates, the other on Hotone’s own XR algorithms, with tails stretching to 20 seconds. Under the hood there’s 32-bit conversion and an analog dry-thru path, and the connectivity list reads like rack gear — MIDI, USB, an effects loop, expression and dual-footswitch control, plus the ability to load your own .wav impulse responses through Hotone’s app. MusicRadar’s review landed squarely on the value angle, calling it a stunningly good reverb that sounds and operates like a pedal costing twice the money. If you have been eyeing the boutique ambient boxes but not the boutique price tags, this is the one to audition first.
A new JHS fuzz paying tribute to a 'lost' cult-classic circuit and its maker. Shop JHS →
🎸 The Reviews
NEW Origin Effects EQ Deluxe — A 1950s Pultec Tube EQ, Shrunk to Pedal Size
Origin Effects · Studio EQ / Drive · Review via gearnews
Origin Effects has built its name on squeezing studio outboard into stompboxes, and its newest target is the Pultec EQP-1A — the 1950s valve equalizer whose gently flattering curves have been quietly shaping records for seventy years. The EQ Deluxe is the first time that circuit has been adapted for a pedalboard: independent Low Boost and Low Cut controls with switchable corner frequencies, a semi-parametric midrange with its own Bandwidth knob, a High Cut band, and Level and Gain controls that drive a push-pull output stage into fine harmonic saturation rather than outright distortion. The important detail is that the frequency points weren't copied wholesale from the studio unit — they were re-tuned specifically for guitar and bass — while a high-headroom, buffered-bypass design makes it as comfortable feeding an audio interface as it is sitting on a board. gearnews calls it a pedal for connoisseurs: hand-built in England from premium components, with a price to match at €419 (roughly $449 in the U.S.), and available now.
NEW Warm Audio x Dirty Boy Junior Series — $349 Boutique Circuits, Rebuilt for $169
Warm Audio & Dirty Boy · Boost / Overdrive / Fuzz · Review via MusicRadar
Dirty Boy's handbuilt stompboxes have turned up on boards belonging to Neal Schon, Phil X, John Frusciante and Tom DeLonge — and they've also cost $349 apiece. The new Junior Series, built in partnership with Warm Audio and announced July 21, 2026, shrinks three of those circuits into compact $169 boxes. The Jr Booster derives from the Ball Buster, serving up 10dB of analog boost alongside Bass and Treble controls and a three-way H-M-L frequency switch; the Jr Fuzz adapts the Afro Fuzz down to Fuzz, Level and a six-way Freq switch, which MusicRadar describes as behaving like a good vintage Fuzz Face that cleans up nicely; and the Jr Overdrive carries the Preamp circuit with Dirty Boy's Tube Amp Emulation tech and a 4x12-voiced speaker-emulated output for going direct to an interface or desk. Brand owner Danny Gomez told MusicRadar he chose Warm Audio because these circuits have a history and personality he wasn't willing to compromise, and every unit is still individually hand-tested. All three are available now, and Dirty Boy continues building the hand-made originals.
NEW Beetronics Pollinator Hazee Delay — Beetronics Goes Digital, and It Gets Weird
Beetronics FX · Modulated Digital Delay · Review via Guitar World
The Hazee Delay kicks off Beetronics' new Pollinator series and is the boutique builder's first fully digital pedal — but nobody should expect a straight-ahead repeat box. Modulation sits ahead of the delay line rather than after it, so the wobble is baked into every repeat instead of being sprinkled on top. Eight modes split evenly between tremolo and filter, each paired with a different repeat type: forward, octave-up, reverse, and octave-up reverse. Just four knobs — Time, Feedback, Mix and Mod — but Guitar World's Trevor Curwen found them highly interactive, with small moves producing big swings, from rotary-ish auto-wah shimmer at fast Mod rates to pulsing, layered ambient wash. He scored it four stars, praising the rugged build and unusual palette while noting it's a niche, mono-only device. $249.
Fender's 2026 V2 refresh takes Stan Cotey's original Santa Ana and rehouses it in a slimmer aluminum enclosure with top-mounted jacks, so it finally plays nice on a crowded board. Under the hood it's still a JFET Class A overdrive running on an internal 18V charge pump — that's where the tube-like headroom and sag come from — and the active 3-band EQ now gets a placement switch, so you can run it pre-drive to shove chosen frequencies into clipping or post-drive to sculpt the finished tone. Voice and Tight switches clean up muddy low end, and the new Multiswitch footswitch flips between latching and momentary operation for quick stabs of dirt. Gearnews notes it lands around $172, alongside V2 versions of The Pelt, Pugilist and The Bends.
Greer Amps has re-tuned the familiar JRC4558-based Tube Screamer topology into something noticeably more open: smoother response, considerably more output on tap, and a mid hump nudged into a more musical part of the spectrum, with a dose of Klon-style clarity layered over the top. The name is the Japanese word for forest, spelled out in white kanji across the green enclosure and chosen for the pedal's woody, organic midrange. MusicRadar picked it out in its July 2026 gear round-up as a TS-meets-Klon hybrid with ample volume and a handsome enclosure, noting that the excitement around it sold out the first small-batch run, though Greer is building more. It is priced at $249, and City Music Annex is a Greer dealer.
NEW DOD x Morley Wah-ocTo-Fuzz — Three Vintage Circuits, One “WTF” Treadle
DOD & Morley · Wah / Octave / Fuzz · Review via Premier Guitar
Two stompbox institutions finally agreed to share a chassis. Morley supplies its switchless electro-optical wah — step on the glow-in-the-dark treadle and it engages, step off and it bypasses — plus a fuzz voiced after one of its own 1970s circuits, while the octave section is lifted from DOD’s 1980s FX35 Octoplus. All three can run solo or stacked, with separate Intensity and Fuzz Level knobs for the dirt and Octave Level, Tone and Direct Level for the sub-octave blend. Premier Guitar notes the cold-rolled steel chassis and onboard Morley buffer keep it gig-worthy on a crowded board, and it runs on a standard 9V supply or a battery. Street price is $249.99 — a lot of vintage weirdness for one footprint.
JHS built its $99 3 Series around three knobs and no menus, and the newest addition aims all that simplicity at wrecking your signal on purpose. The Crush knob drops bit depth from a pristine 24-bit down toward 1-bit — grainy and textured at first, then square-wave aggression and gated digital distortion — while Sample Rate works the opposite way, sliding from a clean 32.768kHz into aliasing, harmonic artifacts and full digital collapse. A Filter knob and a two-position Type toggle shape the wreckage, offering either a vintage Oberheim-flavored low-pass (JHS suggests it for bass) or a swept high-pass/low-pass pairing that MusicRadar likens to the tiny speaker in a handheld game console. It arrived alongside two equally odd siblings — a Glitch Delay inspired by the Line 6 DL-4 and Bill Frisell, and a Ring Modulator nodding to the Way Huge Ringworm and Danelectro Green Ringer — all available now at $99 each.
NEW Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Big Muff Pi 2 — The Most Tweakable Muff Yet
Electro-Harmonix · Fuzz / Distortion / Sustainer · Review via Premier Guitar
EHX is billing this as the closing chapter in its long-lost dual op-amp Big Muff saga, and it may be the most adjustable Muff the company has ever built. The familiar Volume, Tone and Sustain controls are still front and center, but they're now joined by a three-way Wicker switch that opens up the high end, a footswitchable parametric mids section with Freq and Level knobs plus a Hi/Lo Q resonance switch, and a single-knob noise gate for taming hiss at high sustain settings. Plug an expression pedal or CV source into the EXP jack and you can sweep the mid frequency in real time for fuzz-wah territory, while holding the bypass footswitch gives you momentary bursts instead of latching. Premier Guitar lists it as available now at a U.S. street price of $188.20.
NEW MXR Textures — A Granular Synth Sandbox in a Stompbox
MXR · Granular Synth / Ambient · Review via Premier Guitar
MXR has taken the granular synthesis usually reserved for modular rigs and boiled it down to a pedalboard box. Textures samples what you play, slices it into tiny grains, and hands you Size, Overlap, Pitch, Reverse, Delay, Regen and Mix knobs to stretch, reverse and scatter them into shimmering pads, glitched-out stutters and reverb trails that fold back through themselves. Three modes change how the grains get captured — Delay chops continuously as you play, Auto-Freeze listens and sustains what it hears, and Layers samples up to four separate notes or chords into their own buffers for stacked polyphonic pads. Premier Guitar reports it ships with eight ready-to-go presets, onboard reverb, filter and vibrato, full stereo I/O, plus expression pedal and Split + Tap support, at $269.99 street.
NEW Catalinbread Jimothy — A Limited-Run Bit Crusher for the Beautifully Broken
Catalinbread · Bitcrusher / Sample Rate Reducer · Review via Guitar World
Catalinbread's newest limited edition is a sample rate reducer built to wreck your guitar signal on purpose: a Degrade control sets how coarsely the pedal samples what you play, sweeping from faint digital grit to fully aliased destruction, while a wet/dry Mix knob folds that damage back against your clean tone. The circuit grows out of the bitcrusher in the company's Knight School kit, and it arrives wrapped in Noble Hardesty artwork of the Pacific Northwest's favorite blurry cryptid wandering an error-strewn landscape. Guitar World flagged it in its July 24 round-up as a gnarly new bitcrusher, admitting the name alone nearly won it the week's top spot. The first orange run has already sold out; a grey raw version is up for pre-order at $119.99, shipping late August.
Vemuram’s Las Lunas is the Tokyo boutique builder’s long-in-development take on classic ’70s and ’80s distortion, and it splits the difference with two independent voices — one a flat, detailed drive, the other an edgier, sharper and fuller-bodied gain — each with enough onboard control to dial the tone in precisely. Guitar World’s Matt Owen named it his “dream distortion pedal” of the week, praising Vemuram’s irresistible boutique pedigree while conceding that at around $415 it’s a splurge that’s hard to justify. If you want handbuilt, no-compromise vintage-flavored gain and budget is no object, this is aspirational drive at its finest.
DOD’s new Drag is a bucket-brigade analog delay built to be played rather than set-and-forgotten — up to 750ms of warm BBD echo (a cavernous 1.5 seconds in Rubberneck mode), with a patent-pending Friction system that lets you bend and stretch the delay time straight from the footswitch for dramatic pitch dives, soaring rises and glitchy, elastic time-shifts. Momentary footswitch tricks like SlideStop signal-freeze and HopStop stutter, plus a four-waveform Drift modulation section (sine, reverse saw, square and random), turn it into an ambient and shoegaze noise machine, while top-mounted jacks and a reversible StagePlate keep it pedalboard-friendly. GuitarBomb scored it 9.2/10, calling it a triumphant return to form for expressive analog design — the only real gripe being that tap tempo needs the optional FS3X footswitch.
The original DigiTech Bad Monkey languished in bargain bins for years until a viral Josh Scott shootout video sent used prices through the roof—so DOD rebuilt it from the ground up and made it badder. The Badder Monkey stuffs three independent overdrive circuits (Behaved, Bad, and Badder) into one box, which you blend two at a time with a patent-pending 360-degree Barrel knob, stack all three at once in Troop mode, and reshape with a phase-invert switch for even more combinations. Bananas (gain), Curiosity (output) and the Grunt/Screech Mood EQ round it out, yet it still nails the green-voiced, Tube Screamer-style tone the original was loved for. Premier Guitar calls it a viral overdrive that has evolved well beyond a simple reissue—all for a $149 street price.
NEW EarthQuaker Devices Towers — A Stereo Reverberant Filter That Builds Cathedrals
EarthQuaker Devices · Stereo Reverb / Soundscape Generator · Review via Premier Guitar
EarthQuaker calls Towers an entirely new kind of reverb: your signal is routed through a network of resonant filtered feedback loops and multi-tap delay reflections, conjuring everything from gentle ambient washes to cavernous, stereo-wide soundscapes. A resonant low-pass filter interacts with those reflections so you can sculpt shifting harmonic textures inside the reverb tail, while eight assignable presets recall your favorite settings instantly. The showpiece is the “Stretch” footswitch, which slows everything down—doubling reverb lengths and warping filter frequencies for gloriously unhinged results. Premier Guitar found it the kind of pedal that sounds “incomprehensibly huge and haunting” maxed out, yet still capable of restrained, subtle textures.
NEW Wampler Golden Jubilee — Two Hot-Rodded ’80s Amps in One Box
Wampler · High-Gain Distortion / Overdrive · Review via Premier Guitar
Designed by Brian Wampler, the Golden Jubilee squeezes the punch, feel and harmonic richness of hot-rodded ’80s high-gain amps into a pedalboard-ready box built around two complementary voices — a tight, articulate American boutique high-gain (the DS channel) and an aggressive, saturated British crunch (the OD channel). Each channel gets its own level, gain and tone controls plus voicing and stacking toggles, so you can jump from defined rhythm tones to singing leads and run the two independently or stacked together, all without menus or tap-dancing. Per Premier Guitar, it’s engineered as a complete gain platform that holds its amp-like response across clean tube amps, solid-state, and digital rigs, and like every Wampler it’s built in the U.S.A. Street price is around $239.97.
NEW Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Big Muff Pi 2 — The “Lost” Op-Amp Muff, Deluxed
Electro-Harmonix · Fuzz / Distortion / Sustainer · Review via Guitar World
EHX takes the “lost” Dual Op-Amp Big Muff 2 circuit and gives it the full Deluxe treatment, landing on a noticeably more aggressive Muff with far more tone-shaping on tap. Alongside the classic Volume, Sustain and Tone trio you get a Blend knob to dial your clean signal back in for clarity, plus an onboard noise gate controlled by a single knob. A three-way Wicker switch opens up the high end, while a footswitchable mids section lets you set the level and center frequency of the midrange and choose a Hi or Lo Q — and you can even sweep those mids with an expression pedal. Per Guitar World, it’s the “final boss” of the Big Muff Pi 2 line.
Catalinbread follows last year’s Airstrip with another studio-console-in-a-box, this time modeled on the RCA BA-31 — a vintage mic preamp that engineers have been politely abusing for decades. Four knobs do the work: Push drives the front-end amp from a clean, tone-preserving boost into rich compressed distortion, while Trim pushes the germanium-and-output-transformer preamp section past its comfort zone for anything from warm overdrive to thick fuzz. Volume and Filter handle output and high-end roll-off, so it stays easy to dial in. Max both gain controls and gearnews reports a compressed lead tone with genuine vintage sag; it runs internally at 18V from a standard 9V supply (no battery), at $179.99.
NEW Gamechanger Audio PLUS Pedal II — Infinite Sustain, Now on Autopilot
Gamechanger Audio · Sustainer / Soundscape · Review via Sound On Sound
The Latvian outfit behind the Plasma has rebuilt its piano-style sustainer from the ground up. A new Spectral Sampling engine resynthesizes whatever you feed it — guitar, vocals, sax, cello — while holding onto the original timbre and harmonics, and the new Auto Layer Catch mode listens for fresh notes and folds them into the sustain pool on its own, so you can rest a foot on the brass treadle and just play. A Layers knob spans one to ten simultaneous voices (or Infinite, which endlessly folds old layers into new), and a three-position effects loop drops outboard gear before the engine, inside the sustained layers only, or across the whole output. Sound On Sound notes the combo XLR input and onboard mic preamp mean almost any source plugs straight in. It’s €399 and available now.
MXR has teamed up with Zakk Wylde once again for a limited-edition run of his Wylde Audio Overdrive, this time wrapped in a striking purple finish inspired by his Black Sabbath tribute band, Zakk Sabbath. Under the new artwork sits the same proven circuit — a simple Output, Tone and Gain layout voiced for Wylde’s loud, aggressive gain while keeping the articulation and punch a lead player needs. As Gear Gods notes, it’s built to boost an already-dirty amp into screaming, sustain-rich lead tones, making it equally at home on muscular hard-rock rhythms and searing solos. Priced around $170, it’s the cosmetic twin of the original silver version — just, in Gear Gods’ words, cooler-looking.
NEW Meris Ottobit X — A Lo-Fi Time Machine for the VHS Generation
Meris · Bitcrusher / Lo-Fi Multi-FX · Review via MusicRadar
Meris calls its new $599 flagship a 'modular degradation and texture engine,' and MusicRadar reckons it's a serious piece of equipment for making gloriously un-serious sounds — cutting-edge stereo DSP aimed squarely at '80s nostalgia. The damage toolkit is huge: sample rate sweepable from 48Hz to 48kHz, bit depth crushable from 24 bits down to 1, three filters, four preamp colors (including Tube, Vinyl and Wavefold), VHS-flavored delay and reverb, five pitch and five modulation effects, and six glitch modes highlighted by 'Wikki Wikki' — a real-time vinyl-scratching looper. It's gig-ready too, with 99 presets across 33 banks, full stereo and MIDI, a color display and 18 artist presets out of the box. Meris founder Terry Burton says designing it 'took me back to the days of riding my BMX to pick out a VHS' — and that's exactly the energy it delivers.
NEW Chase Bliss Big Time — '80s Rack Delay Magic on Motorized Faders
Chase Bliss · Hybrid Analog/Digital Delay · Review via gearnews.com
Chase Bliss teamed up with John Snyder of Electronic Audio Experiments for its most ambitious Automatone yet: a stereo hybrid echo that wraps an all-analog preamp and feedback limiter around a 32-bit digital delay engine chasing the gloriously lo-fi character of early-'80s rack units like the PCM 70 and SDD-3000. gearnews.com calls it a 'true delay universe' — six motorized faders, four modes spanning chorus, slapback, glitch clusters and a looper with up to 3.2 minutes of memory, plus balanced stereo I/O and full MIDI with 127 presets. At $999 it's the company's priciest pedal to date, shipping now direct from Chase Bliss.
NEW Strymon TimeLine MX — The New King of Delay Workstations?
Strymon · Multi Delay / Looper · Review via Guitar World
Fifteen years after the original TimeLine became a pedalboard institution, Strymon has unveiled its successor — and Guitar World reckons it might be the most advanced delay pedal on the planet. The TimeLine MX packs 12 delay engines, and for the first time two of them can run at once in series, parallel, or split routing, with new Oil Can and Drum Echo vintage voices plus a glitchy granular Spectral mode joining the classics. A tri-core ARM processor, updated OLED display, five-minute stereo looper, and full stereo and MIDI I/O round out a dizzying spec sheet. At $679 it costs more than many multi-effects units, but for serious delay devotees it could be the last echo box they ever buy.
NEW EarthQuaker Devices Bellows Fuzz Driver — The Cult Two-Knob Fuzz, Back From the Dead
EarthQuaker Devices · Fuzz / Drive · Review via Premier Guitar
Seven years after it was discontinued, EarthQuaker Devices has brought back its two-knob Bellows Fuzz Driver as a Legacy Reissue limited to 1,000 units worldwide at $129. First unveiled at NAMM 2016, the transistor-based circuit straddles blown-out tweed-amp grit and full-on saturated fuzz, with a Drive control that works like the volume knob on a non-master-volume amp and cleans up beautifully from your guitar. As Premier Guitar notes, the pedal earned a posthumous cult following — especially among bassists — because the circuit preserves the input's entire frequency range with none of the low-end scoop typical of fuzz, making it equally at home on bass, synth, organ or anything else you run through it.
Walrus Audio's ambient cult hit is officially back: originally a September 2025 limited run of just 600 units that vanished amid the hype, the Lüm rejoined the permanent lineup on July 7, 2026 in two new finishes — Matte Black and Guava Gloss — at $279.99. It fuses the DNA of three fan favorites (Slö, Lore and Fable), fracturing your signal into tiny grains wrapped in washes of reverb across three modes: Grain Cloud's glitchy feedback-delay granules, Grain Verb's dense, reverb-soaked textures, and a playful Forward/Reverse Verb lifted from the Lore. The rare party trick, per Gearnews, is the Moment footswitch, which automates any of the five knobs between two saved settings with 10ms to 5-second glide times, while a Stretch engine warps the global sample rate from half to double speed. Three onboard presets and selectable trails round out a soundscaper built for players who blur the line between instrument and ambient sound design.
NEW Strymon Fairfax — A Miniature Class A Amp in a Box
Strymon · Drive / Overdrive · Review via Guitar World
Launched alongside the Canoga fuzz (below) in Strymon's new all-analog Series A line, the $199 Fairfax is the brand's first analog drive — and it isn't really a distortion pedal at all, but a complete miniature amplifier: a 100% analog Class A output stage inspired by the obscure Garnet Herzog tube unit Randy Bachman used to cut 'American Woman.' Three knobs — Drive, Level and a signature Sag control that dials in spongy, brown-out amp feel — plus a Bright toggle sweep it from creamy, touch-sensitive boost to thick, saturated grind, and like a good valve amp it responds to your pick attack and guitar volume. Guitar World's verdict: a triumph that will inject your rig with impressively usable and versatile drive tones.
NEW Electro-Harmonix Pico Shimmer — Cosmic Reverb, Pocket-Sized
Electro-Harmonix · Shimmer Reverb · Review via MusicRadar
Launched in June 2026 at $149, the Pico Shimmer squeezes EHX's 'cosmic reverb' into the brand's tiny Pico format, growing out of the seed planted by its acclaimed Oceans reverbs. A Scene button cycles three distinct voices: Intergalactic, a sci-fi spin on classic shimmer built from polyphonic octaves, reverb, modulated delay, compression and even a string-synthesis engine; Off-World, a mellower, vintage-synth-flavored shimmer with extra delay modulation; and Etherdust, which randomizes the delay time applied to the reverb tails for anything from granular sparkles to distinct glitch echoes. Four dual-duty knobs (Blend, Time, Voice and Depth, with secondary Reverb Mix, Delay, Depth and Rate functions) pack deep control into the mini enclosure, and pressing and holding the footswitch summons an Infinite Reverb freeze to play over. Digital, analog and hybrid buffered bypass modes plus an included power adapter round it out, per MusicRadar.
Launched in June 2026 at £149, the META FX is Mooer's shape-shifting take on the compact multi-FX: instead of cramming every effect into one box, you flash the pedal over USB-C with one of three dedicated firmware families — Reverb, Delay, or Modulation — each unlocking 40+ fully stereo algorithms on Mooer's new X Algorithm Platform. A 1.28-inch circular color touchscreen wrapped in an RGB halo ring plus dedicated hardware knobs keep editing menu-dive-free, while 100 presets, tap tempo, dual TRS stereo I/O and a headphone out with its own gain stage make it equally at home on stage, desk or pedalboard. Guitar Bomb rates it 7.8/10, praising stereo algorithms that punch well above their weight class — the catch being you can't run reverb, delay and modulation simultaneously, and swapping families requires a computer. All firmware swaps and future algorithm expansions are free via the Mooer Studio app.
Launched in April 2026 at $209, the CB Paint reimagines the cult Alesis Microverb — the '90s half-rack unit beloved by Neil Young, Daft Punk and Trey Anastasio, and the sound smeared all over Interpol's Turn On The Bright Lights — as an eight-mode 'Late 1900s Reverberator' stompbox. Six room algorithms scale from studio-apartment tight to warehouse huge via a retro chickenhead dial, joined by the era-defining Gated mode and an oddball 'rushing' Reverse that mimics the original's math trick rather than literally flipping the signal. Modern conveniences the rack never had round it out: a wet/dry Mix knob, a Tone low-pass filter, and an Onset control adding up to 200ms of pre-delay — doubling as gate time in Gated mode and smear amount in Reverse. Per MusicRadar, it may be the most convenient way to get those darker, boxy digital-verb sounds today.
NEW Darkglass Anagram Guitar Essentials — The Bass Modeler King Goes Guitar
Darkglass · Multi-FX / Amp Modeler · Review via Guitar World
Announced June 30, 2026, this is Darkglass's first-ever guitar-focused modeler — a limited-edition Anagram curated with Sweetwater and Andertons. The Guitar Essentials pack loads 12 amp models spanning Fender Deluxe and Twin, Marshall, Hiwatt, Matchless and Magnatone flavors, plus three drives inspired by the Klon Centaur, Bluesbreaker and Tube Screamer — all running on a six-core DSP that handles up to 24 simultaneous effect blocks behind a 7-inch touchscreen. The headline feature, per Guitar World, is full Neural Amp Modeler (NAM) compatibility, something no direct rival like the Quad Cortex, Helix Stadium or TONEX currently offers. The catch: it's a one-time limited run, priced at $1,299.
Released in June 2026 at just $89, the Fumble is JHS's production version of the ultra-rare Dumble BBC-1 — the JFET clean-boost preamp Alexander Dumble built for his most valued clients, including the unit cloned for John Mayer. It owes its existence to a famous blunder: JHS accidentally loaded this circuit into the first run of its Notadümblë pedal, and demand for the 'wrong' sound proved strong enough to earn it a standalone release. The control setup is simple but clever — Output is your master volume, while Input simultaneously trims bass and input gain at the front of the circuit — and MusicRadar reckons it's a hard-working little box: an always-on tone sweetener, a way to push an amp or your dirt pedals harder, or an end-of-chain lift. True bypass, two knobs, boutique JFET tone at an entry-level price.
Unveiled in June 2026 and shipping June 24, the H9 Harmonizer Gen 2 is a giant leap for Eventide's famously pedalboard-friendly multi-FX. It packs the complete algorithm suite from the H9 Max and flagship H90 — 74 algorithms in all — powered by a new full-ARM processor for faster, easier operation, plus more than 1,000 user presets to store them. You get studio-quality delays and reverbs (vintage tape echo, modulated, digital, multi-tap, reverse, spring, hall, plate and stranger fare), classic Harmonizer sounds like the H3000-evoking Crystals, and modern Granular and polyphonic algorithms rendered with Eventide's SIFT pitch-tracking. A redesigned enclosure adds a larger 2.5' display with all the knobs and buttons on top, and there's USB-C, MIDI, aux-switch and expression I/O, with Bluetooth promised in a future update. Priced at $599, per MusicRadar.
Shipping since April 2026, the RK2000 is the first-ever pedal recreation of the famously over-engineered 1983 Ibanez DM2000 rack delay — the unit Trey Anastasio uses to conjure his signature 'Funk Siren' ambient loops. Keeley built it at the request of Trey's guitar tech, who needed a dependable replacement for unreliable 40-year-old hardware, and preserved the original's defining Hold and Mod section, whose modulation is so dramatic it has been likened to slamming your hand against a tape deck's supply reel. Modern touches round it out: presets for instant recall, full MIDI, expression control over any parameter, remote Hold/Mod switching and pitch-shifted ping-pong delays. Designed and built in Oklahoma, with a $369 street price.
Unveiled in April 2026, the Highpoint is Walrus Audio's high-end take on studio-style compression, built around an old-school analog optical circuit and topped with a console-style VU meter you can configure to monitor input, output or gain reduction. A sidechain high-pass filter rolls off everything below 160Hz before it reaches the compressor, so low notes keep their punch and dynamics instead of clamping down the whole signal — a real boon for bass players. MusicRadar calls it a serious, all-singing, all-dancing compressor: dial in the settings that suit your rig and you may never touch it again. Available now at $349.
NEW EarthQuaker Devices Sunn O))) HalfLife — The Life Pedal, Shrunk
EarthQuaker Devices · Octave Distortion / Booster · Review via Premier Guitar
Announced in June 2026, the HalfLife shrinks EQD's acclaimed Sunn O))) Life Pedal into a board-friendly box that's about half the size but, in the makers' words, just as heavy. Three circuits live in one chassis: a blendable analog octave-up fuzz voiced after vintage Shin-Ei FY-2 and FY-6 units, a brutal 'rodent'-style distortion with three clipping modes (op-amp, asymmetric and symmetric), and a clean boost. Built with modern parts rather than the rare NOS components of the originals, it joins EQD's permanent lineup at $259. A doom, drone and noise tone machine that finally fits a crowded pedalboard.
The newest addition to Fender's affordable Hammertone series is a JFET-based overdrive built to mimic the dynamic feel of hot tubes pushed right to the brink of saturation. Two selectable clipping modes take it from light, sparkling breakup to thicker medium-gain overdrive, and both clean up beautifully with your picking attack and guitar volume. Guitar World highlights a genuine warmth that's satisfying to play through and rates it strong value at its $99 price. Standard Hammertone controls and a rugged, top-jack compact enclosure keep it pedalboard-friendly.
NEW Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Bass Big Muff Pi 2 — A 'Lost' '70s Op-Amp Fuzz, Built for Bass
Electro-Harmonix · Bass Fuzz · Review via Premier Guitar
Unveiled in May 2026, the Deluxe Bass Big Muff Pi 2 is the pro-spec, low-end-focused evolution of EHX's dual op-amp Bass Big Muff 2 — a fuzz built around a 'lost' late-'70s op-amp circuit. It keeps the classic Big Muff sustain but voices it gutsier and more mid-forward, with the familiar Volume, Tone and Sustain knobs handling output, EQ and gain. The bass-centric extras earn the name: a Blend knob mixes clean and dirty signals so your fundamental stays tight, while a footswitchable Crossover high-passes the fuzz path and low-passes the clean path for massive lows and cutting highs. A selectable input pad tames hot pickups, an XLR DI output and buffered Direct Out cover going straight to the desk, and a latching/momentary true-bypass switch lets you lock in sustained fuzz or fire off quick bursts. Street price is around $188, per Premier Guitar.
Keeley Electronics teamed with virtuoso Andy Timmons to distill the lush, spacious reverb half of his famous Halo tone into a dedicated stereo workstation. Three modes cover the ground: a Nocturne setting that reimagines Timmons' Halo algorithm as an ethereal, immersive wash; a Plate voiced after the vintage stereo tube plate reverb that has lived in the Austin City Limits studio since the mid-'70s; and a Spring drawn from Keeley's best tank and amp-combo sounds. A simple four-knob layout — Tone, Level, Decay and Modulation — keeps it plug-and-play, while alt controls, up to 72 MIDI presets, stereo outs, selectable bypass with trails and expression control make it rig-ready. Built on Keeley's Core architecture and made in Oklahoma, it earned a Premier Gear award, with Timmons calling it the most inspiring reverb he has ever heard.
NEW EHX Percolator — A Cult-Classic Fuzz, Reborn for $99
Electro-Harmonix · Fuzz / Overdrive · Review via Guitar Bomb
Just launched in June 2026, the EHX Percolator is a modern $99 take on the ultra-rare Interfax Harmonic Percolator — the gnarly harmonic distortion famously used by Steve Albini. Three controls (Harmonics for input gain, Balance for output, and a new Bias knob for gated and sub-octave textures) plus a Fuzz/Drive switch take it from raunchy, open overdrive to face-ripping fuzz. True bypass with a mechanical relay. A great low-cost way to get a legendary, hard-to-find tone.
The Canoga is Strymon's first all-analog fuzz and the debut of its new 'Series A' line — born from three prototype pedals CEO Gregg Stock built on a spare afternoon a decade ago, then rediscovered by accident in 2023 while prepping demos for the UltraViolet launch. Rooted in a modified silicon FuzzFace circuit, it's been carefully tuned to retain treble clarity as you roll back your guitar's volume, opening up a wide palette from semi-clean, touch-sensitive crunch at low Drive settings to thick, face-melting fuzz when cranked. Two knobs — Drive and Level — keep things plug-and-play simple, an internal jumper sets the power-on bypass state for rack rigs, and true bypass rounds it out. At $199, it's a surprisingly deep, no-fuss tone machine from a brand better known for lush reverbs and delays.
Arguably the distortion pedal. Three knobs — Distortion, Filter (tone) and Volume — sweep from a crunchy low-gain grind to fierce, saturated distortion, and into near-fuzz territory when cranked. Decades on pedalboards, supremely versatile and famously affordable: the dirt box many players reach for first.
Hologram Electronics Microcosm — An Ambient Cheat Code
Hologram Electronics · Granular / Looper · Review via Guitar World
A granular playground: 11 effects with 44 presets that slice your signal into micro-loops, glacial ambient textures, hypnotic drones and tap-synced rhythms, plus a 60-second looper, lush stereo reverb and a resonant filter. Reviewers call it deeply inspirational and, despite the depth, refreshingly logical to use.
Old Blood Noise Endeavors Dark Star Stereo — Soundscape Reverb
Old Blood Noise Endeavors · Reverb · Review via Premier Guitar
The stereo evolution of OBNE's cult lo-fi pad reverb: long, degraded, pitch-shifted ambient washes with switchable pitch, delay and crush modes, EQ filtering, onboard presets, expression and MIDI. Premier Guitar praises its balance of deep control and an always-sounds-great vibe — a soundscaping tool more than a traditional reverb.
Red Panda · Tape / Delay / Looper · Review via Sound on Sound
A digital tape-effects box: real-time reverse, tape-stop, pitch shifting, time-stretching and hold, applied live or to recorded loops. It's not plug-and-play — but reviewers say it's a top-quality, genuinely creative tool unlike any normal delay, and great value for everything it does.
A do-it-all reverb with 24 studio-quality algorithms: authentic spring, plate, hall and room alongside inventive modes like ghost, lo-fi and the gated-glitch 'beer' setting, plus stereo I/O, 35 presets and MIDI. Premier Guitar calls it an impressive, sensibly laid-out all-in-one that wins over reverb fans and skeptics alike.
The HX Stomp crams 300+ amps, cabs and effects from Line 6's flagship Helix into a tiny stereo box. Reviewers call it a staggering amount of pro-grade tone in a pedalboard-friendly format, with capacitive footswitches that make editing nearly error-free. The trade-off is the small screen and a block limit, so it's less fluid to tweak on the fly than the bigger Helix units — but for grab-and-go versatility it's hard to beat.
This tiny stomp recreates the preamp of the Echoplex EP-3 — the secret weapon of Page, EVH and Eric Johnson. One knob delivers up to +20dB of boost, with internal DIP switches for unity gain and a glassier top end. Reviewers describe it less as a volume box and more as a tone enhancer: stomp it on and things just sound better, with more top-end shimmer and a tighter low end. A classic many players leave on all the time.
Catalinbread Belle Epoch Deluxe — Echoplex Magic in a Stompbox
Catalinbread · Tape Echo / Delay · Review via Premier Guitar
A faithful, feature-rich recreation of the beloved Maestro Echoplex EP-3 tape delay. Premier Guitar praises its rich, colorful tape-echo and analog-style sounds, imaginative modulation and sweepable resonant-filter functions, and useful expression-pedal control — from glinting sunlit slapback to misty, moody, psychedelic textures. High-quality construction rounds out a tape-echo that's as inspiring as it is practical.
Source Audio · Delay / Reverb · Review via Premier Guitar
The Collider distills the best of Source Audio's Ventris reverb and Nemesis delay into one smartly streamlined box — seven reverbs and five delays, including a gorgeous Tel-Ray-style oil-can delay. Premier Guitar highlights how its wide-ranging controls stretch common effects to uncommon extremes, especially when combined, while keeping a fluid, creative workflow that feels like an instrument rather than a menu.
EarthQuaker Devices Plumes — The Screamer, Reinvented
EarthQuaker Devices · Overdrive · Review via Premier Guitar
A low-noise, low-to-medium gain 'small signal shredder' that reinvents the classic Tube Screamer. A 3-way clipping switch offers symmetrical LED clipping, op-amp boost (no clipping), or asymmetrical diode clipping, and the extended controls deliver loads of headroom and clarity. Premier Guitar calls it a standout in a crowded field — plenty of unique tones at a remarkably friendly price.
Andy Timmons' long-secret dual-delay tone in a pedal: two independent delays, up to 1,500ms, five rhythm modes (including the signature Halo mode), eight presets, tap tempo and expression control. The repeats bloom gently and sit tastefully in the background, making it a superb match even in front of high-gain tones — one of the most expressive delays of recent years.
Walrus Audio · Chorus / Vibrato · Review via MusicRadar
A benchmark analog chorus/vibrato. Its analog LFO toggles sine/triangle waves, the unique Lag control adds swing to each sweep, and the fully analog D-C-V blend sweeps from dry to classic 50/50 chorus to full wet vibrato. The verdict: a gorgeous, lush chorus and outstanding vibrato packed with analog warmth.
A flat-packed, build-it-yourself Klon-style overdrive for $99 — JHS sold 12,000 in a week. Beyond classic Klon tone, a Shamrock mod switch adds roughly +4dB gain and harder-edged clipping. Reviewers call it one of the most affordable Klon clones out there, and easily the most entertaining.
EarthQuaker Devices · Reverb · Review via Premier Guitar
One of the most creative reverbs ever made — stretched, deeply resonant, EQ-shifted washes with a Drag control that makes it feel as much like a synth module as a stompbox. It rewards players who want far-reaching extremes other reverbs can't reach.
Eight pristine, highly musical reverbs — Modulate, Spring, Plate, Hall, Room, Dynamic, Shimmer and a +Delay mode — all from three simple knobs. New algorithms and overhauled DSP make it a flexible, road-ready workhorse that's become a modern standard.
Electro-Harmonix · Octave · Review via Guitar World
The smallest POG ever: EHX's legendary Polyphonic Octave Generator shrunk into a tiny enclosure with transformative octave-up/down sounds, lots of control and impressively tight tracking — ideal for crowded pedalboards.
Decades of Eventide studio heritage in a flagship multi-FX: 60+ effects, more DSP, upgraded algorithms and flexible routing, intuitive even before the companion app. A high-ticket pedal that can pull you out of a creative rut in a flash.
The popular Klon-style Tumnus with the flexibility players asked for: Bass/Mids/Treble EQ, a Normal/Hot switch for extra gain, and a buffered/true-bypass switch. Transparent as a boost, organic in its warm crunch — a versatile, musical overdrive that accentuates your amp.
Darkglass · Bass Preamp / Overdrive · Review via Premier Guitar
A modern bass-tone benchmark: aggressive Microtubes overdrive plus a deep, switchable 4-band EQ and a road-ready chassis. Most issues that plague other distortions — low-end loss, separated sound — are answered here with a switch or control.
An Analog Man collaboration that brings King of Tone mojo to a $150 pedal you can actually buy. Same thru-hole parts and boutique WIMA caps as the King, delivering a warm-yet-clear, open sound — rated a standout value by Guitar World and MusicRadar.
