Top 10 Craziest Guitar Pedals to Spice Up Your Sound

So, you want to spice up your sound, huh? I mean, there comes a time where all your current pedals are serving you well on your board and you just want a little something to take it totally outside… and that’s where these come in.

We’re going to see how weird effect pedals can get. Even if it means you have that one pedal you only use once at your gig or maybe even while jamming in your bedroom, welcoming all forms of inspiration is really the goal. In this article we’re going to take you through the house of horrors and all the fun twists and turns of pedal technology — and lucky for you there’s no height limit here. These are the top 10 craziest guitar pedals to spice up your sound. Let’s get to it!

The EarthQuaker Devices Rainbow Machine V2 pedal is a pitch-warping modulation pedal that blends chorus, harmonizer effect, and glitchy feedback into one unit to give you a really cool, experimental sound. The V2 is an improvement on the original, giving you double the volume, a lower noise floor, extended delay time, and deeper chorus tones.

Beyond pitch shifting, you also have the ability to create a chorus-like effect by using both Primary and Secondary knobs. You can tap into various effects like chorus, metallic digi-flanging, synthetic noises, ascending or descending pixie trails and even distortion. It doesn’t stop there, with the Magic knob, you can adjust how weird you want the effect. The Tracking knob will give you the ability to control the amount of lag time between your natural signal and the effected signal.

This pedal is really one of its own kind and is a must-have if you’re looking to add some alternate-reality weirdness to your effects.

To turn up the volume on “wild” with the Earthquaker Devices Data Corrupter pedal. This pedal gives you a crushing square wave fuzz tone mixed with a three-voiced guitar synthesizer sound, which might have the others contemplating whether you’re playing a keyboard or guitar.

The trepidation guitarists have famously had with synth effects for guitar is the whole issue around tracking. This one does a pretty good job tracking since you’re not messing around with MIDI, but it’s worth noting that playing chords or sloppy playing in general might cause a bit of chaos. Bridge pickups work well, but the neck  pickup will allow the pedal to track your movements the best. I personally like this pedal because I like playing lines on the neck pickup during my shows, so tracking for me works fine.

Speaking of synthesizers, next up we have the Electro-Harmonix MEL9, which pays homage to those really unique mellotron sounds. For those who don’t know, the mellotron was a keyboard that required tape to emulate the sounds of strings, flutes, choirs, and brass. From The Beatles to King Crimson, many bands in the ‘60s and ‘70s took advantage of these unique sounds.

One of the things I really like about this pedal is not only the effects, but its versatility and ability to open itself up to bass and keyboards too. Whether you’re playing solo or with a band, you open yourself up to a whole new palette of colors!

Something about being a scientist just seems so cool, and Electro-Harmonix gives you a shot at being one with the Pico Atomic Cluster Spectral Decomposer pedal. This pedal gives you different effects ranging from lo-fi glitches and synth pads to auto-arpeggio tones and much more.

Playing through this pedal honestly sounds like your guitar tone is coming in via spaceship — or for any of you Star Wars fans, you know what R2D2 sounds like? Yep it’s just like that.

What’s really unique about this pedal is the ability for you to also turn these into synth sounds to act like something that’ll accompany you while you play on top — with a touch of pixelated weirdness.

What I really like about this pedal is the simplicity and ability to dial in a sound that’s quick and easy. And if you want something with a different rate of speed or effect, you can switch between the two channels. Madison has a really unique sound, and this pedal will get you there. If you’re looking for a good tremolo pedal, this one is worth grabbing and adding to your board.

Just when you thought guitar pedals were interactive enough, this one gives you a joystick! It’s like hitting the arcade all over again.

Walrus brings you the Melee Wall of Noise Reverb Distortion pedal with a joystick that allows you to blend both reverb and distortion effects together. There are three different types of reverb programs that you can access in this pedal: Ambient, Octave, and Reverse.

This pedal gives you plenty of mileage to come up with countless different sounds, and not to mention the amazing artwork by David Hüttner. This is definitely one to experiment with and add to the board.

Yes, this is a distortion pedal. No, it doesn’t sound like anything you’ve heard before. I’ve been one who’s sought after many different overdrive and distortion pedals, and most of them never seemed to be a whole lot different from their respective categories except for this one.

What’s cool about the distortion sound coming from this pedal is that it doesn’t like the traditional analog or any digital distortion pedal that’s been out on the market. Something about voltage distortion that gives it its own sound and also contains contrasts between individual notes, so there’s this nuance to the distortion which makes it reactive to you!

The Low and High Frequency knobs give you a chance to round off the lows and highs, so you can shape it to your liking. This is one of those pedals that you just have to hear for yourself. It’s awesome and will definitely spice up the setlist.

Guitarists who don’t want to go through all the trouble getting a MIDI pickup so they can play a guitar synthesizer, look no further than the Boss SY-1. Boss made it easy to access more than 100 sounds of synth patches ranging from organs, arpeggiated sequences, expressive leads, to even sweeping pads, all in a small pedal that can fit right on your board.

With the grab-and-go Tone/Rate and Depth knobs, you’re able to adjust any synth voice just how you like, including changing the pitch on some sounds, you can get pretty versatile. Although it might seem like a pedal that acts like a retro sports car you only take out when the sun is shining, this can actually be very useful in a multitude of scenarios.

Here you can blend the synth tones with your natural guitar sound, so you can decide if you want to use the synth pedal as an accompaniment to your sound, or you can dial it up for full effect. Use the lead sounds to overdub your melodies or even use the pads to accompany your chords, you can get really creative. Sure, the bells could be cheesy if you start bending, but you’ll learn to play to the character of the instrument you’re using. It’s trial and error and without a doubt something worth getting into.

Who said you can’t have a Bigsby on all your guitars? Who said you need a Bigsby on your guitar at all!? The Gamechanger Audio Bigsby pedal gives you a chance to get the Bigsby tremolo anytime — but in pedal-form. You can get these really cool pitch-shifting benefits and the option to connect external footswitches, expression pedals, and even integrate MIDI.

It's powered by a SHARC Audio Processor running a sophisticated hybrid algorithm. This thing meticulously preserves the natural voice of your instrument, whether it's a guitar, bass, or even a synth. But for me, the real genius is the DETUNE parameter. This feature intentionally introduces the subtle imperfections and slight dissonance of real mechanical string-bending. The result is so authentic, if you closed your eyes, you'd swear it was the real thing.

The Gamechanger Audio AUTO Delay is one of those rare pedals that gives you a new way to play. At its core, it’s a versatile delay with three algorithms (Tape, Analog, Digital), but the magic is in how it reacts to you. Your picking intensity, vibrato, and the way a note blooms or fades moves the delay’s parameters in real time.

This isn’t your typical delay pedal, and it’s definitely worth adding to your pedalboard if you want to spice things up.

Any of the pedals we listed are sure to add some new flavor to your effects rig. Even if you end up using it as the “wild card” pedal, it’s a chance to bring something unique to your performance. Once you got your main pedals down like Compressors, EQ, Overdrive/Distortion, Delay and Reverb, you’ll eventually want to expand to something else that’ll give you some edge. Happy pedal hunting!