A guitar pedal types is a foot-operated device that manipulates your tone for a variety of special effects. Typically, they’re built into a custom-made pedal board that guitarists place on the floor and use their feet to enable and disable them throughout a song or performance.

There are many different guitar pedal types, and the ones you choose will largely be determined by the type of music you play. For example, a blues guitarist’s pedal choices will likely be quite different than those of a metal shredder.

Choosing the Right Guitar Pedals: Essential Effects for Your Setup

The first pedal on every professional’s pedalboard is a tuner, such as the Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner. A good quality tuner will give you a precise read on your instrument’s tuning, which is important for maintaining a stable and high-quality tone.

Next, you’ll probably want to consider an overdrive or distortion pedal. Overdrive pedals push your amp into a natural-sounding distortion while keeping more of the original tone intact, which is great for blues and classic rock. Distortion pedals clip the signal more drastically and create a grungier sound that’s often associated with heavy metal.

Another pedal you might want to try is an octave effect, which produces notes that are one octave higher or lower than your original tone. This is a popular pedal among many musicians and provides you with the ability to create unique guitar sounds.

Other pedals you might want to look at include flanger and chorus effects. These are two very similar pedals that can create a beautiful, shimmering effect to your guitar sound. The Electro Harmonix Electric Mistress is a great choice for combining both of these effects in one single unit.