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The best reverb pedals for all styles and budgets, from classic springs to stereo soundscapes
Spring, plate, hall or off-the-wall? Linger a while with our favourite reverb pedals from Gamechanger Audio, Strymon, BOSS and more.
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Think of reverb as the third dimension to your guitar sound – a sense of depth behind your playing. The best reverb pedals create that spatiality by using analogue or digital components to simulate the acoustics of real-world spaces. Instead of uneasy silences between notes, you’ll play against a backdrop of atmospheric reverberance.
There are plenty of reverb pedals out there, and they sound much more varied than you might expect. For characterful sounds that layer nicely under classic rock, indie and psychedelic guitar, you might choose a ‘spring’ or ‘plate’ reverb. These vintage forms of reverb pedal are named for the metal components that produce their effect, although many of them now use digital emulation.
Speaking of which, digital reverb pedals have been most guitarists’ choice since the 1980s, offering a host of acoustic models including ‘hall’, ‘cathedral’, ‘chamber’ and ‘room’, designed to emulate real-world spaces. More recent innovations including shimmer reverb, hold switches and endless modulation options have helped make digital reverb pedals the go-to for players ranging from U2’s The Edge to The Mars Volta’s Omar Rodríguez-López.
Whether you’re setting out on a sonic space exploration mission, or you simply want to add some depth and character to your guitar sound, you’ll find some good candidates in our round-up of the best reverb pedals you can buy. The potted reviews below cover our favourite digital, analogue, premium and affordable options, ranging from simpler models with great signature sounds to experimental pedals packed with tweakable features.
The best reverb pedals at a glance:
- Best spring reverb: Gamechanger Audio Light Pedal
- Best workstation reverb: Meris MercuryX
- Best ambient reverb: Strymon Bigsky MX
- Best synth-style reverb: Strymon Nightsky
- Best utility reverb: Earthquaker Ledges
- Best shimmer reverb: Earthquaker Astral Destiny
- Best vintage-voiced reverb: UAFX Golden Reverberator
- Best entry-level reverb: BOSS RV-6
- Best shoegaze reverb: Earthquaker Afterneath V3
- Best Stereo reverb: Walrus Audio Slöer
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Best spring reverb: Gamechanger Audio Light Pedal
This reverb pedal from Gamechanger Audio is unlike any other, combining vibration-spotting light sensors with real springs – proudly on show through a viewing window on the top of the pedal enclosure.
In an electro-mechanical evolution of spring reverb itself, the Light Pedal uses its IR sensors to detect the tiniest movements of its springs. Not only does this give you a richly responsive spring reverb tone; it also makes possible the pedal’s alternative modes, including captivating ‘sweep’ and ‘trem’ sounds. (That sensitive spring response also means you absolutely must not trip over the pedal while playing ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’ at your cousin’s wedding.)
Our only real quibble with this pedal is that it takes up a lot of pedalboard real estate – but hearing a whole new take on analogue spring reverb makes it well worth the squeeze.
Need more? Read our Gamechanger Audio Light Pedal review.
Best workstation reverb: Meris MercuryX
Perhaps you’ve saved up a small fortune to spend on a reverb pedal. If so, the Meris MercuryX has to be one of your candidates. This is one of the best-sounding reverb pedals we’ve ever tested, combining some truly unique and musical sounds with the capacity for great subtlety.
Jumping off from the MercuryX’s octet of custom reverb algorithms (which include plate, spring, hall, cathedral sounds and more), you can finely tune the pedal’s tone to your taste – and save your settings as one of 99 presets. Our reviewer was particularly taken with the pedal’s understated ‘Amp Room’ sound, and the beautiful take on shimmer reverb that is ‘Spectrum Shift’. The sound quality and level of customisation on offer here are from another planet.
Need more? Read our Meris MercuryX review.
Best ambient reverb: Strymon Bigsky MX
The MX is a worthy successor to its game-changing, daydream-inducing forerunner, the BigSky. Strymon’s rejigged big box is a compendium of utterly gorgeous ambient sounds, from ‘Surf’, a spring reverb sim that’s responsive enough to rival an actual Fender reverb tank, to a lush, airy ‘Chamber’ reverb, and pretty much everything in-between and beyond.
There are near-infinite tonal options here, and getting the hang of controlling and managing your reverbs on the MX may take a little practice. But the rewards are rich. With unprecedented processing power, this pedal can apply multiple reverbs at the same time, in parallel, series or split. If you like to stack reverb sounds to create an ambience all of your own, this one pedal will let you do it. Activate the infinite freeze feature, then start sculpting a soundscape like no other.
Need more? Read our Strymon Bigsky MX review.
Best synth-style reverb: Strymon Nightsky
Strymon, we didn’t know you had it in you! Decidedly weirder and less utopic than the BigSky, the NightSky reverb will appeal to devotees of uncanny drones and complex synth voicings.
This pedal is extravagant, feature-rich, endlessly engaging, and potentially bamboozling to the first-time user. Start with the presets, and you’ll find some fascinating reverb sounds that offer a window onto the NightSky’s capabilities – lush, Strymon-quality reverb, layered over with otherworldly whiffs of warping and wobble.
Manually modulating the NightSky’s reverbs will give you some of the weirdest sounds in the Strymon cosmos – especially if you reach for the ‘Random’ and ‘Envelope’ settings, which are anything but easy listening.
Need more? Read our Strymon Nightsky review.
Best utility reverb: EarthQuaker Devices Ledges
If you’re looking for a reverb that’s a great all-rounder and comes at a mid-market price, then look no further than the Ledges. This compact pedal from EarthQuaker Devices covers three of the most popular styles of reverb – ‘hall’, ‘room’ and ‘plate’ – and has impressive sonic fidelity across the lot.
We really appreciate the simple control scheme here. There are length, dampening and mix knobs that obviously and intuitively alter the reverb sound – and that’s pretty much all you need to worry about. Of course, this being an EarthQuaker device, there are some beguiling oddities down the cracks. Max out the ‘length’ setting in plate mode, and you’ll get a very cool-sounding, essentially infinite decay.
Need more? Read our Earthquaker Ledges review.
Best shimmer reverb: EarthQuaker Devices Astral Destiny
Shimmer is one of the more colourful reverb styles out there, typically trailing a reverberating up-octave in the wake of your guitar’s signal. No pedal does this pitch-shifted sound quite so thoroughly, nor with quite such inventiveness, as the Astral Destiny.
Even at its most restrained, this pedal sounds massive. Its eight modes all offer their own slant on shimmer, whether that means adding an up-octave, a down-octave, pitch bend, or modulations of yet wilder varieties.
One thing this pedal doesn’t give you is tonal variety. It’s a shimmer machine, pure and far from simple.
Need more? Read our Earthquaker Astral Destiny review.
Best vintage-voiced reverb: UAFX Golden Reverberator
The pedal-makers at Universal Audio are rightly considered geniuses at digging up classic sounds and emulating them digitally. In the Golden Reverberator, these Indiana Joneses of tone(ses?) have applied their expertise to reproducing the vintage vibrations of spring, plate and hall reverb.
And the end result is a sonic delight. The Golden Reverberator is unflinchingly true to its iconic source materials, and it’s potentially epic-sounding – provided you’ve tweaked its idiosyncratic controls accordingly. Speaking of which, there are ample options to modify your reverb sound here, including tone, modulation and pre-delay adjustment.
If you’re seeking a one-stomp solution for all your vintage reverb needs, quest no further.
Need more? Read our UAFX Golden Reverberator review.
Best entry-level reverb: BOSS RV-6
This no-nonsense reverb sounds great and comes with all the benefits of the Boss compact format – easy operation, plenty of functionality, and a level of cost that won’t reverberate through your household budget for months to come.
All this is not to say the RV-6 is basic. You can adjust the reverb level, tone and decay (time), and there are eight different reverbs to toggle between. Our reviewer was transfixed by the ‘Modulate’ setting, which adds a tasteful degree of wobbly warmth and depth, while the ‘Spring’, ‘Plate’ and ‘Hall’ models provide convincing recreations of their respective staple sounds.
Need more? Read our BOSS RV-6 review.
Best shoegaze reverb: Earthquaker Afterneath V3
The Afterneath V3 is a perfect companion for effect-drenched genres like shoegaze, noise and psych, with an array of sounds that tread the line between the atmospheric and the dynamic, light and shade. Our reviewer loved its pioneering drag control, which sounds befitting of the illustration on the pedal’s enclosure: a wizard disappearing into a crumbling cavern.
Uniquely, this reverb pedal builds up its reverb out of blended delays – and you’ll hear that for yourself when you dial the ‘Diffuse’ setting right back. If you’re an experimental artist, the Afterneath V3 could make a bold addition to your palette.
Need more? Read our Earthquaker Afterneath V3 review.
Best Stereo reverb: Walrus Audio Slöer
The Walrus Audio Slöer is a superb tool for conjuring up expansive soundscapes. It gives you a beautiful, characterful selection of reverb models to choose between – including our favourites, ‘Light’, which is a bright shimmer sound; and the unique, echo-infused ‘Rain’, which has adjustable diffusion via the pedal’s tap control.
Unlike the much-loved original Slö pedal, the Slöer features true stereo ins and outs, plus a ‘Width’ switch that controls the stereo in the left and right channels. Running through a stereo rig, the pedal sounds like the stuff of Sigur Rösian fantasy – lush, spacious and sensitively pitched.
Need more? Read our Walrus Audio Sloer review.
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That means that when you click on a Guitar.com buyer’s guide, you’re getting the benefit of all that experience to help you make the best buying decision for you. What’s more, every guide written on Guitar.com was put together by a guitar obsessive just like you. You can trust that every product recommended in those guides is something that we’d be happy to have in our own rigs.
Pete Wise is a freelance journalist and former wannabe rock star. His articles on tech, DIY, food, social issues and other topics have featured in titles including The Guardian, Good Food and The Independent. Pete reviews gear for Guitar.com from a cupboard-sized studio in Leeds. Artists recently in his headphones include PyPy, Nilüfer Yanya, La Sécurité and Sam Evian.