The best guitar synth pedals: turn you guitar into a brand new instrument

Guitarists: read this article, and you can then confidently say ‘who needs a synthesiser?’ and back it up. It was once true that you could only achieve a few variations of the guitar sound — clean, crunch, high-gain, distorted, etcetera, etcetera. But now, the sounds you can achieve with your beloved axe are rather outrageous. And with the best guitar synth pedals currently on the market, you can now fully step into the world of electronic synthesis.

These are no mere guitar pedals, but synthesiser engines contained in a box that fit snugly onto your pedalboard. A great synth pedal takes the input via you playing your guitar strings with varying pitch and dynamics, and a universe of oscillators, filters, and envelopes is triggered. If you’ve ever dreamed of your guitar sounding like a Juno, a Moog, or a Prophet, then you've found yourself in the correct location. Let’s launch off into the best guitar synth pedals out there, kicking things off with the most affordable and going upwards from there.

1. Electro-Harmonix Mono Synth

• Pros: 11 distinct synth types; dedicated Dry and Synth volume knobs.

• Cons: Strictly monophonic (one note at a time); can’t save presets.

Our most affordable synth guitar pedal also kicks things off very nicely as it’s one of the best entry points for all this malarky that you could hope for. Costing only a little more than £/$100, the Mono Synth from the brilliant Electro-Harmonix won’t overwhelm you if synth pedals are new to you, especially knowing some of the options on this list will feel like delving into infinity itself. There are 11 different sounds ranging from vintage Nu Wave to deep "X-Fade" textures, and it tracks exceptionally fast for a monophonic pedal. Being a monophonic synth engine means you can’t play more than one note at a time, so forget chords, but it's excellent for turning your guitar into a synth-bass or cracking out some huge synth lead lines and solos.

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2. Keeley Electronics Synth-1

• Pros: Intuitive controls; incredible Reverse Attack feature for swell effects.

• Cons: Very specific fuzzy character that might not suit clean synth lovers.

We think you’ll be very keen on the Keeley Synth-1, especially those who love a vintage fuzzy synth vibe rather than a much more modern, digital emulation sound. It generates a square wave that tracks your guitar signal, allowing you to create everything from 8-bit video game blips to thick, woolly leads. The Chaos switch adds unpredictable octaves and artefacts, perfect for those moments where you want your solo to sound like a circuit-bending experiment.

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3. Boss SY-1 Synthesizer

• Pros: 121 sounds; zero-latency polyphonic tracking.

• Cons: Tiny concentric knobs are difficult to adjust precisely on the fly.

Guitar pedal stalwarts Boss bring us a fabulous sub-£/$200 polyphonic guitar synth pedal with the SY-1 Synthesizer. It’s an epic option for plug-and-play synth tones, and there’s no need for a special guitar pickup. It has a stonkingly massive library of leads, pads, and even organ sounds in the standard, beloved Boss chassis style. The parallel send/return loop allows you to blend your favourite drive pedals with the synth engine with aplomb. If you want to explore guitar synthesis without overcomplicating and overwhelming your signal chain, this is an absolutely boss entry point.

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4. Source Audio C4 Synth

• Pros: Total sound-design freedom; massive online community for presets.

• Cons: Requires a computer or mobile app for deep editing.

As we start delving into the best guitar synth pedals that are a bit more ‘spenny, we bring you one that easily justifies its price tag by turning your guitar into a modular synth, and full-blown modular synthesis is a much more expensive habit than pedal purchasing. One for all the nutty professor guitarists out there, Source Audio’s C4 Synth has four independent oscillators and a wealth of filters and envelopes in a tiny housing. While the four knobs on the front offer quick tweaks, the real magic happens in the Neuro Desktop Editor, where you can download thousands of community-made presets that range from classic Moog tones to glitchy, modern textures.

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5. Electro-Harmonix Micro Synth

• Pros: Fully analogue signal path; tactile sliders for on-the-fly tweaking.

• Cons: Large physical footprint; requires a 24V power supply.

Harking back to the 1970s, the Micro Synth is a stunning retro-sound option for guitarists who also love analogue synths. Its synth engine derives from a fully analogue signal path, and is a lot of fun to play around with while tweaking the settings. It uses four independent voices — Sub Octave, Original, Octave, and Square Wave—which you mix together using the sliders to create some earth-shuddering textures. This guitar synth pedal offers a warmth and thickness that digital emulations often struggle to replicate.

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6. Boss SY-200 Polyphonic Guitar Synth

• Pros: LCD display for preset management; 128 user memory slots.

• Cons: Larger footprint; some menu diving is required for deep tweaks.

Let’s tip our hats once more to Boss. If you love the sound of the SY-1 but want to go deeper with more control, the SY-200 is how you level up. It features a top-notch LCD screen and 128 user memory slots, allowing you to save your custom creations for snappy recalling. The tracking is very good indeed, and the dedicated Memory footswitch makes it a breeze to cycle through different textures during a live set without bending down.

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7. PandaMidi Future Impact V4

• Pros: Most powerful bass-synth engine on the market; MIDI compatible.

• Cons: Steep learning curve; onboard interface is quite cryptic.

Here is a guitar synth pedal sound that we hope won’t become endangered. The Future Impact is the modern sequel to the legend that is the Akai Deep Impact. You can tantalise your guitar tastebuds with four oscillators and a massive array of filters that provide a density of sound you’d usually have to splash out on a high-end synth to get. While it’s chiefly a guitar pedal loved most by the bass player community, guitarists have also started getting involved, thanks to its ability to produce huge, cinematic pads and aggressive, biting lead tones.

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8. Meris Enzo

• Pros: Studio-grade audio quality; incredible built-in stereo reverb and delay.

• Cons: Secondary knob functions are unlabelled and hard to memorise.

We’re right into the territory where you could buy a full-blown hardware synthesiser for this amount of money — but if you want to give your beloved instrument the most premium, best guitar synth pedal treatment, then say ‘hiya’ to the Meris Enzo. If you’re bored of playing jingle jangle guitar and instead fancy making your guitar sound like an epic film score, then you’ll find features aplenty here to do so. It offers monophonic, polyphonic, and Arp modes, with a built-in compressor and a gorgeous stereo delay/reverb. It is a deep, complex machine that rewards those who spend time learning its secondary controls, resulting in some of the most lush synth textures guitarists could hope to buy.

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9. Hologram Electronics Microcosm

• Pros: Groundbreaking granular effects; incredible "looping" capabilities.

• Cons: High price point; frequently out of stock due to demand.

Not being far off £/$500, old school synth heads would likely be telling you to forget this guitar synth pedal nonsense and put that money towards saving for an original Moog. But if you only have eyes for your guitar, then this is a synth pedal that will take your stringed companion to infinity and beyond. To be super-duper specific, it is technically a granular effects pedal, but the Microcosm is a synth engine in spirit. It rearranges your guitar signal into micro-loops, pitch-shifted textures, and rhythmic patterns that feel like they have a life of their own. For producers like Jon Hopkins or Bonobo, this is the ultimate organic tool, capable of turning a simple guitar riff into a shifting, breathing soundscape.

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Can I play chords on a guitar synth?

It depends on whether the pedal is Polyphonic (chords) or Monophonic (single notes). Pedals like the Boss SY-1 and Meris Enzo are polyphonic, whereas the Keeley Synth-1 is monophonic. If you try to play a chord on a monophonic pedal, it will usually glitch or struggle to decide which note to play, though some artists use this glitch as a creative effect!

Where should I place a synth pedal in my signal chain?

Ideally, synth pedals should go as close to the start of your chain as possible. They need a clean, strong signal to track the pitch accurately. Putting a distortion or delay before a synth pedal can confuse the tracking engine, leading to unwanted artefacts or lag.

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