Buyer's Guides

Best Reverb Pedals: Send Your Guitars and Synths into Outer Space

You won’t find many effects pedals that are more ubiquitously plugged into guitars and synthesizers than reverb pedals. It’s no exaggeration to say that virtually every guitarist out there has one on their pedalboard, and synth-heads commonly love to add a big hit of ambience to their keys. One of the great wins of a reverb pedal is the versatility it offers — whether it’s just adding a touch of space and warmth, or seeking a stratospheric, infinite sound, there are so many types and spectrums of reverb.

With that being said, there are countless reverb pedals on the market, with new ones being launched all the time. Abundance is great, but it can be tough to whittle it down to the right ones for your needs. Fear not, Headliner is here to guide you through the great halls of reverb pedals and help you choose your perfect reverb companion. We’ll start with the most affordable and work our way upwards. To infinity, and beyond!

Electro-Harmonix Pico Oceans 3-verb

This opening gambit might be the lowest-priced, coming in at around £/$130, but it’s nonetheless every bit worthy of being in the best reverb pedal discussion. The Pico Oceans 3-verb from Electro-Harmonix is a tastefully mini effects pedal, but it creates sounds that far outweigh its diminutive outer packaging. It’s a great option if your pedalboard is already crowded and lacks space. The tradeoff is that it’s not the most advanced reverb pedal on this list; but the hall, plate, and spring reverb options are totally solid and make sure you have lots of sounds covered. The hall and plate settings can get really big and intense, if you want to get spacy, as well as an infinite freeze feature if you want to get nice and ambient.

TC Electronic Hall Of Fame 2

If there was a hall of fame just for affordable effects pedals, TC Electronic would certainly be on it. As would their Hall Of Fame 2, one of the best reverb pedals out there, only costing a little above £/$100. As well as the usual plate, church, and spring affairs, there are some lovely lofi and mod sounds available. The pedal also uses TC’s MASH technology, a touch-sensitive technology where you edit the intensity of the reverb by how much pressure you put on the footswitch. It might be helpful to imagine you’re mashing a potato when you do this. The polyphonic shimmer mode deserves a big shout out also, so this is overall an affordable yet brilliant reverb pedal.

JHS Spring Tank

If you’re specifically looking to put a spring in the step of your guitar, synth, or what have you, this reverb effects pedal from JHS is very much a spring reverb specialist. If you love nothing more than that early rock and roll vibrating spring reverb sound, the Spring Tank recreates it in fantastic fashion. The footswitch is a great feature, allowing you to rapidly swap between dialled in effects, meaning you can go from subtle to in-your-face sounds with a quick stomp. You can fully customise the size of the reverb tails, and you can tweak the high and low frequencies to your desire.

Walrus Audio Fundamental Reverb

Some Beatles fans believe that John Lennon wrote I Am The Walrus after spending an hour with this pedal. That’s a lie, but the Fundamental Reverb from Walrus Audio might just inspire Lennon/McCartney-level inspiration for you if you add it to your setup. Walrus Audio are known for their attractive boutique effects pedals, and this number from their Fundamental series slides them into the best reverb pedals conversation. It boasts a three-way slider switch, putting you in control of its spring, hall and plate reverbs. It’s highly beginner-friendly, while offering the opportunity to get more advanced. It sounds fantastic almost immediately and without extensive tweaking.

Boss RV-6

All hail the Boss. If you were going to try and seek out a guitar pedals list that doesn’t mention Boss, you’d have to clear your schedule for an entire day, and you still might not succeed. The RV-6 is one of the company’s latest offerings, with updated algorithms and DSP. It’s not just a glow-up that makes this one of the best reverb pedals out there — the expression input allows you to crank up the swells and reverb tails, and the shimmer mode will be loved by guitarists and synth players alike. The dynamic mode is fairly genius also, with its touch-responsiveness.

Earthquaker Devices Dispatch Master V3

Next up is a reverb that will make the ground shake. As the Earthquaker name suggests, they’ve brought pedal aficionados some quirky and bonkers effects over the years. The Dispatch Master, instead, delivers reverb the way that the vast majority is after. It’s a combined reverb and delay pedal, and many will love the fact you won’t be kneeling over your pedal for ages tweaking out the sound you’re after — it’s a quality reverb that sounds great out the box. The Flexi-Switch feature allows you to get consecutive short flourishes of different effects while you hold the switch, a great unique offering.

MXR M300 Reverb

The MXR entry to this best reverb pedal compendium, the M300 Reverb, does the classic job of delivering a pedal that is beginner-friendly, intuitive and simple to use, but in no way sacrificing its spectrum of sounds. The M300 has six reverb types, all sounding as wonderful as each other. The plate, room, and spring sounds have a range of settings so you can dial in the sound you desire. And for the space cadets out there, the pad setting lets you ramp up the ambience and dreamscape sounds.

Keeley Parallax Spatial Generator

Are you after a reverb pedal that sounds so stunning, there’s a danger it will make you keel over and collapse? The Keeley Parallax Spatial Generator might be your match. From the mind of guitar pedal maverick Robert Keeley, he pioneers in the pedal once again with this beautiful-looking reverb unit. If you love the ‘verbs heard in shoegaze and a lot of ‘80s music, you may want to pick the Parallax. Think big modulations, reverse effects, big ethereal sounds, and more.

Walrus Slöer Ambient Reverb

As we welcome back the Walrus, we take a look at not only one of the best reverb pedals money can purchase, but one of the very best when it comes to an affinity for ambience. If you’re after a pedal that delivers bog standard room, spring, and hall reverbs then look away now — this is for those that want to feel like they’re flying through dystopian Los Angeles in Blade Runner. Included are several reverb algorithms, stereo width control, lots of onboard presets that help you push its cinematic scope as far as you can imagine.

Boss RV-200

It’s a sequel entry from Boss, with the RV-200 that just so happens to see us entering the £/$200 territory. Take one look at this substantial and durably-built reverb guitar pedal, and it should be obvious this is no sub-£/$50 knockoff. It’s actually a smaller and comparatively affordable version of the RV-500, while retaining many of its best features. It has a whopping 12 reverb algorithms for you to flick through, each packing plenty of parameter editing. The 32-bit processor handles everything superbly, and the Arpverb patch is a marvel — the reverb effects take on the guise of a synth arpeggiator. It has to be heard to be believed.

Strymon Cloudburst

If you were wondering when Strymon would inevitably reach this best reverb pedal catalogue, here they are, and not for the last time. The Cloudburst appears first as it’s almost £/$200 cheaper than its famous Big Sky sibling. As the name suggests, this is an ambient reverb pedal that will send your sound amongst the clouds. While not at the most premium price, the Cloudburst is nonetheless strong evidence of why Strymon is such a behemoth name in the world of reverb. It’s the smallest Strymon pedal, and its expanded decay scope allows you to musically craft clouds of your own. The Ensemble modes generate harmonics according to your tone and playing, allowing you to create orchestral-level reverbs. It is one of the most creative pedals you can get your hands on.

Gamechanger Audio Light Pedal

Finding a truly game-changing effects pedal can be challenging in such an oversaturated market, particularly where overdrive, chorus, and delay pedals often mimic classic designs. Gamechanger Audio, however, have built their name with a range of innovative products, and the Light Pedal brings some much needed luminescence to the best reverb pedal conversation. It redefines reverb pedals by joining a real spring tank with an infrared optical sensor system to create entirely new sounds. There are six reverb types, which you can adjust with a control knob, and a gate knob that shortens reverb tails and creates ducking effects.

Meris Mercury 7

Another reverb pedal proudly flying the ambient flag, this one from Meris sounds fantastic, even during Mercury retrograde. One of the team behind Meris was also a founder of Strymon, giving this reverb some serious street credentials. The two reverb algorithms’ names on offer should give you an idea of the spacious sounds the Mercury 7 will achieve: Ultraplate and Cathedral. You can also tweak the pitch and modulation almost endlessly. If you want to get huge and cosmic, this might be the rocket ship you wish to board.

Universal Audio UAFX Golden Reverberator

Universal Audio have their feet firmly planted in both the software effects plugins and hardware effects worlds, and the UAFX Golden Reverberator is evidence of why they belong in the latter and this best reverb pedal list. Here, UAD have produced a pedal that emulates guitar amp reverbs and classic studio sounds. So the hall, plate, and spring categories are to be expected then. The spring sounds are based on legendary Fender spring reverbs, while the plate tips its hat to the EMT 140 plate, and countless more. Frequency response control is very much at your disposal. The essential selling point is that this pedal emulates a fortune’s worth of classic reverbs into one £/$300 package. You can even download more reverbs from the UA Control app.

Strymon NightSky

The BigSky is Strymon’s flagship pedal, and its fans might even argue it is the flagship reverb pedal, forget it merely being amongst the 17 best reverb pedals. So what does the NightSky bring to the table? In short, if you love BigSky but want to go deeper and even more complex, the NightSky is its experimental sister. If you’re brand new to reverb pedals, this one might boggle your brain a bit. But if you’ve ever wished you could control every detail of a reverb tail, add step sequencing to your reverbs, and achieve sci-fi level shimmer sounds, then it might be time for you to venture into the night.

Strymon BigSky

It’s safe to say we’ve hyped this one up with several mentions already. But the BigSky’s reputation precedes it for a very good reason. Some of its users include Boygenius’ Julien Baker, Noel Gallagher, Paramore’s Taylor Yorke, and Matt Bellamy of Muse. Let’s get the two arguable downsides out of the way: it will take up more than the average amount of space on your pedalboard, and it will set you back around £/$400. But the scientific precision that Strymon has put into this thing, achieving 12 included reverb machines, and huge sounds that could equally be used in a shoegaze outfit or a huge-budget Hollywood production, make it very much worth it. You could spend the best part of a lifetime with the BigSky and still discover and create new sounds with it.

Eventide Space

Let’s gaze up to the stars one final time, with the Eventide Space rounding out this best reverb pedal compilation. It’s similarly expensive to the BigSky, but it’s also similarly beloved amongst synth and guitar players. Packed into this box are 12 effects from Eventide’s Eclipse V4 rackmount processors and the Eventide H8000FW. The fact this pedal delivers the quality of a reverb rackmount processor suddenly makes the price seem very reasonable indeed. Many of its sounds deliver huge creativity, joined with tremolo, modulation, pitch-shifting, delays, and spatial effects. There’s no question that this is one of the best reverb guitar pedals you can invest in.

What does a reverb pedal do?

The word space has come up many times in this article, purely because the purpose of a reverb pedal or reverb effect is to simulate space. In real life, a natural reverb is, for example, the echo you get when you shout ‘hello!’ in a cave or church. Before reverb effects units were developed, artists who wanted reverb in their recordings needed to seek out churches, halls, and cathedrals to get natural ambience.

It’s the role of a reverb pedal, then, to take an artist in a small bedroom, studio space, or gig venue, and make it sound like they are actually playing in one of the cacophonous spaces mentioned. Some of the pedals above take this a giant leap further, achieving reverbs that sound like they are several lightyears away.

You should hopefully now see that there really is a reverb pedal to suit every need and budget — whether you’re making singer-songwriter music or something vastly more psychedelic, one of the best reverb pedals above will take you to the soundscapes you wish to visit. Enjoy exploring infinity!

Further Reading

Best Guitar Distortion Pedals

Best Guitar Effects Pedals

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Words By
Adam Protz