An effect you'll find on nearly all pedalboards, the best reverb pedals can be a subtle underpinning of your tone or the catalyst to send it into the stratosphere. Just as reverb is crucial to giving our lives figurative colour, so too is it crucial to giving our guitar tones the same. It is at once a practical utility and an opportunity for play, thanks to a broad spectrum of reverb pedals that offer spacey sounds both real and decidedly unreal.
If you want the best reverb pedal overall, check out the Strymon BigSky MX. It isn't cheap, but it encompasses pretty much any reverb tone you can possibly think of. If that sounds overwhelming or too expensive, have a look at the JHS 3 Series Reverb, which is available for just $99.
Whether it’s a subtle Fender-Twin-sy spring reverb adding some depth to your chords, or a stratospheric space-verb taking your tone to the fifth dimension, reverb is a non-negotiable addition to the modern pedalboard – and by no means in short supply, as evidenced by the smorgasbord of incredible reverb pedals found in this very guide.
If you have some unanswered questions about reverb or want to know a bit more about choosing the right pedal for you, you’ll find a bevy of advice at the bottom of this guide in the FAQs section. Otherwise, read on to discover the best reverb pedals on the market right now, as reviewed by Guitar World’s very own experts.
Best overall
Overview
Strymon’s name is rightfully and indelibly associated with ‘quality’; gigging musicians have turned to Strymon’s unassailable range of pro-quality products for years, with a slew of top-name and session guitarists swearing by their versatility live and in-studio. The BigSky reverb is one such workhorse – and it’s received a mega update.
Build quality
The BigSky MX is very well put together with an aluminum chassis that feels very robust. The knobs are solidly applied, and the screen is incredibly clear, whether in low light or direct sunlight. The white writing on the chassis is a bit hard to read in bright light, but otherwise it's clearly marked.
Usability
The Strymon BigSky MX is practically a BigSky remaster, with dramatically improved internal hardware and entirely new subsets of features. The bones of the BigSky remain, in its 12 powerful reverb algorithms and endless adjustability. There’s something new, though at every turn.
For one, there are seven new or updated reverbs to play with, one of which is the truly game-changing Impulse setting – an IR editor that places convolution reverb thrillingly at your feet. For another, your BigSky MX is actually two BigSkys, capable of engaging two reverbs at once, routed whichever way you like.
Sounds
The sound quality is absolutely incredible. Make no mistake, these are some of the best reverb algorithms you'll hear, and they cover the breadth from short rooms to ginormous washes of ambient reverb. There are some really cool pad sounds from the chorale, bloom, and cloud algorithms that are great for post-rock noodling.
You can also get more typical sounds out of it with the room tones, an excellent spring algorithm and a very usable plate tone. The new model also features impulse responses, so you can get the sound of any physical space from the confines of the pedal, whether it's your local church, and well treated concert hall, or just the weirdly shaped stairs in your flat.
"The Strymon BigSky MX is a worthy successor to arguably the most popular reverb pedal ever made. It’s not just a quick rehash either, with entire engines being rebuilt to improve the quality, and the addition of running dual algorithms seriously expanding the sound-sculpting possibilities. Despite the huge depth, it’s incredibly easy to edit and adjust sounds, which is the real strength of this pedal."
Read more: Strymon BigSky MX review
Watch our Strymon BigSky MX demo:
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Best budget
Overview
Costing just $99, the JHS 3 Series Reverb is the ideal budget reverb pedal for players who don't want to spend loads. It doesn't offer the huge number of features you get on other reverb pedals, but it's a super accessible pedal that will appeal to players who prefer simplicity.
Build quality
The 3 Series Reverb is housed in a durable enclosure with a textured matte-white powder coat that means it will put up with plenty of on-stage abuse. The aesthetic may put some players off, but I quite like the monochrome look of the pedal, and it actually stands out in the sea of black, grey, and blue of typical guitar pedals.
Usability
With just three knobs and a single switch, it's super easy to get started crafting sounds. I do wish the pre-delay switch was clearer for beginner players, but those with a more attuned ear will quickly pick up which position is which (up means the pre-delay is engaged). It's true bypass, so when you switch the pedal off, the reverb tails will cut off immediately.
Sounds
Despite being just a single algorithm, the 3 Series Reverb can deliver a surprisingly wide tonal palette. With it dialed back, there are some great medium room tones. Crank it, and you can get those huge washes of ambient reverb with tails lasting up to 15 seconds. The pre-delay is a really powerful addition, allowing you to put bags of reverb on your sound while still keeping that initial pick attack when you strike the string.
It’s hard to knock the JHS 3-Series Reverb when it’s so cheap and does its one job perfectly. I was surprised at how much variety of sound there is in it despite the simple design, and that’s exactly the thing that people will either love or hate about it. For beginners or those with simpler needs, this is a lot of pedal for just $99. It can go from barely there room sound to a drawn-out blooming reverberance, making it a very versatile option for those on a limited budget."
Read more: JHS 3 Series Reverb review
Watch our JHS 3 Series reverb demo:
Best beginner
Overview
Walrus Audio is a brand best known for its boutique output – but it’s recently brought its boutique expertise to the entry level, with an impressive roster of accessible pedals called the Fundamental Series.
Build quality
The Fundamental Reverb shares the same austere control surface as its siblings, bearing three slider pots and a three-way slider switch. The switch gives you access to three different reverb algorithms – Hall, Spring and Plate – each of which is bread-and-butter in its own right, and lush in its own way.
Usability
The basic controls make the Fundamental Reverb extremely beginner-friendly, and do not majorly impede more fidget-friendly players either. This is because the algorithms are stage-ready out of the box, and bad sounds are near-impossible to find within them. That said, more experienced players might miss being able to control each reverb’s damping.
Sounds
The Fundamental Reverb isn’t without its clever boutique-y touches, though, as evidenced by a smart trails-toggling parameter accessed by holding the footswitch down. As far as budget reverbs go, this is a highly practical utility with boutique-quality reverb algorithms – and an unmissable deal.
"Walrus Audio isn’t the first company to put a basic/budget range of pedals out recently, but the company has done it in the most stylish way. These Fundamental Series pedals look great, sound equally good and give you solid sonic alternatives in a single unit."
Read more: Walrus Audio Fundamental Reverb review
Watch our Walrus Audio Fundamental Reverb demo:
Best gigging
Overview
With a modest price tag and compact size, the Electro-Harmonix Oceans 11 is an incredibly powerful reverb pedal that's a great option for gigging guitar players. With 11 sounds, it can cover pretty much any reverb tone you can think of, from short rooms to massive walls of ambience.
Build quality
It feels gig-ready despite being small, and the multi-colored LED is a great visual cue as to what the pedal is actually doing. It makes it well-suited to dark stages, and you get an extra jack for connecting an additional footswitch for tap tempo or a momentary switch.
Usability
On the surface, it's quite a simple pedal, but there's a lot of depth here. The 11-way rotary switch controls the sounds, while the mode button lets you cycle through variations, as well unlocking secondary functions for the time and tone knobs. There's no screen, so you need to use your ears for this pedal, and it also has an internal switch to activate trails.
Sounds
The sound quality is superb, with studio-grade, noise-free algorithms that compete with huge reverb workstations. The spring mode is incredibly authentic, and I really love the shimmer sound. The polyphonic mode offers dual pitch shifting for huge synth pad sounds, meaning it can cater to traditional and experimental users.
"The Electro-Harmonix Oceans 11 is a reverb pedal that truly does it all, from standard reverbs with studio sound quality to sophisticated synth-like effects previously only found on much more expensive products."
Read the full Electro-Harmonix Ocean's 11 review
Watch our Electro-Harmonix Oceans 11 demo:
Best IR Reverb
Overview
Hotone’s NC-200 Verbera is an exhilarating glimpse into the future of the pedalboard, having achieved something incredible. It’s a dual-engine reverb, one half of which is a fully-featured convolution reverb. Up until relatively recently, proper IR capability in a guitar pedal has been a bit of a pipe dream. But here, with 10 seconds of stereo tails or 20 seconds in mono, we are welcomed to the world of tomorrow.
Build quality
The Verbera feels very solid and well constructed, with solid switches and knobs. The footswitches are soft and satisfying to press down, but I'm not sure about the inputs at the bottom of the pedal for MIDI jacks. It means it will take up more space on a pedalboard, and could result in you accidentally stepping on them in a live scenario.
Usability
For the uninitiated, convolution reverbs use impulse responses (IRs) – recordings of sharp sounds or sine sweeps in physical spaces – to ‘steal’ the character of the space and apply it to new sounds in real time. The Verbera comes with 120 pre-loaded IRs of huge spaces, rare plate reverbs, and more. And there are 1024 more spaces for IRs of your own (which, incidentally, you can make from scratch using the pedal’s cloning function). And that’s not even half of it.
Sounds
The other half of the pedal is Hotone’s XR algorithmic reverb, which can be blended in with your IR verb/space design to expand its capabilities even further; this algo verb also has freeze, too. There is, of course, expression control, trails switching, stereo I/O and everything else that makes for a contemporary pedalboard heavyweight. This is a hard prospect to pass up, particularly if you’re a fan of ‘real’ spaces as guitar verbs.
"Simple to use, built to last, and with tones that would make pedals twice this price jealous, there’s really not a lot to dislike about this pedal. Okay, I’m not really a fan of the locations of the MIDI in and outs, but it’s a small issue in an otherwise flawless pedal."
Read more: Hotone NC-200 Verbera review
Watch our Hotone NC-200 Verbera demo:
Best ambient
Overview
Less a reverb pedal and more an experimental workstation for reverb synthesis, the Strymon NightSky is the ideal tool for players who want to get ambient and experimental. It's probably too out there for your working, gigging player, but if you want reverb tones hitherto unexplored, this is the pedal you should go for.
Build quality
Like all Strymon pedals, this is a gig-ready workhorse housed in an aluminum enclosure that's robustly put together. The knobs are responsive and tactile, and the footswitches are designed to withstand years of abuse on stages or in the studio.
Usability
It looks daunting at first sight, but actually the NightSky is surprisingly easy to use. Strymon has gone for a hands-on approach with its pedals, so the majority of controls are present in the knobs on the front of the chassis rather than being hidden in menus. The footswitches are multi-functional, too, so you can hold them down to morph between alternate sets of knob positions.
Sounds
There are three core reverb textures which may not sound like much, but they each offer a huge amount of manipulation options. You can change room size, pitch, harmonic content, distortion levels, and loads more to craft sounds that border on synth-like tones. The infinite freeze is a super useful function, making it perfect for experimental playing.,
"A reverb unit for the sonically intrepid, consider the Strymon NightSky the Starship Enterprise for interstellar adventures to seek out new dimensions of ambience."
Read more: Strymon NightSky review
Best spring
Overview
There are compact reverb pedals out there that do it all: all-singing, all-dancing digital affairs with unreadable visual displays and increasingly convoluted menus to navigate. While some such reverbs are well-deserving of attention and accolade, sometimes it’s a breath of fresh air to see something tiny do one thing well – and in the case of Danelectro’s Spring King Junior, it’s remarkable that it’s capable of doing this one thing at all.
Build quality
Most genuine spring reverb pedals are big to house the physical springs, but the Spring King Junior is a teeny tiny pedal. It's smaller than your typical Boss stompbox, meaning it will easily fit on pretty much any pedalboard.
Usability
The Danelectro Spring King Junior is, like its big brother, a spring reverb pedal. And not just that, but a real spring reverb pedal. No digital algorithm, no separate and secondary spring tank to buy, no approximative tomfoolery. But how?! The answer is a clever combination of a miniature three-spring Accutronics-Belton tank and a delay chip to lend some length.
Sounds
It’s not a Fender Twin’s reverb in a box, and it’s certainly not Explosions In The Sky. But what it is is a phenomenal rough-and-ready splatty ‘verb that’ll do exactly what you want any tasteful spring sound to do. And you can kick it for that chaotic crashing sound, too.
"What’s not to like about proper spring reverb that should easily fit on any pedalboard? In our view, not a lot: the Spring King Junior is a solid implementation of a great idea."
Read more: Danelectro Spring King Junior review
Also tested
For us, the pedals we've listed above are the best of the best. That said, we've tested loads of different reverb pedals so if you're looking for something a little different, here are some more of our favorites.
Glossary of terms
- Algorithm: The code that digital reverb pedals use to simulate certain sounds.
- Buffered bypass: When the pedal is switched off the buffer keeps the circuit active. Needed for trails or spillover.
- Church: A type of reverb that simulates playing in a cathedral or church.
- Convolution reverb (impulse response): A type of reverb that uses digital audio snapshots to clone the reflections or real world spaces or specific gear.
- Decay (time): A control o na reverb pedal that determines how long it lasts before fading to silence.
- Hall: A popular reverb type that simulates a concert hall or large room.
- MIDI: A digital communication protocol that lets you connect a reverb pedal to external controllers.
- Mix (blend): A knob that controls how much 'dry' signal - your unaffected guitar tone - versus the 'wet' reverb signal.
- Plate: Another popular reverb type based on old reverbs created by hanging a sheet of metal and sending vibrations through it
- Pre-delay: A control that adds a small bit of silence between when you pluck the string and the reverb starts. Helps if the reverb is overpowering your string attack.
- Shimmer: Another popular reverb type that puts the tail through a pitch shifter, creating a synth pad type reverb that's in tune with your notes.
- Spring: One of the first types of reverb that was often found in guitar amps which used actual metal springs.
- Stereo: Stereo pedals let you split your signal left and right into separate amps or recording channels for 3D sounds.
- Tone (damping): Adjusts the EQ of the reverb tail to make it darker or brighter.
- Trails (spillover): A feature that lets the reverb tail continue when switching the pedal off or changing preset.
- True bypass: When the pedal is switched off the circuit is disengaged completely, keeping your tone pure but preventing trails or spillover.
How to choose
If you’re a bread-and-butter guitarist looking for a pedalboard-based alternative to the sparse, quintessential amp-verb sounds of Stevie Ray Vaughan or Mark Knopfler, you’ll need little more than a decent spring reverb emulator. Many less-featured or entry-level reverb pedals have a spring reverb patch included, and the few controls they possess are generally more than enough – providing the patch itself sounds to your liking.
If you play a little more broadly, then you’ll want a multi-effect reverb pedal with different options or patches. Ask yourself what kind of sounds you’d like to choose between, and what parameters you’d like to be able to change. Would you like to be able to set presets, too, or are you content with noodling around the knobs and switches?
If you’re hoping to take your playing off into the stratosphere, then you won’t be too fussed about accurate room- or amp-sound reverbs; instead, you’ll be looking for a more esoteric ambient or pad reverb pedal. These kinds of pedals have super-long tails, and often feature a ‘freeze’ or ‘hold’ function that can be used to create an endless bed of ‘verb. In pedals like these, tone controls are vital, as they help you sculpt a non-intrusive verby fog for your playing to float over, under or between.
FAQs
What does a reverb pedal do?
The reverb pedal is, in essence, a space simulation station. Natural reverbs are the result of sound bouncing off reflective surfaces; reverb pedals use a variety of methods to create an artificial version of this effect, giving the illusion that you’re playing in anything from a small, pingy room to a huge, boomy cathedral. Some reverb pedals go even further beyond, creating completely impossible spaces with additional effects like chorus, reverse-sample playback and octave-shifting.
What makes a good reverb pedal?
No two pedalboards are quite the same, and there’s no universal answer when it comes to choosing a reverb pedal to add to your own chain. The sheer variety of reverb pedals on the market today can be daunting, but the potential they represent is thrilling.
Ultimately, there’s no real right or wrong when it comes to picking your own reverb. Your best bet for making the ‘right’ decision is to listen to some pedals in action. Ask yourself whether you like what you’re hearing, and whether you’ll like it against the sounds you already utilise.
As a professional guitarist with studio sessions or live shows coming up, you might have some cause to concern yourself with specifications like sample rate or processing power – but even the most sought-after session musicians in the world don’t let ‘bad’ specs get in the way of a good sound. So go forth, and get lost! (in reverb.)
Where does reverb go in the pedal chain?
We always like to say there are no hard and fast rules on where you should place your pedals, but if you’re new to reverb, we’d start by placing it at the end of your chain. Reverb is designed to simulate space, and spaces usually hear the sound coming from your amp.
With this in mind, putting your reverb at the end of your chain is the closest you’ll get to that same effect. All the better if your amp has an effects loop, which can be used to place your reverb (and other time-based effects) after your amp’s pre-amp and EQ stages for a cleaner, more controlled result. However, placing your reverb earlier in your chain can yield uniquely exciting results.
Placing your reverb before other modulation effects lets you effect the tails of your ‘space’, leading to a more cohesive and dynamic sound. Placing a reverb before your dirt stage can give you colorful grit, or blown-out shoegaze-y soundscape a la Kevin Shields.
Experimentation will yield wildly different results based on the contents of your own pedalboard, so don’t be afraid to move things around in the name of science!
What are the key differences between different reverb pedals?
The vast majority of reverb pedals you will encounter are digital reverb pedals. This means they use digital signal processing technology, or DSP, to create their reverb effects. Digital signals are ‘verbed in two main ways – algorithmic reverb, and convolution reverb.
Analog reverb pedals are far less common, but by no means impossible to find. Analog reverb effects are achieved by routing an analog audio signal through a resonant material or assembly, the most famous example of which is spring reverb. Good spring reverbs are usually both sizeable and costly, but innovation continues even in this most old-school of fields, with the likes of Gamechanger Audio re-inventing analog spring reverb for a new generation.
What is the difference between algorithmic and convolution reverb?
Algorithmic reverbs, up until very recently, were the primary form of digital reverb in pedal form. They use calculus to create artificial spaces with near-limitless possibilities, combining numerous timed delays with banks of filters to sculpt the sound’s reflections and tails.
Convolution reverbs, meanwhile, are reverbs created from real-life samples of reverberant spaces. Impulse responses (IRs) are audio files comprising a short, percussive noise or sine-wave sweep and a space’s resulting reverb – which a convolution plugin can then combine with your signal, making it sound as if you’re playing in the very same space.
Convolution reverb is a computationally-taxing process, and until recently only short IR samples could be used in pedals (i.e.: guitar cabinet simulators). Now, leaps in microprocessor design have allowed the power of convolution reverb to come to the guitar pedal – with Strymon’s BigSky MX the biggest example of its pedal potential so far.
Convolution reverbs are ideal for simulating a real space, but algorithmic reverbs can create unreal spaces – and are responsible for quintessential ambient and ethereal reverbs, like the Eventide Space’s craziest patches.
Why are reverb pedals so expensive?
Unfortunately, reverb is one of the most expensive effects out there and this is because of the computational power that’s required to take your guitar’s signal, simulate it being played through digital space, and play it back at you, all in real-time. A mixture of complex algorithms and powerful computer chips is required to handle this workload and still deliver a top-quality tone, hence the associated cost. If you’re on a budget, not all is lost though, there are some budget reverb pedals available if you look hard enough that still deliver a great sound.
Are reverb pedals worth it?
In our opinion, absolutely yes. Reverb is probably the most used effect in the whole of music and was certainly one of the first effects that were ever used. Way back when loudspeakers were being played into a recording studio's bathroom to create a sense of space, right through to today’s wild soundscapes that are possible thanks to advanced digital signal processing, reverb is a must-have effect for any guitar player. It is an investment, but trust us, it’s totally worth it.
Are all reverb pedals digital?
Reverb is, for the most part, a digital effect. This is because for it to be analog, you’d need something physical to play your sound through. Early reverb effects, like plate reverb, required large metal sheets through which the sound was played. Echo chambers had sounds played into them, which were then captured by a microphone and added to the dry signal to create a sense of space on the recording. In most cases, you might imagine the inconvenience of incorporating analog reverbs such as these into anything but a studio workflow.
Of course, that’s not the whole story for analog reverb – being that there’s one highly portable type that we’ve touched on already: spring reverb. Spring reverbs have been used in guitar amps for decades, and still are today; they are idiosyncratic, but portable and even somewhat flexible.
Spring reverbs are a popular choice, then, for pedal brands to interpret and iterate upon in service of bringing analog sound straight to your pedalboard. There are pedals that act as drivers for a separate spring tank, enabling you to plug in different-sized tanks for different sounds. There are pedals that take the spring principle and put a twist on it, like Gamechanger Audio’s Light reverb. And finally, there are pedals that stubbornly stuff spring tanks directly in their chassis – an unlikely, but highly fun, result, exemplified by Danelectro’s Spring King Junior.
How we test reverb pedals
When testing any reverb pedal we like to put it through a rigorous process that would simulate exactly how any guitarist would use it. As guitarists ourselves, this might mean putting it on our own 'board, taking it to rehearsals and shows, as well as using it for recordings too.
We like to get straight to business when testing a pedal, so we start off by hooking it up to our pedalboard and seeing how it works off the bat. We're looking at whether it's easy to dial in sounds, how you can configure things on the fly, and whether or not everything is clearly marked.
Of course, some reverb pedals are far more complex than others, so we may need to dive into the manual on those units. But ultimately what we're trying to find out is how usable it is for the average guitarist, whether you're one to look at a manual or not.
We'll test all of the available sounds on both clean and dirty guitar tones, using our keenly trained ears to determine how well they react to different effects. We'll try various blends from a touch of 'verb to full-on Kevin Shields-style reverse reverb tricks if the pedal is capable, making certain we've covered every sound possible.
We'll also look to see how well the controls can affect the sound, whether that's sculpting via EQ or adding modulation. Reverb can be a very consuming effect so it's important to see how flexible a particular pedal can be, particularly when integrating with dirty guitar tones.
Finally, we'll look at the build quality of the unit. Ultimately we're trying to determine how well it will put up with life on the road, as many of these pedals will be used for live guitar playing. We'll check over each pedal in detail to ensure it can put up with plenty of use and abuse, as well as using it ourselves at live shows or in rehearsals to see how it deals with the pressure.
Read more about how we test products and services and how we make our recommendations.
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