I couldn’t believe there was no Sweetwater Memorial Day sale this year – until I saw up to 50% off guitar pedals and amps

Sweetwater Memorial Day Pedal & Amp sale: Up to 50% off
With a huge array of pedals and guitar amplifiers discounted for the Memorial Day weekend, there may not be a huge sale at Sweetwater but it’s certainly good for guitarists. We’ve spotted big discounts on well-known pedal brands like Earthquaker Devices, JHS, Walrus Audio, and many more, as well as some huge savings on guitar amps from the likes of Mesa/Boogie, Victory, Ashdown, and others.

If you want a distortion pedal that gets seriously loud, the Earthquaker Devices Acapulco Gold V2 lets you get properly heavy. It’s versatile too though, so whether you want shoegaze or doom tones you can get a great scope of distortion from clean-ish to fuzz-type tones. Despite just having a single large knob there’s a lot of variation available, particularly if you augment it with your guitar’s volume knob. With a nice $20.85 in the Sweetwater pedal sale it’s not huge money off, but enough to tip us over the edge.

Universal Audio pedals are typically pretty pricey, which makes this deal on the UAFX Orion tape delay pedal even more tempting. Reduced from $169 to just $99, it’s a superb imitation of the Echoplex EP-3, delivering beautiful tape tones with plenty of flutter or warble depending on how you set it. Like the Echoplex, it also has a built-in preamp, so you can use it as an always-on booster too.

As far as budget reverb pedals go, the Walrus Audio Fundamental Series Ambient is undoubtedly one of the best releases of recent times. Already competitively priced at just $99.99, it’s got a further $15 off at the moment, making it even better value for money. We found it super easy to get a great sound out of it, and the three modes offer a good range of tones for those who like ambient guitar sounds.

Read more: Walrus Audio Fundamental Ambient review

For those after a simple or first-time delay pedal, you can’t go wrong with the JHS 3-Series Delay. It beautifully bridges the gap between analog and digital delay sounds and while it may not have the bells and whistles of other more complex units, at this price you can’t really complain. With $19.80 off it’s well below the $100 mark, superb value for a delay pedal which is usually quite a bit costlier.

If you're looking for a good quality low gain overdrive, we think the J. Rockett Blue Note OD is a hugely underrated option. It's got a massive $100 discount at Sweetwater at the moment, so whether you want to use a pedal to push an amp harder, or add something into your gain stack to really deliver some satisfying saturation, the Blue Note OD is an excellent choice.

There are also some select deals on guitar amplifiers available at Sweetwater, and my head was instantly turned by a massive $360 discount on this Mesa/Boogie Mini Rectifier Twenty-Five. It may only be 25 watts but it still packs a huge punch, and its handy lunchbox head size makes it much easier to carry around to shows than a regular tube head. You can even dial it back to 10 watts when the engineer asks you to turn things down, making it super versatile for gigging musicians.