18 Best Boutique Guitar Pedals and Companies

There was a time when boutique guitar pedals weren’t even on my radar.

When I was young we had a Musician’s Friend mail order catalog. They carried all the major pedal brands and that was all I knew. My world of guitar pedals was strictly limited to those catalogs and major manufacturers.

Not to say there’s anything wrong with mainstream companies (some mainstream companies are also considered boutique).

They’re “mainstream” for a reason. Namely, because they make great pedals that have withstood the test of time, generating enough revenue and demand to require factory-style production.

The Boutique Guitar Pedals Scope

But in this case, I’m going to focus specifically on the boutique pedal companies, large and small. Because there are a lot of them. They’re different then the major retailers in that many of them hand-make their products, adding tweaking and features that you can’t get from any of the factory-based effects.

And thanks to the internet, we’ve got unfettered access to most boutique pedal makers, many of which are worth our time and attention. Perhaps, even our money.

This is still just their mainline set and doesn’t even get into the custom galleries, which are updated every year.

ZVEX takes it one step further and provides a custom artwork option:

Quick quiz: Where does the name ZVEX come from? A dude named Zachery Vex, who is referred to by some as “the mad scientist,” is the brains and name behind the company. The pedal lineup just looks fantastic, while the sound quality and individual attention of each effect brings tons of value to the table.

If money grew on trees, I’d grab up the Fat Fuzz Factory.

Black Cat Pedals got started in 1993, then went through a reboot around 2007. However, their pedals are still handmade in the United States, just as prior. I found this excerpt from their about page quite interesting:

Black Cat Pedals are hand built at the FMO Gear Shop, a 1500 square foot workshop/office/gear demo space located in Foxon, CT, Southern New England, USA. On most days you can find Tom, Greg, Donato, and Sara all working at the shop. They are often joined by any number of recurring helpers, visitors and assorted characters, such as Keyboard Mike, Pablo X, Gabriel Scrole n’ Beans, Hugo, the Mayor, Dump Boy, Dave the mailman, and Delia.

Keyboard Mike sounds intriguing. Why would he be a regular at a guitar pedal shop? We may never know. But you’ve got to like the mom-n-pops vibe of this Connecticut-based company. You can also count on a quality product from these guys since everything is handmade in-house and ships to a reputable list of dealers. Their inventory is limited, comprised mostly of overdrives and a few wah pedals.

But I’d rather see a pedal company do a few things well as opposed to spreading themselves too thin. For my own pedalboard, I’d take the Black Cat Vibe. Features include a chorus/vibrato switch, hand-wiring, expression pedal support and an included AC adapter.

Everything Red Witch makes is analog. The company itself is based in New Zealand, self-identifying as a small operation. However, their products are readily available and can be found at the national retail level. Their warranty situation is a little complex, but quite good. All electronics are covered under a lifetime warranty while the entire pedal comes with a 12-month warranty. Full pedal coverage is expandable to 48-months, at an additional cost to the buyer.

They produce a full-range of effects, though I’m particularly interested in their Empress Chorus, which is from their premium pedal line. It’s also one of their more popular mainline offerings. At nearly 300 dollars it is, perhaps, one of the more expensive chorus pedals in existence. However, that’s the price you pay for amazing tone, analog circuitry and premium components.

Voicing and a litany of customization options give you a level of control over your sound that isn’t often available in chorus pedals.

Here’s what Guitar Player had to say about it back in 2008:

“The Empress is a three-dimensional modulation machine, and when you couple its vast array of sounds with absolutely wicked construction – and some cool graphics – you’ve got one of the drippiest sounding chorus/vibrato pedals ever made.” (Guitar Player, May 2008, Empress Chorus)

What a name, huh? This company doesn’t have as much name-recognition as some of the brands we’ve already mentioned. But if you look at their about page (contact page) they’re a self-described group of enthusiastic sound engineers and signal processing gurus who set out to make great-sounding guitar pedals and gear.

And as I previously stated, we do not discriminate based on company “vastness.” From their Facebook page we can place them at Norman Oklahoma where their pedals are handmade. True bypass and 9V power supplies ship with all Walrus Audio pedals, which include the following:

• Voyager
• Iron Horse
• Jupiter
• Mayflower
• Deep Six
• Plainsman
• Harvester (limited)
• Janus
• Descent

Other products include power supplies and channel switchers. It’s worth mentioning, the artistry is also quite impressive.

You can buy direct from their site, but they also seem to have a strong presence on Amazon where used prices could save you some money, depending on the day. I’m most intrigued by their reverb offering. The art is fantastic and the control options are the most extensive I’ve ever seen on a reverb pedal.

Diamond Pedals doesn’t reveal a lot about themselves on their website. I suppose they’re just all business and no fuss. Aside from being a small team comprised of an electrical engineer, electronics technologist and a few others, Diamond Pedals seems like a fairly basic outfit. That’s a good thing. And it’s certainly not to say they’re doing anything wrong. An impressive list of dealers is all you would need to confirm they’re doing good business and making great products.

Their line is robust, touching on all the basic effects categories and even providing a custom shop portion where you can email with your own ideas on the following:

• Paint Jobs
• Knob Placement
• Remote/Expression Pedal Jacks

Their tremolo pedal (TRM1) is one of my favorites as it combines an analog signal path with a microprocessor. This gives you features like the tap tempo, timing accents and waveform selections.

What’s really impressive about this brand is that every aspect of the company is run by one dude named Matt Johnson.

He lives and works in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, where he builds all of his pedals by hand in true boutique fashion. What a job that must be, especially when your company’s name is on the Guitar Center boutique pedals list.

How in the world does he keep up? But hey, if his artists page has anything to say about it, he’s handling the responsibility just fine. The paint jobs on these pedals are really intriguing.

Per the Pigtronix about page, design, manufacturing and distribution all happen under one roof. That roof is located in Long Island, New York and is quickly becoming one of the more popular names in the world of boutique guitar pedals. Their notable endorsements include the following:

• The Police
• The Mars Volta
• Buddy Mill
• Primus
• The Roots

Their complete artist list is one of the most impressive I’ve seen from a boutique pedal company. Among their list of products are some distinctly unique pedals like the Echolution delay, the Bass Station looper and the Keymaster Effects Mixer. Pigtronix has established an inventory that is truly one-of-a-kind and not easily replicated among other boutique pedal companies.

The only downside to all this guitar-pedal-gravitas is the ensuing price tags. Pigtronix effects pedals are not cheap.

The Echolution 2 Ultra Pro clocks in at $450, while the SPL Looper and EP2 Envelope Phaser sit at $450 and $220 respectively. Some of their smaller pedals dip down to the $100-$150 area, but they’re not the norm. True bypass and analog circuitry come standard, while most pedals have a specific designer for both circuitry and sound. The Echolution 2 Ultra Pro is perhaps their most intriguing offering, combining analog circuitry with digital processing to give you a ton of control over vintage-style electronics.

The pedal allows you to combine delay with a fully-customizable array of modulation, filters and pitch-shifting effects. It’s one of the single, most powerful stompboxes I’ve ever seen.

An 8-bit synthesizer, a dual-interstellar overdrive and three different fuzz pedals all suggest that DBA is going for a less-is-more approach when it comes to their pedal inventory. That said, they do have a substantial presence with major retailers, including Amazon, where their prices vary between $150 and $300. Detailed explanations of each product can be found on their website, though it curiously doesn’t specify true bypass.

As a subset of Jim Dunlop (Crybaby Wah anyone?) Way Huge has become a common mainstream effects brand, while still maintaining the distinction of a boutique product. Black Stone Cherry’s Chris Robertson runs the Swollen Pickle on his board, which you can see pictured below:

Mad Professor is a company based out of Finland that, in addition to guitar pedals, dabbles in bass pedals and amp building. They actually have two different stompbox lines:

• Handwired
• Factory

On their FAQ page, they explain the reasoning for making both types of pedals and state that the two are essentially the same.

Robert Keeley got his start in the early ‘90s and has since built his pedal engineering business into one of the country’s largest and most respected retailers of boutique guitar gear. In addition to a comprehensive products list of his own, Keeley also has a section of his website devoted to Boss and Ibanez pedal mods.

Artists include John Petrucci, Devin Townsend, Dweezil Zappa and a number of others.

You can buy direct from Keeley’s website, though he also has a national retail presence.

The Neutrino Optocoupler is an interesting offer, combining sounds of an envelope filter and auto wah that responds to the strength and heaviness of your picking (responsiveness is a hallmark feature of Keeley’s pedals). Pricing is decent, hovering between $150 and $200 for most boxes.

Also note that Keeley’s pedals all ship with a one year parts and labor warranty.

You’ve probably seen the Tonebone Trimode distortion pedal. That’s Radial. 

And outside of pedals they actually do quite a lot.

They make IO boxes, effects interfaces, splitters and a number of other sound engineering devices. So they aren’t what I would consider your typical boutique shop. They’re also not small. Having developed a national retail presence and nabbed Eric Johnson for their client list, Radial is one of the big kids on the block. Being around since 1991 also helps give them some seniority.

The Tonebone is their most popular and recognizable product, featuring two channels with 2AX7-equipped tube distortion and true bypass. You can checkout a ton of different settings and presets via the Radial website:

T-REX has a beautiful website with a substantial inventory of pedals. They also make their own pedalboards called ToneTrunk. Cables and power supplies are manufactured in-house and sold to the general public. The “webshop” has additional sections for parts, fuses, power supplies and other merchandise.

As a company, they originated in 1996 behind the brains of engineers (and guitar players) Lars Dahl and Sebastian Jensen.

They’ve since built a thriving business, where the Fuel Tank power supply is actually one of their more popular products.

Celestial Effects is an American company that manufactures their pedals in what they’re calling a “repeatable” environment. Since there’s no mention of handmade pedals on their site (at least not as far as I could tell) it’s a safe assumption that this is more of a factory operation.

However, their inventory is small and they do claim to have in-house electronics experts. The Zodiac Series is the only pedal line and it includes the following:

• Scorpio Super Boost
• Aquarius Fuzz
• Virgo Rock Overdrive
• Capricorn Rock Distortion
• Taurus Blues Overdrive
• Aries Beast Distortion
• Cancer Wah the Fuzz?
• Gemini VTR

You can buy direct from the Celestial website or in some cases find Celestial’s products on Amazon. The reviewers portion of their website might also be helpful to prospective buyers, as they keep an archive of pedal reviews that have featured Celestial Effects.

Analog Alien has a healthy list of dealers, both inside and outside of the United States. Their inventory is small, including only a handful of pedals, one of which is a channel switcher. Here are a few of the most popular boxes:

• Alien Bass Station (ABS)
• Rumble Seat
• FuzzBubble-45
• Alien Twister
• Alien Switcher

It’s unclear from their website whether these pedals are made by hand, but my suspicion is that they would be, considering it’s such a small list of products. You can buy the pedals on the website (via PayPal) and (surprisingly) major retailers like Amazon as well.

My pick would have to be the Rumble Seat effects pedal, which is actually a combination overdrive, delay and reverb all-in-one stompbox.

Pretty interesting stuff.

Barber Electronics looks to be a tiny operation but, their artist list would say otherwise:

• Joe Satriani
• Bruce Springsteen
• Eric Johnson
• Jerry Cantrell

And that’s just to name a few. They describe their pedals as handmade and use the term “musician-friendly pricing” to describe cost, per their about page. As far as inventory, they keep it simple with just a handful of pedals:

1. Gain Changer
2. Compact Direct Drive
3. Parallel Compressor
4. Burn Unit EQ
5. Dirty Bomb Distortion
6. Custom Dual Discrete Overdrives

Each pedal is made one at a time and given individual attention, which makes it even more surprising that most of their boxes are priced under $200. The dual-channel Burn Unit EQ would be my first pick.

These pedals are handmade on United States soil in Akron Ohio. Pricing is all over the place, with some boxes dipping under $100 while others break the $300 mark. Part of the varying price tags is due to a rather substantial inventory list that includes over 30 guitar pedals. That might be the highest number I’ve seen yet in a boutique company.

So you’ve got options.

Products can be purchased directly through the site or via Amazon. From their Delay & Reverb page, you’ve got to go with the Disaster Transport Sr. which is a dual-channel delay with reverb and modulation included.

This is one of the more stacked delay pedals I’ve seen.

The XTS Imperial overdrive is a good look, with a low-gain and high-mid EQ.

A dynamic (DYN) switch and touchy COLOR knob (which is the pedal’s basic EQ) allows you to be as subtle or aggressive with the gain as you like.

True-bypass gets a check mark as well.

Not Just Small Companies

Boutique doesn’t necessarily mean “small.”

Keep in mind, Electro-Harmonix and Jim Dunlop would be considered boutique and are hardly mom-n-pops operations.

So we’ll look at offerings from everywhere, without regard to the size of the company.

Let’s look at this as a boutique guitar pedals online orientation, ideal for those who want to get a feel for what’s available in the world of hand-painted stompboxes, analog circuitry and true bypass.

What Else is Out There?

Something about guitar pedals is just a lot of fun.

And with the internet making retailers, shops and online stores so readily available, we can now have access to more boutique pedal makers than ever before.

People know that, so electrical engineers and music enthusiasts are teaming up all over the place to make and sell their pedals, garnering varying degrees of notoriety.

So if you want to own a unique pedal that perhaps no one you know has ever heard of, it’s easy to do.

A few other notable boutique guitar pedal companies would include:

• Maxon
• Fuchs
• Rivera
• HAO

You could go crazy trying to sort out all the brands and options available to you.

That’s not even considering the numerous mom-n-pops style pedal makers that can be found through some curious Google searches.

There are diamond’s in the rough all over the place.

You’ve just got to look.

Should I buy all boutique guitar pedals?