As guitar players, we are constantly looking for new and creative ways to express ourselves, with most of us turning to pedals to help us achieve weird and wonderful new sounds. Investing in one of the best pitch shifter pedals opens the door to one of the most dramatic effects you can apply to your electric guitar, giving you the ability to change the pitch of your input signal on a dime - resulting in some killer tones!
Many of the world's greatest guitar legends have used pitch shifting to devastating effect, with the likes of Tom Morello, Jack White, Mike Kerr and Joe Satriani taking full advantage of this powerful effect to create some of the most monstrous riffs of all time.
So if you're looking to beef up your riffs with a thick lower octave, take your lead lines to a whole new level, or add expressive dive bombs to your playing, then this guide to the best pitch shift pedals is most definitely for you.
Best pitch shifter pedals: Our top picks
Since Tom Morello showed its expressive power, the Whammy has been used again and again to define songs, albums and even whole discographies. Guitarists like Johnny Greenwood, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Matt Bellamy and Joe Duplantier use it in radically different ways.
If you're talking standard octaves rather than expressive pitch shifting, and doubly so if you're looking to add additional bass, the EHX Micro POG has long been a favorite of players in two- and three-piece bands.
TC Electronic is well known for its affordable, feature-heavy pedals and the Brainwaves pitch shifter proves just how much they can pack into a single stompbox. This clever little pedal houses four frequency-altering effects such as classic octaves, dual pitch shifting, harmonizer and doubling/chorus effects.
Best overall
Since Tom Morello showed its expressive power, the Whammy has been used again and again to define songs, albums and even whole discographies. Guitarists like Johnny Greenwood, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Matt Bellamy and Joe Duplantier use it in radically different ways.
Besides its pitch-shifting mode,the Digitech Whammy V has a whole host of harmony modes, a detune mode that's in practice more like a chorus effect, and a dive-bomb mode that simulates a Floyd Rose being pushed until the strings are slack.
It's polyphonic as well, in the modern, 'chords' mode. Though we prefer the glitchier, old school Whammy timbre of the 'classic' mode.
If you want a pedal where the only limit is your imagination, the Whammy V is it. It's a blank canvas for you to define with your guitar playing as you see fit.
Read our full Digitech Whammy review
Best compact
If you're talking standard octaves rather than expressive pitch shifting, and doubly so if you're looking to add additional bass, the EHX Micro POG has long been a favorite of players in two- and three-piece bands.
As soon as the Micro POG came out, it became a staple on math and post-rock pedalboards, as it was polyphonic, low-latency, clean and relatively affordable. The introduction of an even smaller version, the Nano POG, was a hit as soon as it was released.
If your bassist can't, or won't, turn up to practice, get one of these pitch shifter pedals and don't look back.
Best budget
TC Electronic is well known for its affordable, feature-heavy pedals and the Brainwaves pitch shifter proves just how much they can pack into a single stompbox. This clever little pedal houses four frequency-altering effects such as classic octaves, dual pitch shifting, harmonizer and doubling/chorus effects.
With dual voice controls, the Brainwaves allows you to dial in power chords, tri-octave leads, and stunning doubling effects easily and quickly - perfect for those looking to thicken up their sound.
The Mash switch allows pressure-sensitive expression that gives you access to everything from Rage Against The Machine style Whammy tricks to pedal-steel full step bends, as well as gravity-defying two-octave dive bombs - this cool feature is also programmable via the free TC TonePrint app.
Best for drop tuning
If you're specifically looking to drop tune a guitar with as little latency as possible, then the Digitech Drop is probably what you're looking for. At its less extreme settings it's pretty much artefact-free.
The tracking is very good on the whole, and it's not even that expensive – we're continually trying to work out what the catch is, other than that it only does one thing. That said, it does do that one thing incredibly well.
Best for harmony
What makes this harmony machine "intelligent" is its ability to take any played note and instantly pair it with a diatonic harmony based on the key selected on the pedal's interface. This feature also enables semitone bends while the harmony layer shifts up a tone to reach the nearest diatonic note. The polyphonic override mode disengages the scale quantizing for regular polyphonic pitch shifting, similar to the POG.
Blending the dry signal with the wet mix knob provides beautiful unison harmonies, and setting the pedal’s mix to full causes it to act like a virtual capo or drop tuner, pitching the entire instrument up or down by up to an octave in either direction.
By holding the momentary switch, the Intelligent Harmony Machine (IHM) can perform ”ballistic” pitch sweeps, with the length of the sweep controlled by a secondary function of the volume knob while the footswitch is engaged. In addition to pitch shifting, the IHM can create an instant stereo doubling effect by sending the affected audio to one output and the dry signal to the other – another added bonus of this pedal.
Best modern
Earthquaker Devices are back to their eccentric ways, unlocking surreal and synthetic tones through a joint venture with the boundary-pushing designers at Death by Audio. The Time Shadows II has been reintroduced to the market, with the original version initially released in 2020 as a limited run of 1000 units.
This pedal handles pitch shifting, pitch modulation, delay, and everything in between, offering programmable expression control over each of the front panel knobs: time, span (feedback), and a low pass filter. It comes with six preset banks, which can be overwritten to save your own sounds and expression routings.
The three toggle-between modes on the front panel include: EQD mode, which turns the pedal into a subharmonic pitch shifter, adding flange and ambience to the monstrous drop-tuned sound; !¡ mode, a pitch-warped delay; and DBA mode, a multi-delay filter modulation that spans from shimmers to cavernous delays.
Best vintage
Have you ever wished your favorite guitar had a Bigsby bridge? Thanks to Gamechanger Audio, you can now enjoy the iconic sound with their Bigsby pedal, without risking the feel and unique character of your prized instrument by installing hardware.
The Bigsby pedal allows you to achieve that classic sound: press towards the top of the pedal to raise the pitch or lean into the trem arm to dive into lush, detuned string tension release. The depth knob controls the detune range, allowing for anything from full octave bends to subtle vibrato. In addition to manual pitch shifting, the pedal can be set to trigger a continuous auto pitch wobble when pressed, with adjustable detune amount and vibrato rate.
Shark DSP processing emulates the distinctive effect of a Bigsby, replicating the characterful detuning of multiple strings.
Best pitch shifter pedals: Buying advice
Choosing the best pitch shifter pedal for you
You can trust Guitar World Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing guitar products so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
Even though analog octave pedals have been around since the 1960s, the pedal that truly kickstarted the pitch-shifting phenomenon was the glorious Digitech Whammy. With the advent of digital delay pedals, it became theoretically possible to repitch a note by altering sample duration, although it took some time to perfect the process.
Initially, the results were glitchy and strange – the correct note, but in a mangled, digitized form. Thanks to modern technology, it's now possible to achieve much cleaner-sounding pitch shifting without digital artifacts. However, some players prefer the glitchier sound for artistic reasons. For example, if you're using the pedal to drop-tune your guitar, you'd likely want as clean a sound as possible. Conversely, if you're in a math-rock band looking for extreme two-octave pitch jumps, a glitchier pitch shift might be more suitable.
Our guide to the best pitch shifter pedals covers all these bases. Generally, polyphonic pitch shifter pedals that can accurately shift more than one note tend to be less glitchy. However, each pedal will feel slightly different due to each manufacturer's unique pitch-shifting technology and even lo-fi artifacts that contribute to certain desired tones or timbres. For instance, the Whammy produces a warble, the Boss has an envelope similar to a flute, and the EHX resembles a bitcrush with a clinical edge – at least that's our take.
Beyond the glitchiness, it's worth considering whether the pedal has a harmony function. While pedals like the Whammy and Pitch Fork primarily shift the pitch of your guitar, they can also function as harmonizers. When combined with your playing style and artistic endeavors, each pedal can be seen through a lens of its own.
Do I need to think about control when choosing a pitch shifter pedal?
Yes! So your next decision when choosing the best pitch shifter pedal for you will be over how the pedal actually works. The Whammy is controlled by a rocker, like you'd find on a wah pedal, but that's far from the only control on offer…
The next most common control is a latching footswitch, where actuating the footswitch instantly shifts the input pitch to the target pitch and keeps it there until the pedal is disengaged. Most pedals that offer a latching mode also have a momentary mode, where the effect will only be active so long as the footswitch is held down – this is obviously a very expressive option.
More recently, pitch shifter pedals have added a 'ballistic' option that enables you to change the speed your input pitch changes to, and returns from, the target pitch.
Finally, the range of the pitch shifter is important – though plus or minus two octaves from the input note is the de facto standard, some pitch shifter pedals offer more or less, including additional modes like the Whammy's Dive Bomb.
Find out more about how we make our recommendations and how we test each of the products in our buyer's guides.
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