Guitar pedals are a great holiday stocking stuffer – and these seven are some of the best on the market

2021 has seen the release of some amazing new pedals. While many of them make great stocking stuffers for the guitarist in your life, after you hear the features that some of the best ones have to offer, you might just want to pick one out to add to your own pedalboard. 

From new, realistic tube distortion to new digital algorithms, each of these exciting new (and less recently-released) stompboxes brings something new to the table. Some of their features don’t even extend only to effects – some can model iconic amps and cabinets, and let you record direct, while others support software plugins. 

Whether you’re planning on gifting or receiving a pedal this holiday season though, the Guitar World team – led by Paul Riario – is here to help. 

No matter what sound you happen to be chasing, we guarantee that one of these seven pedals will have you rockin’ around your Christmas tree.

Blackstar – Dept. 10 Dual Drive 

Blackstar’s new Dept. 10 Dual Drive, Dual Distortion and Dual Boost pedals are among the most advanced valve pedals in the world. Featuring a real ECC83 triode valve, and a design that allows the tubes within to be run at more than 200 volts internally, these pedals truly nail the classic tube dynamics and controlled break up.

Looking deeper at the Dual Drive, it features two channels with two voices per channel. Channel 1 offers players basic Clean and Crunch modes, while channel 2 offers more aggressive Crunch and OD modes for increased gain. 

The pedal also has Cab Rig, a next-generation DSP speaker simulator that reproduces the sound and feel of a mic’d up guitar cab in incredible detail.

For recording, players can use Dual Drive’s included software to capture all of its sounds via low-latency USB, XLR D.I. out or a stereo 1/4" headphone output. All of this connectivity, plus a built-in 3-band EQ and FX Loop, makes this pedal an ideal choice for a valve interface for recording, or to add that great valve tone and drive to your pedalboard on stage.

The Dual Drive and other Blackstar Dept. 10 pedals ring up at $299.99, and are available now via Blackstar. 

Red Panda – Raster 2  

Red Panda manufactures DSP-based pedals for the experimentally-minded musician that combine modern signal processing techniques with the character of classic digital hardware so you can warp, twist and bend your sound in new ways, while still sounding fully musical and in control of your sound.

Red Panda’s Raster 2 pitch-shifted delay is a stereo digital delay with pitch and frequency shifter functions that can deliver almost magical harmonizing delays, micro pitch shifting, phase-shifted repeats, arpeggios and much more.

This year’s updated Raster offers players longer delay time, modulation, presets, MIDI, and stereo input and outputs. Its layout boasts six knobs and nine switches that allow players to utilize – and mix and match – as many classic rack-mount digital delay effects as they please. 

The Raster 2 is available now – for $299 – from Red Panda. 

Strymon Iridium  

The remarkable, amp-modeling Strymon Iridium is the first pedal-sized device to feature three of the most iconic tube amplifiers in history – the Fender Deluxe, Vox AC30 and Marshall 1959 Plexi Superlead.

With the Iridium, players also get a carefully curated collection of impulse response-based speaker cabinets, adjustable true room ambience, realistic compression, multi-stage amp sag, limited speaker cone movement, and high output speaker distortion. 

Best of all, control is handled from a simple interface that doesn't require a screen or a computer to operate, so the Iridium feels and works just like a traditional amp.

Sound purists will appreciate the high-quality 24bit/96K specs of the pedal. It can pump out a full-resolution sound throughout the entire 500 milliseconds of speaker impulse response. 

A combination of true Stereo In and Out, USB, TRS MIDI control, and 300 useful presets make integration with the rest of your rig a cinch. The TRS MIDI jack can be used for bi-directional MIDI control or an expression pedal, while the onboard Favorite Switch gives users two presets to switch between without needing any external control.

The Iridum comes loaded with impulse responses from the likes of Celestion, Valhallir, cabIR, and Ownhammer, while users can also load their own using the free Impulse Manager software. Users can also – to run the Iridium into the power amp return of a tube amp – disable them completely. 

For even more flexibility, amp modeling can also be disabled, so guitarists can just use the pedal as an impulse response player. 

At $399, the Iridium is a do-it-all stompbox that provides buyers with incredible value for the money 

The Iridium is available now from Strymon.

IK Multimedia – AmpliTube X-Gear pedals

IK Multimedia has brought its virtual AmpliTube software into the real world with four new AmpliTube X-Gear pedals: X-Drive for (distortion,) X-Vibe for (modulation,) X-Time (delay) and X-Space (reverb.) 

Each of these boutique, audiophile-grade pedals is priced at $299 and features 16 different effects – a mix of favorites from the most popular AmpliTube models and some all-new reverb and delay algorithms. 

X-Gear pedals include a matching X-Gear plug-in for Mac or PC to use with IK’s AmpliTube 5 software. The X-Gear Preset Manager lets users move presets between X-Gear pedals and AmpliTube, then easily reorganize them on the hardware pedal, where up to 300 presets can be stored. That way, the same great sounds you create in the studio can be right there on your pedalboard whenever you need them.

Taking a closer look at the four pedals, you’ll see that they cover four realms of guitar effects: X-Drive and X-Vibe offer a range of iconic, must-have analog distortion and modulation effects. X-Time and X-Space, meanwhile, boast cutting-edge, studio-grade delay and reverb effects algorithms to fuel your creative side.

With the X-Gear pedals’ built-in USB audio interface, recording is easy. With high quality audio sampling and a frequency response of 5Hz to 24kHz, you can capture your bass or guitar perfectly, right from the pedal. 

The X-Gear pedals also offer versatile routing options that let users choose between sending the ‘wet’ or ‘dry’ signals to a DAW.  The X-Drive model even provides a headphone output or you can use Onboard stereo outs to monitor your recording. Full MIDI implementation, meanwhile, lets users map the dials and buttons of X-Gear pedals to control AmpliTube and/or any compatible program.

X-Gear pedals are designed to last with a tough aluminum chassis, and offer players a user-friendly interface with intuitive knobs that are easy to find and tweak on the fly. 

Indoors or out, a high-contrast LED display keeps your settings and preset banks visible. An expression pedal input, meanwhile, adds additional control over any parameter. Each X-Gear pedal also includes three cabinet impulse responses, so you don’t have to be mic’d up to get your sound when connected directly to a PA.

The quartet of X-Gear pedals are available now from IK Multimedia.