Fender Effects Pedals: Take Your Sound to the Next Level

For over six decades, Fender has been a leader in sonic innovation, with groundbreaking offerings like the Telecaster, Precision Bass and early amplification. Now, Fender is set to further own tone with it’s sonically expansive range of all-original effects pedals. Designed from scratch in the heart of Southern California, Fender’s ever-growing array of impressive effects pedals are jam-packed with epic tones, representing an innovative outlook of traditional features married with unique twists that will bring a new level of inspiration to your pedalboard. While the expansive range of pedals captures a wide variety of sonic possibilities, each pedal shares a number of cool functional traits in its construction. For example, each pedal in the range sports a LED-illuminated knobs show your control settings at a glance—even on dark stages. Don’t want to see the lights? Not a problem—they’re switchable. In addition to this, each Fender effects pedal is crafted from lightweight, durable anodized aluminum, meaning they’re ready to hit the road and perform, night after night. Lastly, these are all-original Fender circuits. They’ve let real, live musicians kick them around, took their feedback to heart and refined them until everyone was satisfied! It’s tried and tested. Fender’s vast array of effects pedals can be broken down into five primary categories:

Boost & Gain

This range is perfectly crafter to add volume, overdrive or distortion to your sound—adding spades of sonic attitude to your sound.

Compugilist Compressor/Distortion

Compression and distortion are an undeniable duo. We combined those two essential effects into one pedalboard-friendly chassis: meet the Compugilist® Compressor/Distortion. The two discrete, all-analog effects are independently switchable, allowing you to use them solo or stacked. The straightforward controls make it easy to dial in your sound to taste.

MTG Tube Distortion

Many pedals try to emulate the sound of tube breakup; we decided instead of emulating tube distortion, we’d use actual vacuum tubes and give you the real deal in a compact pedal. The heart of the MTG’s design is a NOS (New Old Stock) US-made 6205 preamp tube. 3-Band EQ with Tight control and switchable boost—with its own Level and Boost controls—makes it easy to dial-in just the right sound.

Santa Ana Overdrive

We helped generate the classic guitar tones that inspired players to create new music, and now with the Santa Ana Overdrive, we’ve brought our expertise to stompboxes. Armed with FET technology, this pedal lets you dial in sounds varying from “just a little hairy” all the way to thick, fully saturated overdrive. The flexible tone controls unlock a wide range of sonic flavors. This pedal cleans up with the guitar’s volume control, just like our famous amplifiers.

The Pelt Fuzz

A good fuzz pedal is indispensable—this gloriously splatty, satisfying sound has been the cornerstone of rock tone for decades. An all-original design, The Pelt Fuzz has a few tricks hidden up its sleeve. All the familiar controls are there: Level, Fuzz and Tone, along with a Bloom control to shape the contours of your sound. Our secret-weapon Mid switch lets you boost or cut the midrange for even more voicing options, while the Thick switch adds some girth to your sound.

Modulation Effects

These trippy modulation effects are designed to thicken your tone, or add swirls/wooshes to your sound with its psychedelic-sounding effects.

Bubbler Analog Chorus

Chorus is a great way to add some dimension to your guitar tone—thick, wide and rolling, it’s been the foundation of many classic guitar sounds. The Bubbler Chorus breathes new life into this classic analog effect, offering new ways to shape your tone. Switchable Slow and Fast speeds with independent Rate and Depth controls let you dial in the perfect sound for 

your music, while the Wave toggle switch lets you select between traditional Sine and Triangle waveforms. The Sensitivity control allows modulation rate changes based on your playing dynamics—dig in and the intensity of the Bubbler increases

Lost Highway Phaser

Made popular in the late-1960s and early 1970s, phasers create a sense of motion and add dimension to your sound. The Lost Highway Phaser brings powerful, flexible analog phasing to your rig. Foot-switchable Fast and Slow speeds—each with their own independent Rate and Depth controls—let you easily alternate between slow, moody phase shifting all the way to rapid and warped modulation. 

The Wave toggle switch selects between Sine and Triangle waveforms while switchable 4- and 8-stage phasing makes it easy to add extra resonance on the fly. The Sensitivity control allows modulation rate changes based on your playing dynamics—dig in and the intensity of the phasing increases.

Time-Based Effects

HELLO, Hello, hello… These effects were specifically engineered to add dimension and depth to your tone.

Tre-Verb Digital Reverb/Tremolo

There’s no mistaking the sound of genuine Fender amp Tremolo and Reverb. These lush, dynamic amp effects inspired entire genres of music. The Tre-Verb pedal places independent Tremolo and Reverb effects at your feet in a compact, easy-to-use pedal. We included classic reverb voicings based on our renowned spring reverb units from 1963 and 1965 and multiple 

tremolo modes to make sure you can get the exact sound you need for your music.

A full suite of tone-shaping controls, including tap tempo for the tremolo effect, make this pedal sonically flexible, while the stereo inputs and outputs ensure it’s easy to connect to any pedalboard or amp.

Mirror Image Delay

There’s no denying the power of a good delay; ranging from subtle to smashing, this ambient effect is one of the cornerstones of modern music. The Mirror Image Delay brings this atmospheric effect to your rig, giving you the ability to create depth with a simple slapback or develop an epic soundscape with modulated repeats. 

 

Digital, Analog, and Tape modes—each with two voicing variations—make this expressive and inspiring pedal indispensable. It even has the option to add a dotted-eighth note for those Irish-inspired washes of sound. The delay tails continue when the pedal is bypassed, ensuring a natural sound.

Utility Effects

The Utility range covers the core foundations of getting that killer tone, these useful effects smooth out your sound, or make it easy to tame your rig.

The Bends Compressor

Dynamics are a crucial part of playing music. When controlled they bring music to life, but uneven or wild playing can ruin a performance. We put our expertise to work creating The Bends Compressor, a studio-quality stompbox that tames wild volume spikes without altering your tone. Drive and Recovery controls let you dial in the perfect amount of compression to complement 

your playing style and extend sustain, while the Blend control lets you mix in the dry signal to maintain your natural pick attack. The Amp Jewel LED changes color from white to pink along with your playing to help show when the compression circuit is engaged and how long your signal is affected.

Level Set Buffer

From single-coil to humbucking pickups the output varies, potentially causing a nightmare when it comes to dialing in your tone with multiple guitars through the same rig. If you’re using one guitar through a complex pedalboard, your signal strength can also suffer due to cable capacitance. Enter the Level Set Buffer, a brilliant buffer pedal that lets you easily swap guitars without negatively affecting your tone.

This original design features Level, Hi-Freq and Load controls to adjust the signal, along with a Main Mute footswitch for silent tuning. The tuner output lets your tuner be always on without interrupting your signal path.

Bass Effects

Designed specifically for basses, these effects are essential when you’re bringing that good bass thunder!

Downtown Express Bass Multi-Effect Pedal

Your one-stop shop for bass tone-shaping, the Downtown Express bass multi-effect puts everything you need for killer bass tone right at your feet. 

All the bass essentials are there—compressor, 3-band EQ and overdrive—each switchable on its own, or you can use the Mute switch to kill the signal for silent tuning. The Direct Output makes it easy to integrate this pedal into any performance situation—stage or studio. We recognize that a truly powerful signal chain needs to be flexible, so we included a switch that lets you reorder the compressor and overdrive circuits to taste.

Like this article?

Don't miss out...

Get more like this sent to your inbox. Sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on Linkdin
Share on Pinterest

You may also like