Skip to main content
Music Radar MusicRadar The No.1 website for musicians
Sign in
  • View Profile
  • Sign out
  • Artist news
  • Guitar Amps
  • Guitar Pedals
  • Synths
  • Guitars
  • Drums
  • Keyboards & Pianos
  • Controllers
  • Software & Apps
  • More
    • Recording
    • DJ Gear
    • Acoustic Guitars
    • Bass Guitars
    • Tech
    • Tutorials
    • Reviews
    • Buying Guides
    • About Us
More
  • You Oughta Know
  • Glasto 2025 - how to watch, who's on?
  • Wrecking Crew
  • 95k+ free music samples

Recommended reading

Red Witch Apothecary Series Pedals: these beautifully crafted stompboxes have colour-coded aluminium dials, floral designs and some unique analogue circuits.
Guitars Exquisite stompboxes, built to last a lifetime, meet Red Witch’s new Apothecary Series
Mooer Prime M2 multi-effects unit in grey
Guitar Pedals "An unholy amount of features in a standard-sized compact pedal": Mooer Prime Minimax M2 Intelligent Pedal review
Harley Benton JB-62CC Mini Bass
Bass Guitars Harley Benton applies retro-classic colours to its beginner friendly short-scale JB-62CC Mini Bass
Donner x Third Man Hardware Triple Threat
Guitar Pedals “A sandbox for experimentation”: Donner x Third Man Hardware Triple Threat review
Pedalboard
Guitar Pedals The ultimate guide to pedal board essentials (and what order to put them in)
Catalinbread Proto Club Triton Pitch Echo
Guitars “The Tritone was universally loved by the crew but the vibes clashed with the palette of the Soft Focus Deluxe”: Catalinbread is selling off its prototype guitar pedals, and the first is a “B-side” pitch echo from its smash-hit shoegaze stompbox
Soma Laboratory Harvezi Hazze
Guitar Pedals “A genuinely fun take on the classic distortion-slash-fuzz pedal”: Soma Laboratory Harvezi Hazze review
  1. Guitars
  2. Guitar Pedals

Six of the best: mini effects pedals

News
By Guitarist ( Guitarist ) published 25 December 2013

Good things in small packages

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Mooer ElecLady

Mooer ElecLady

The Chinese pedal builder has an exhaustive range of compact Micro pedals, featuring oddities such as EQs and acoustic guitar simulators among the usual suspects.

The EHX Electric Mistress is clearly the ElecLady’s muse, but this is a much tidier flange than its 70s predecessor. If it’s still a little on the large size for your tastes, marvel at the company’s forthcoming Zippo-lighter-esque Spark range...

We said: “70s-style flanging at about one-sixth of the usual size.”

Read our full Mooer ElecLady review

For more information visit the official Mooer website

Page 1 of 6
Page 1 of 6
Bigfoot Engineering Octo Puss

Bigfoot Engineering Octo Puss

This UK-made octave effect is passive, meaning it has no LED and requires thoughtful placement in your signal chain.

However, its original germanium diodes do a convincing job of creating the classic octave effect, adding a faux sitar character to clean tones and an extra dimension of vintage goodness to fuzz and distortion.

We said: “It really comes alive in conjunction with an overdrive, distortion or fuzz pedal, or a driven amp.”

Read our full Bigfoot Engineering Octo Puss review

For more information visit the official Bigfoot Engineering website

Page 2 of 6
Page 2 of 6
Dunlop Fuzz Face Mini

Dunlop Fuzz Face Mini

Since 1966 - when Jimi blew our minds with one - guitarists have resented the Fuzz Face’s mic- stand-base dimensions.

Now Dunlop has enclosed the Fuzz Face’s legendary circuitry in a ’board-friendly housing in three flavours - Silicon, Germanium, and Jimi - while promising meticulously faithful tones.

We said: “The versatility of the original Fuzz Face design with a few modern twists to the recipe.”

Read our full Dunlop Fuzz Face Mini review

For more information visit the official Dunlop website

Page 3 of 6
Page 3 of 6
Hotone Liftup Boost

Hotone Liftup Boost

Hotone’s 10-pedal range takes tiny to the limit: each effect is around a third of the size of a standard enclosure, which would make them difficult to see (let alone stomp on) on stage if it weren’t for the thoughtful inclusion of glow-in-the-dark controls.

The pedal’s format, with multiple dials and buttons on the front and a rotary on the pedal’s top, is space-saving design at its most ingenious.

For more information visit Gear4Music

Page 4 of 6
Page 4 of 6
Lovepedal Babyface Tremolo

Lovepedal Babyface Tremolo

Tremolo is a great effect, but you may only need it once or twice in your set. Enter the Babyface Tremolo, with set-and-leave controls inside the chassis, providing three tremolo variations (sine, sawtooth and square wave). A great example of why the format is here to stay.

We said: “It gives you three different tremolo variations in not a lot of real estate.”

Read our full Lovepedal Babyface Tremolo review

For more information visit the official Lovepedal website

Page 5 of 6
Page 5 of 6
TC Electronic PolyTune Mini

TC Electronic PolyTune Mini

The Danish audiophiles at TC Electronic have been using their miniaturising ray on quite a few pedals of late, and the HOF reverb, Ditto Looper and Spark Booster are all one-button wonders worth checking out.

But it’s still the PolyTune Mini that gets our vote, thanks to its single-strum polyphonic or regular tuning with Capo and Drop D modes in a Twix-sized wrapper.

We said: "The cutest, best-value tuner for the price."

Read our full TC Electronic PolyTune Mini review

For more information visit the official TC Electronic site

Page 6 of 6
Page 6 of 6
Guitarist
Guitarist
Social Links Navigation

Guitarist is the longest established UK guitar magazine, offering gear reviews, artist interviews, techniques lessons and loads more, in print, on tablet and on smartphones Digital: http://bit.ly/GuitaristiOS If you love guitars, you'll love Guitarist. Find us in print, on Newsstand for iPad, iPhone and other digital readers

The magazine for serious players image
The magazine for serious players
Subscribe and save today!
More Info
Read more
Red Witch Apothecary Series Pedals: these beautifully crafted stompboxes have colour-coded aluminium dials, floral designs and some unique analogue circuits.
Exquisite stompboxes, built to last a lifetime, meet Red Witch’s new Apothecary Series
Mooer Prime M2 multi-effects unit in grey
"An unholy amount of features in a standard-sized compact pedal": Mooer Prime Minimax M2 Intelligent Pedal review
Harley Benton JB-62CC Mini Bass
Harley Benton applies retro-classic colours to its beginner friendly short-scale JB-62CC Mini Bass
Donner x Third Man Hardware Triple Threat
“A sandbox for experimentation”: Donner x Third Man Hardware Triple Threat review
Pedalboard
The ultimate guide to pedal board essentials (and what order to put them in)
Catalinbread Proto Club Triton Pitch Echo
“The Tritone was universally loved by the crew but the vibes clashed with the palette of the Soft Focus Deluxe”: Catalinbread is selling off its prototype guitar pedals, and the first is a “B-side” pitch echo from its smash-hit shoegaze stompbox
Latest in Guitar Pedals
Behringer BM-15M Murf Box: this vintage-style multi-filter pedal has eight filters, selectable patterns and MIDI control
Behringer unveils the BM-15M Murf Box, a $129 animated filtering pedal based on a ‘00s Moog classic
Catalinbread Proto Club Triton Pitch Echo
“The Tritone was universally loved by the crew but the vibes clashed with the palette of the Soft Focus Deluxe”: Catalinbread is selling off its prototype guitar pedals, and the first is a “B-side” pitch echo from its smash-hit shoegaze stompbox
The KHDK Electronics Digital Bath was co-developed with Deftones frontman Chino Moreno, who is pictured here in a white T-shirt and black trousers, performing at Lollapalooza 2024.
KHDK teams up with Chino Moreno for a “melancholic” delay that promises an iconic Deftones tone
An Electro-Harmonix Oceans Abyss reverb pedal on a wooden floor
“At times it can really feel like more of a multi-effects pedal rather than just a straight reverb pedal”: Electro-Harmonix Oceans Abyss review
EarthQuaker Devices Rancho de la Luna Dirt Transmitter – the return of the OOP fuzz pedal marks 30-plus years of the Joshua Tree studio and comes with all-new artwork.
EarthQuaker Devices joins forces with Rancho de la Luna for the return of a lost fuzz classic
Cornerstone Imperium V2: the 2-in-1 overdrive has been revised with four separate input/output jacks and has an all-new look.
Cornerstone’s revamped Imperium V2 is a Dumble x TS-style stompbox that really is a 2-in-1 overdrive
Latest in News
Lorde
Lorde on the Frank Ocean collaborator who helped to humanise the synths on her new album, Virgin
synth one j6
"In a blind test of 100 musicians, it beat the $200 plugin 3-to-1. Not bad for a free app": AudioKit releases Synth One J6, a free Juno-inspired synth for iOS
Neil Young
BBC confirm that they won’t be showing his Glastonbury set “at the artist’s request”
Nadia Struiwigh
Tresor resident Nadia Struiwigh on why she avoids tutorials and keeps things 'loose' in the studio
Sam Ryder on a train
“The energy on there was unreal”: Sam Ryder performs an impromptu set for passengers on a Glastonbury-bound train
velvet sundown
"There's not a shred of evidence on the internet that this band has ever existed": This apparently AI-generated artist is racking up hundreds of thousands of Spotify streams

MusicRadar is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

  • About Us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Advertise with us
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Careers

© Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All rights reserved. England and Wales company registration number 2008885.

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait...