Updated Jan. 4, 2019 | by Paolo De Gregorio

Did you have time to digest our latest Best of 2018 Pedal list? We hope so, because we’ve got another one for you, and this time from none other than Mr. JHS! It’s truly awesome to see so much passion for “stompbable circuitry” and admiration for fellow manufacturers from such a major player in the field.

Joshua – wearing a t-shirt of the seminal noise-rock record Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth – just posted the video streaming above listing his favorite 10 pedals of 2018 in no particular order.

To mix things up a little (or, rather, un-mix them) we reorganized it alphabetically in our interactive gallery format.

3546098237
1981 Inventions DRV
$290 | A RAT-inspired distortion product of a collaboration between company owner Matt Hoopes and Jon Ashley of Bondi Effects. It features one distortion and one preamp boost circuit, running at 18v via an internal voltage regulator.
Perf. Circuit | Reverb | Amazon
https://amzn.to/2UNRmHr
EarthQuaker Devices Aqueduct
$199 - A vibrato pedal with a very appealing watery quality. 8 modes give this pedal enough flexibility to make it palatable for adventurous musicians, in particular when the right side modes (Random, Env D, Env R and Env P) are engaged. The footswitch allows for both standard latching and momentary switching, which can trigger a series of creative effects, depending on the selected mode.
Sweetwater | Reverb | Amazon
1673180087
Rainger FX Bleep Fuzz
$169 | Claiming to be the weirdest pedal in Rainger’s lineup (and that’s saying something), the Bleep Fuzz takes the sonic characteristics of the big brother Freakenstein fuzz and adds more gated, glitchy unpredictability. The included Igor expression controller allows the user to manipulate the pitch of the oscillator overtone on the fly.
Perf. Circuit | Reverb | Amazon
BOSS METAL ZONE MT-2W
BOSS METAL ZONE MT-2W
$149 - The new Waza version of this classic features the good old Metal Zone sound we all love and revere in Standard Mode, and also a Custom Mode which features a more focused midrange bump with faster attack and more defined low end, thanks to a new “discreet gain circuit.”
Zzounds | Sweetwater |
More
Reverb Amazon
1642265419
Keeley Caverns V2
$179 | V2 combines reverb and analog-style tape delay with modulation options. It has three modes: Spring, a blackface amp-style spring reverb with Fender-esque tremolo; Modulation, which adds choral modulation to the reverb; and Shimmer, which emphasizes octave-up voices in the reverb trails.
Zzounds | Sweetwater |
More
Reverb Amazon
2341238917
Caroline. Hawaiian Pizza
An incredibly flexible drive/fuzz. Lower “in” volumes produce gently overdriven tones, while higher levels start delivering a more fuzz-like sound, which will become very spitting and filthy when the voltage knob is turned all the way to the left and the input one all the way to the right. The Out knob adds an extra variation in the way the amp interacts with the pedal’s out level.
Perf. Circuit | Reverb | Amazon
460589090
Land Devices HP-2
A faithful recreation of the legendary Harmonic Percolator Fuzz
eBay | Reverb | Amazon
2968904333
Stomp Audio Labs Octopus Octave Fuzz
Analog monophonic octave+fuzz pedal with a unique sound. The lower octave can be converted to a square wave. Each knob controls a sound source: lower octave, higher octave, and the Mix knob let you blend in some of the clean signal.
eBay | Reverb | Amazon
1346962756
Benson Amps Preamp
Based on the company's Chimera 30 watt guitar amplifier, but substitutes FET transistors for the vacuum tubes. The result is an extremely amp-like and versatile clean boost/overdrive/fuzz pedal that imparts rich harmonics and a very musical EQ to your signal chain…truly a Chimera in a box!
Perf. Circuit | Reverb | Amazon
Red Panda Tensor
Red Panda Tensor
$299 - The Red Panda Tensor gives you live reverse and tape stop effects, pitch shifting, time stretching and hold functions you can combine in creative ways. Slow down, speed up and rewind in real time. Stretch or compress time with no pitch change. Loop, overdub, and randomly slice phrases up to 4.8 seconds.
Perf. Circuit | Reverb | Amazon

JHS also listed these five honorable mentions:

Free The Tone 10 band EQ
Line6 HX Stomp
Matthews FX Astromnomer V2
Brown Amplification Protein
JHS Panther Cub V2 Delay

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