Looking for new tones from your guitar? Want to cover some of those great sounds that keyboard players normally play? Look no further than the current crop of killer effects pedals for guitar that can create synth effects.
I’m not talking about MIDI synth pedals or guitar synths that require a special pickup — those work great and certainly give you the greatest flexibility for playing realistic sampled sounds as well as a huge array of synthetic tones. Rather, what we’re looking at here are pedals that process your guitar’s regular output, creating fresh, new sounds. There are a number of these pedals on the market; here are five that I’ve enjoyed playing.
1 – Electro-Harmonix POG2
The POG2 Polyphonic Octave Generator pedal from Electro-Harmonix gives you five polyphonic harmonics you can use as oscillators for creating synth type tones. The Attack control lets you do slow swells and create string effects. Filtering and detuning give you more sonic options.
2 – Electro-Harmonix B9 Organ Machine
Electro-Harmonix has a whole range of pedals that can create vintage keyboard-style tones from your guitar’s output, but the B9 Organ Machine is my favorite because it creates authentic electric organ tones. Incredibly useful onstage if your band doesn’t have a keyboard player. Also check out the C9 Organ Machine (a different selection of electric organs) and the Key9 Electric Piano Machine, which does electric pianos.
3 – Red Witch Synthotron
The Red Witch Synthotron gives you access to analog synth tones, with one or two octaves up and one or two octaves down, modulation, and envelope filtering.
4 – EarthQuaker Devices Bit Commander
EarthQuaker calls the Bit Commander a “Monophonic Analog Guitar Synth.” It’s perfect if you want synth basses or synth lead lines from your guitar. Plug in, flick your guitar to the neck pickup and start playing. You get one and two octaves up as well as a sub octave, filtering, and lo-fi stuttering and spitting effects.
5 – Boss SY-300
Last — but definitely not least — is the Boss SY-300. This pedal is a revelation. It allows the most synthesis power of any non-MIDI/non-special pickup guitar synth I’ve seen. This one is the Cadillac of guitar synths, with onboard effects, tons of synth power, presets, a computer editor for patches, fat analog-type sounds, and much more.
If you want to create fresh tones with your guitar, without having to modify the instrument or mount a special pickup on it, then check out the pedals above or one of the many others on the market. They’ll have you playing synth parts with your guitar in no time!