Stompboxes

Stompboxes, or effects pedals, are compact electronic devices operated with the foot on a guitarist's or bassist's pedalboard. They are placed on the floor and activated by a switch, and they modify the instrument’s signal with effects such as distortion, delay, reverb, modulation, dynamics, or pitch shifting. Most stompboxes are powered by a 9-volt DC supply from an external adapter or a battery, and housed in metal or plastic enclosures built for live use. They are typically connected between the instrument and the amplifier, with input and output jacks and sometimes expression or control jacks for additional parameter control.

Stompboxes arose in the 1960s with fuzz pedals and expanded into a broad ecosystem of analog and digital devices. The term “true bypass” describes a circuit that disconnects the effect from the signal when off to minimize tonal color, though many modern pedals use buffered bypass to preserve signal integrity through long cables. Pedals range from simple gain devices such as overdrive and fuzz to complex multi-effects, loopers, and digitally modeled processors.

Common categories include gain-based effects (distortion, overdrive, fuzz), modulation (chorus, phaser, flanger, tremolo), time-based effects (delay, reverb), dynamics (compressor), and pitch or filter effects (octaver, harmonizer, envelope filter). Pedalboards typically arrange multiple pedals, with routing and power management important for maintaining tone.

Notable brands include Boss, Electro-Harmonix, Ibanez, MXR, Strymon, and TC Electronic. Stompboxes remain central to modern guitar and bass music, allowing real-time tone shaping during performance.