Gear of the Year RESULTS: Best Effects Pedals of 2013

Which pedal took the top spot in our Gear of the Year Awards?   05-Jan-14

Well here we go, time to announce the top five effects pedals of 2013, and most importantly - time to announce the winner of the fx category in the SonicState Gear of the Year Awards 2013.

We've already announced the winner of the electric guitar category, and the amplifier category, but if we're honest, it's the effects pedal category which has been the most hotly contested, with so many great products released in 2013.

This is how the winners were chosen: First of all, our readers voted on their favourite effects pedals released this year from a longlist drawn up by SonicState; then the top five pedals from the longlist made the final cut and finally a panel of editors, writers and reviewers at SonicState chose which of these pedals would be crowned the winner, and put the runners-up into order of preference.

So here we are, the winner has been chosen, so let's run through the top five, shall we?

5) Catalinbread Belle Epoch

Catalinbread have carved a niche out of replicating legendary pieces of equipment, such as amps and old effects units, and offering a genuinely convincing replica of these products within a relatively small pedal unit.

The Belle Epoch carries on in that vein, offering a take on the EP-3 echo unit, and in turn creating one of the best tape echo pedals on the market.

At $200 it's pretty good value for money, with five parameter controls allowing you to play around until you achieve the exact you're after. Some use it just to add a bit of tape style saturation to their tone, others use it as their mainstay delay, and you'll occasionally see a guitarist hunched over his pedal board, twisting the echo sustain and echo delay knobs to create a swirling mass of sound.

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