Online Guitar Effects
Online guitar effects in your browser: build a pedalboard from 13 pedals, put them in any order, and play through it with an audio interface and wired headphones.
Your guitar signal is processed on this device and is never recorded or sent. Use wired headphones.
Put on wired headphones first
With speakers, the microphone hears the amp and the sound can build into a loud squeal (feedback). Plug in wired headphones and turn your device volume down before you start.
Latency: press Start or Play demo riff to see what your browser reports.
Keyboard: Space starts and stops the input, D plays the demo riff.
How to use the online guitar effects
These online guitar effects are a pedalboard you play through live. Press Start guitar input, confirm that you wear wired headphones, allow the input, and raise Volume slowly. To try the board without a guitar, press Play demo riff. Each pedal is a card: the footswitch turns it On or Off with a short crossfade, so there is no click, and the sliders under it are its knobs. The arrows move a pedal earlier or later in the chain. The signal runs from the first card to the last, and the Cabinet at the end shapes the sound like a speaker box.
Pick a sound from Preset (Clean chorus, Blues drive, Rock distortion, Fuzz lead, Funk wah, Ambient swells, Surf tremolo), or type a name and press Save preset to keep your own board in this browser. Copy link to these settings puts the whole board, order included, into a link you can send to a friend. Reset goes back to the starting board. On a computer, Space starts and stops the input and D plays the demo riff.
What each guitar pedal does
| Pedal | What it does | Knobs |
|---|---|---|
| Noise gate | Turns the signal down when it falls below a threshold, to cut hiss and hum between notes. | Threshold |
| Compressor | Makes loud notes quieter and quiet notes louder, so notes sustain longer and even out. | Sustain, Level |
| Wah | A sweeping filter. Auto follows how hard you play; Manual sets the pedal position with the slider. | Mode, Pedal, Sensitivity |
| Overdrive | Soft clipping that rounds the peaks: clean when you play lightly, gritty when you dig in. | Drive, Tone, Level |
| Distortion | Hard clipping that flattens the peaks, for a thicker, more aggressive sound. | Drive, Tone, Level |
| Fuzz | Clips the signal until it is close to a square wave. | Fuzz, Tone, Level |
| EQ | Bass, mid and treble boost or cut, plus level. | Bass, Mid, Treble, Level |
| Chorus | Adds a copy with a short, slowly moving delay, so one guitar sounds like two. | Rate, Depth, Mix |
| Flanger | A very short moving delay mixed with the original: a sweeping, jet-like comb filter. | Rate, Depth, Feedback |
| Phaser | Shifts the phase of one copy and mixes it back, for a rippling sweep. | Rate, Depth |
| Tremolo | Moves the volume up and down at a steady rate. | Rate, Depth |
| Delay | Repeats what you play after a set time, with repeats that fade. | Time, Feedback, Mix |
| Reverb | Many echoes that fade, like a room or hall. The room sound is generated in your browser. | Size, Tone, Mix |
The descriptions follow the definitions in Wikipedia's article on effects units. Every pedal here is our own design built from standard Web Audio parts, not a copy of a commercial pedal.
Which order should the pedals go in?
There is no wrong order, but the order changes the sound, and a good starting chain is the one the board opens with: gate, compressor, wah, drives, EQ, modulation, then delay and reverb. The logic is simple. A compressor before the drives evens out what they receive. A wah before a drive sweeps the clean tone and the drive thickens it; after the drive it sounds sharper. Delay and reverb go last so the echoes stay clean instead of being distorted. Try it both ways with the arrows: that is the quickest way to learn what each pedal does.
Connect your guitar and keep latency low
Plug the guitar into the instrument socket of a USB audio interface (labelled Inst or Hi-Z on many models), not into a microphone socket, and listen on wired headphones. Turn the interface gain up until its light shows signal without going red, then use Input gain on this page for the fine trim. If the interface sends your guitar to one side only, pick channel 1 or 2 next to the Input list.
Skip Bluetooth: the Wikipedia article on Bluetooth puts classic Bluetooth audio at 100 to 200 ms of delay, which you hear as notes arriving after you pick them. Under the volume slider the page prints the latency your browser reports; treat it as the browser's own estimate, not a measurement. The online guitar amp page goes through the connection and latency step by step.
Presets, links and privacy
Presets and your current board are saved in this browser only. A shared link carries the settings in the address, after the # sign, so they never reach a server. Your guitar signal is processed on this device and is never recorded or sent. To layer parts over each other with this board, choose My pedalboard as the sound in the online looper. Tune first with the guitar tuner, and try the board on a bass amp or with the virtual guitar for chord ideas.
More for guitar: Guitar Tuner · Guitar Chords · Guitar Chord Finder · Guitar Scales · Fretboard Notes · Capo Chart · Virtual Guitar · Guitar Tab Maker · Chord Chart Maker · Online Guitar Amp · Online Looper
Questions
Is this guitar effects software free?
Yes. Every pedal, preset and share link is free, with no download, no sign-up and no limits.
Why does distortion sound harsh or fizzy?
A guitar speaker cuts the high frequencies that clipping creates. Leave the Cabinet on at the end of the board, lower Tone, or try the online guitar amp, which adds an amp tone stack.
Can I use these guitar effects on a phone?
The board works on phones, and the demo riff lets you hear every pedal. For playing live, a computer with a USB audio interface and wired headphones gives a much shorter delay.
Where are my presets saved?
In this browser, on this device. Use Copy link to these settings to move a board to another device or share it.
Does it work with a microphone on an acoustic guitar?
Yes, choose the microphone in the Input list. Use headphones, because speakers near the microphone cause feedback.