First and foremost before anything else, you'll need to plug things in. If you plan on creating a musical space of any kind, I highly recommend using an outlet in a room on a separate section of your fusebox (far away from any microwaves or washers+dryers) and use an Isolated Surge Suppressor . Now pedals themselves aren't a high power draw, unless something goes wrong plugging them into a cheap power supply, but the amplifier, your recording PC, alongside all of the pedals and other music equipment stacked up can start to draw a lot of power. A surge protector like this one keeps any variable power spikes away from your expensive equipment.  A lot of the time this can also prevent unwanted whine introduced from power lines that aren't properly rated for such high energy draw, this is found especially in older houses or even newer ones if the lines weren't made for high current devices. 

Like the Surge Protector Isolator for powering your equipment, if you plan on getting pedals at all, you should get an Isolated Power Supply. For some distortion pedals especially, plugging them into a cheap power supply or using just the 9V battery can occasionally introduce some high pitched background whine that isn't a part of your intended tone. As mentioned, this can be introduced from power lines that aren't properly rated for such high energy draw which can be especially common in older houses. The MXR Iso-Brick completely solved my issue with that, and pedals that I once wasn't a really big fan of, like the DS-1, suddenly had everything it needed to change my mind about it. 

From Jim Dunlop, buying one of these today is a bit more expensive than when they first came out, so I definitely recommend the affiliate link as the best bang for your buck. You get 6 classic Jim Dunlop picks (I have the Aligator and the Grey plastic ones myself, completely randomly from finding them in the wild), two patch cables, and a power supply. I love the pedal itself, it's simple and does it's job very well. Most commonly affiliated with the wild solos and subnautic warbles of guitar legends, in practice I have found this to be a stellar pedal for the surfer-ska vibe, and it pairs amazing with almost anything you play it with, from Distortion to Wah, it keeps on kicking!

From Jim Dunlop, I was gifted this pedal some time around 2018. It's quite an interesting octave pedal, it has very little pitch adjustment unlike the Digitech Drop listed below. This doesn't make it bad, especially since the octave can be paired with a fuzz, making this a wet or a dry octave pedal depending on what you're looking for. In a lot of ways you could say this is a Hendrix inspired pedal, as there's a neat byproduct of its filtering where high-pitched chords cut through and break up the muddy octave fuzz, giving you a really dynamic octave that you can't quite find anywhere else.

If you're looking for an octave pedal, I think you would be hard-pressed to find a better option than this Digitech Drop pedal. It's simple, remembers your setting, and gives you a full octave range to play with. Compared to other octave pedals I have, this one is by far the best for bass emulation and twin leads where the guitar and bass can be heard together. Another great use for it is if you are a fan of the game Rocksmith 2014 or RS+, this pedal allows you to effectively bypass any drop-down tuning on your guitar! Really handy if you only have 1 guitar and get tired tuning up and down between songs.

Also from Digitech, the RP-255 is a modeling SIM pedal with an expression pedal and a 20 second looper. This was given to me by my father for my birthday, and some 15+ years later not only is it still kicking, it holds up awesome! With so many presets, all of them can be edited with a fairly intuitive knob navigation menu. Now, the RP-255 has long been discontinued, but I think Digitech has really proven themselves to be a reliable long-term pedal maker, so I feel fully confident in recommending the RP-500 if you are just looking for a one and done pedal and modeling sim. With a guitar and amp, this could really be all you ever need. That said, there is still something special about pairing these with real analog pedals, because the RP-500 is still a digital pedal afterall, nothing wrong with it.

Starting in on the BOSS lineup we have the BOSS RC-3 Loop Station! My first introduction to looping was with the Digitech RP-255, but that only had 20 seconds and you weren't able to store what you recorded very easily or very permanently. The Loop Station opened up a whole new workflow that I never even thought about, which grew into being so critical during the pandemic that I'm not entirely sure how I was playing without one. The RC-3 first came out in 2011, and while it's still a solid pedal it's not widely available anymore. For about the same cost, I would recommend going with the new RC-5, from what I've seen it looks to have all the same core features with more storage time, more inputs, and contemporary audio quality reaching 44.1khz 32bit Stereo. 

Another BOSS quintessential, one of my first guitar pedals, and boy was I disappointed. I know what you're thinking, how could I possibly have it on my recommended list if I started out hating it! Well, if you've read around my blog you may be able to put together the pieces - it was a byproduct of my equipment. I was using the DS-1 under all the worst circumstances possible. I was powering it with 9V or a cheap power supply, running it in chain with other pedals, through a digital Spider III amp, all of them powered through really old home wiring. 

It was set up for failure the moment I bought it. It took me almost 20 years to give this bad boy a chance under proper conditions and wow, was I blown away. The screechy, whiney noise that I was used to hearing was just gone the moment I ran it through an Isolated Loop Switcher (keeping it out of chain with other pedals prevents excess noise) and keeping it on an Isolated Power Supply. I finally could really see distinct changes between the Tone, Level, and Distortion knobs instead of "Loud and Screechy" or "Loud but Distorted". I still wouldn't set it to 10-all, but I wouldn't sleep on the DS-1 either. 

This pedal I was so excited for when it was gifted to me, unfortunately it was not in the greatest of condition. I have an older model with the Center Tone knob screwed in, and the switch itself is a bit busted. This pedal has to be repaired before I can fully experience it for myself, but if it's anything at all like the ODB-3 then I know that this pedal is super solid for giving you crisp, electric crunch. 

Another cult classic from BOSS, if I recall this was actually my second guitar pedal that I bought for myself, after the disappointment that was the DS-1 (at the time, of course!) I was extremely lucky that the BD-2 was SO good that it completely obliterated my terrible set up and gave me the tone of absolute legends. Much like the SD-1 where you get the crisp, electric crunch, the BD-2 also brings out a more soulful, emotive feeling. Let me put it this way, when you're soloing on the SD-1 and play a sustained bend, the SD-1 wails. When you're soloing on the BD-2 and play a sustained bend, the BD-2 sings. 

One of my absolute favorite pedals, the BOSS ODB-3 Bass Overdrive is a killer tone machine. With independent EQ for highs and lows, a wet/dry balance, along with a gain and level control you have so much control in such a tiny pedal. It really brings something else into the mix, especially when paired up with an octave pedal. While it may be for Bass Guitars, I use it with a regular guitar and sometimes through an octave pedal and it is happy to give that sick hefty, punchy, gritty metal tone all on its own. 

Coming up on the last BOSS effect pedal, the CEB-3 Bass Chorus has very similar benefits that I just listed from the ODB-3. You have an immense amount of control, leading to an extremely wide range effects on EQ, pairing a guitar with an octave pedal gets extremely dissonant sounds with a fully enveloping embrace. It's almost angelic in a very eerie way. A not so well known benefit of this pedal as well is it has Stereo Out, which means you can use this pedal to split a single signal into two separate ones, allowing you to create a wet/dry mix in your signal chain, or simply take full advantage of your stereo. 

And finally on the BOSS catalogue we have the NF-1 suppressor. With a lifespan from 1977 to 1988, the NF-1 is far past its day and age, but it fills a perfect role in my setup. I have a noise gate, it allows me to get the threshold. This means that simply by turning the knob and stomping it I go from BUZZ to no buzz, even with EVERY distortion pedal running! 

It's a long lost technology, but thankfully you can find its contemporary equivalent in the NS-2 Noise Suppressor. It's got the same core concept, but they gave it a few extra bells and whistles that simply didn't exist back in the late 70's, and with the amount of noise we know can be generated ranging from bad wiring and daisy chained pedals, we should take any extra advancements towards silence as we can get!

When the word "unique" it mentioned in the same sentence as guitar pedals, I can't help but bring up possibly one of the longest named pedals known to humanity - Bootsy Collins Snarling Dog's "Bootzilla". Okay, maybe it's not that long, but it sure is a mouthful to repeat. The Bootzilla is a fuzz and Wah rocker pedal, featuring 4 independent knobs to adjust just about every range on the EQ. While the fuzz isn't my favorite (not a big fuzz person overall), I do think this is the quintessential sound you'd think of when talking about guitar fuzz pedals. It's like a mix of ocean white noise and TV static meeting the decay of dialup telephone static. It's an extremely versatile pedal, allowing you to play it in any configuration imaginable, with a Glow in the Dark Snarling Dog to boot! Unfortunately, this is now on the resellers market so finding one may be hard. There's also not many pedals that fit the bill. Surprisingly, I found I also have a Morley Fuzz/Wah pedal that I've never used because it's gigantic and requires its own power supply. For the cost, I can at least attest to its build quality -- if you drop this, your foot will be what broke. 

I got this pedal long after the RC-3, specifically because it can adjust the speed of the loops themselves. It's pretty equatable to the RC-3 in just about every way, while I personally use them slightly different, with the RC-3 finding itself at the beginning of my signal chain, and the XT Solo being more towards the middle/end of it. It's definitely not worse than the RC-3, but I don't think it's really better either. It does have software, which is quite older than the current Boss Tone Studio. They're not widely available anymore, so if you did find yourself interest in a looper pedal, I would either suggest the RC-5 or investing in a fully fledged looping pedal like the RC-500. They perform exactly the same, it's simply the form factor and ease of use.

There's another pedal that does come to mind when you say "unique", but rather than physicality this Ibanez SB-7 Bass Synth is unique in how it interacts with you as you play. It has 3 synth settings, Autowah, which is can only be described as the "Seinfeld" of the 3, and then the much more realized "Synth1" and Synth2", Each can also be affected by the decay switch, which simply turns it into more of the warbling Seinfeld bass or less of it. 

I find myself using it the most on Synth2, as it seems to have better sustain capabilities and it really turns the guitar into that synth lead sound. Using it alongside an octave pedal, it almost reminds me of the early days of Muse. Tonally it sounds like right before each member started using synthesizers, giving you that really electronic hard rock sound. A truly incredible pedal that unfortunately just doesn't have many contemporary equivalents. The closest you can get, which I've been looking to get for myself but have refrained due to possible overlap, is the BOSS SY-1. However, part of the beauty of the SB-7 is its simplicity, whereas the SY-1 gives you that absolute control we saw earlier in the other BOSS pedals. It's not a bad thing, but it's expensive (for a pedal) and wordy. 

I don't have much to say about this pedal, Ibanez does a good job with anything they touch. The MS-10 Metal Charger is a solid guitar pedal that sounds loud, cuts clean, and gives you a good British Punk tone. Made for just a short time between 1986 to 1989, I feel very lucky to have been gifted this guitar pedal. Fortunately, the internal design of the MS10 is almost identical to Ibanez' modern Tube Screamer TS-9, so don't feel like you're missing out. Outside of the couple extra knobs, the main difference comes down to just a couple diodes that have been clipped from the TS-9, and this pedal gets a lot of love!

Much like the Isolated Power Supply, if you plan on having more than one pedal I would highly suggest biting the bullet now and getting yourself a multi-channel loop switcher. These are really stellar devices which allow you to create entire signal chains kept in an isolated loop. The DS-1 is a super noisy pedal, and pairing it up in a daisy chain only exacerbates that - in many cases you can't even get away from it while the pedal is off! That's where the loop switcher comes in, because it completely removes the signal chain until you stomp on it. 

The Hotone Patch Kommander has more features than I understand at the moment, but I've had it for a couple years now and its most basic functionality is more than enough for me. It has 4 separate loop switches, which can be used independently or together, along with a Mute/Tuner switch which is always a great addition. 4 Channels is a lot, especially considering each loop can have as many pedals as you want, but having extra space available with a Mute/Tuner really cleans up your excess noise during downtime.

Finally, the EX Guitar 2 Channel Loop Switcher. It's the exact same premise as the Hotone Patch Kommander, but pared down to just the essentials. You have your A loop and your B loop, or you can bypass both. This one has a nice pass-through 9V DC out power supply as well, so powering this on your MXR-238 ISO doesn't have to take away from powering one of your pedals. Pretty thoughtful, honestly. 

Of course to use these pedals together you've gotta be able to plug them in. For the longest time I didn't like these flat top patch cables as much, but over the years as more pedals grew on the board, less space was present between them. Also, this design is actually far more reliable than the screw-on sheathes, so you'll actually be saving yourself a lot of hassle down the line -- these ones will still be rock solid and the screw on sheathe ones will be slipping and sliding all over the place.

And last but not least, we need a way to connect out guitar to our amp and our amp to our pedals. I've gone through a lot of instrument cables over the years and I think for the price there's few cables that hold up to these Ernie Ball cables. I have the full gold plated Monster Cable (it's really great), but the length and material make it a bit unwieldy and a bit expensive. These are 20ft instrument cables, which should be plenty of length for a home setup and likely even for local gig work.