Are you looking for the best envelope filter pedals? Then, you’re in the right place.
The envelope filter pedal came to the fore in the early ’80s, though they’d existed since the ’70s, and provided a disco-funk tone to guitarists who were exploring more creative effects than ever before.
Prolific artists such as Jerry Garcia popularized the tone, which still holds its place as one of the coolest guitarists’ modifications today.
Famous modern guitarists such as John Frusciante in The Red Hot Chilli Peppers and John Greenwood from Radiohead use envelope filters as part of their FX rig. As a result, they offer a great alternative to wah-wah pedals, to which they’re often compared and confused.
Top 7 Best Envelope Filters:
Fender Pour-Over Envelope Filter (Editor’s Choice)
This Pour Over filter has hidden tricks that differentiate it from the classical envelope filter. It reacts to the picking dynamics as this filter has an onboard distortion circuit and controls. These can be toggled to meet your needs. The control set includes low pass, high pass, and bandpass types. Moreover, you can precisely manage the sound to meet your musical requirements.
It has an original Fender circuit with a lightweight chassis, and Amp jewel LED. This gives a fantastic classic look to the envelope filter pedal. In addition, you can easily see control settings at the dark stage because of switchable LED-backlit knobs.
It is inspired by vintage pedals analog design with modern controls. With an excellent filter, you can optimize the pedal for usage.
The onboard circuit has dedicated tone gain and level controls and a Bypass toggle switch. When a filter is engaged, the amp jewel LED alters color giving visual feedback. It uses a 9VDC center negative connection, and this is simple to use with pedalboards and power supplies. Fender pedal is made from durable, lightweight anodized aluminum with LED illuminated controls for better visual ability at dark.
Pros
- Stage ready sturdy construction
- True analog
- By passable distortion
Cons
- Some people do not like the sound
Electro-Harmonix BassBalls Twin Dynamic Envelope Filter
This envelope filter has a legendary design recreated in a tiny diecast case. Twin-tuned filters offer better control and real-deal funk. This unique filter is impressive and one of a kind. With this, the sound gets distinctive color that everyone loves. Bass has extreme presence under leads with the human-like sound of two sweeping filters. This will impress you for sure.
The resonant frequencies are solidly engineered into an entire range of strong guitar harmonics. Bassballs respond to each bass note. Distortion switch gives harmonic enrichment, and sweep is highly variable. Two filters sweep tones and generate unique vocal-like sounds. Harmonics are enriched with a distortion switch.
The response control varies the sweep range. It is designed for bass guitar and funky on guitar. The resonant frequencies are solidly engineered. These filter responses to every bass note.
Pros
- Good Construction
- It has some great sound
- Great product for the price
Cons
- Weak effect
EarthQuaker Devices Spatial Delivery V2 Envelope Filter
This voltage-controlled filter is user-friendly and simple that is practical to use. In Up and Down mode, it adjusts the sensitivity while limiting speed in S&H mode. In addition, filter crossfades between low pass and high pass filters while giving you everything in between.
The low pass is clockwise, and the high pass is counterclockwise, while the center is bandpass. This is more beneficial than a simple switch, as you can blend the filters for distinct sounds.
Resonance is the feedback control to add body and ring to filter voice. It toggles between sample and hold S&H, upward, downward sweep with its three modes. All these controls- allow you amazing filter sweeps.
The combo of range and pick attack easily limits the envelope’s reaction time, sensitivity, and frequency sweep width. When range is high, the attack is high, which means quick reaction time and high-frequency sweep. With this product, you can add power to your instrument and enjoy playing.
Pros
- Distinct and useful tones
- Good quality
- Sturdy built
Cons
- None we could find
EarthQuaker Devices Envelope Filter Effects Pedal
Cheaper, simpler, fatter, gutsier. This pedal is the product of EarthQuaker’s long-standing involvement in forging new tones for guitarists. This pedal has a personalized feel; they’re hand-made in Ohio.
Features
- Switch to index through Up, Down, and Sample & Hold
- Range knob: In Up/Down modes, it controls the selected envelope’s width and the sensitivity to input dynamics. In Sample & Hold, it controls the speed of envelope changes.
- Filter knob: Fade between high-pass and low-pass frequencies.
- The resonance knob controls the amount of filter feedback, adding more resonance.
- True Bypass
With fewer knobs, it still provides a fantastic palette of funky sounds, which go low and gutsy in the sample & hold modes to bring out a circuit-y character full of characterful liveliness.
You can crank the knobs down in down mode to get a gurgling fatness and, of course, achieve the Garcia gleam with satisfying filtering FX.
It’s great that you can crossfade between the different filter types rather than needing to choose one or the other. This unique control for this pedal separates it nicely from a typical EarthQuaker odd-ball.
Pigtronix EP2 Envelope Phaser
This is an exceptionally feature-packed envelope pedal. Its large housing requires a DC power supply and is colored to mirror its funky internals. As a result, it’s suitable for guitar and bass and supplies da funk with ample helpings.
Features
- LFO modulation with speed, depth, and center
- Intelligent envelope response
- Combines LFO and envelope signals
- Envelope up or down settings
- The side-chain trigger for beat-sync and triggering with external source
- Invert switch for + or – phase
- Compact aluminum chassis
- True bypass switching
- Assignable resonance kill switch
- Expression pedal inputs for Sweep and Speed
- Pigtronix 18V DC power supply included
This pedal creates everything from space-age soundscapes laser FX to deep, funky, and weighty tones, which get your taste buds going. In addition, it has unique settings such as the ‘Staccato’ setting, enabling filtering suitable for fast picking and tighter control.
You have manual control over filter sweeps and the speed. In addition, the LFO resonance can be smoothed for tighter low-end control. If you’re looking for a monstrous box for all manner of radical filtered FX, then the Pigtronix has been developed for many years and is sure to satisfy.
The thing that sets this apart is its side-chain input, which allows you to take an input from another source, say a drum machine, and use it to control your affected sound dynamics. You can achieve cool syncopated effects using these controls.
The LFO features will work very well on bass guitars and allow you to build some genuinely electronic tones which transform your bass into a 21st-century sub-cannon.
Electro-Harmonix Riddle: Q-Balls for Guitar Envelope Filter
A step down in complexity and price, but not in performance, the Electro-Harmonix Q-Balls has a tailored frequency response for guitar, complete with toggle-able analog distortion.
With all the controls you’d expect to control your filtering, START, STOP, ATTACK, DECAY, Q, MODE, SENSITIVITY, and BLEND, you can customize any number of cool FX and apply them with optional expression pedals. The engineering in this pedal is excellent, and it features analog circuitry for a true-to-vintage sound.
Features
- 80 Hz to 5 kHz frequency response tailored for guitar
- Switch selectable analog distortion designed for guitar
- Low Pass, Band Pass, High Pass filter select
- Separate Dry and Effect outputs
- 9.6VDC 200mA power supply included
Once you’ve got it set up, dialing in sounds will bring you no end of satisfaction. As a made-for guitar model, this pedal brings out the best in tone from your equipment.
It’s a simple pedal, but the diversity of envelope filters is easily tapped into, and it’s unnecessary to have an exceptionally complicated pedal to achieve a desirable tone. In addition, it’s got a superb analog quality that gives it some attitude that other pedals don’t bring to the table.
Electro-Harmonix Q-Tron Plus XO Envelope Follower Pedal
A proper funk box has earned its place as a ubiquitous envelope pedal with all the attitude you could squeeze into its simple UI. It has three main filter modes; low-pass, hi-pass, bandpass, and a mixed-mode, which blends band passed signal with unprocessed signal.
Speed, decay, intensity, and response controls top off its fully controllable envelope filter FX. In addition, it has a boost switch, which fattens up the signal considerably pre-filter. Finally, the hi/lo range knob allows you to select vowel-like gurgles and smooth, deep filter FX in the low position or high, bird-like overtones in the high position.
It provides a full range of frequency responses, suitable for guitar and bass.
Features
- Switchable boost control adds gain to your signal before the filter
- Selectable up/down filter sweep direction
- Four filter modes including low-pass, bandpass, high-pass, and mix (bandpass blended with your dry signal)
The pedal reportedly responds very kindly to your dynamics and allows you to tap into a plethora of envelope filter fx and wah-wahs, which will keep your tone fresh for as long as you like.
It’s got a ‘proper’ envelope filter sound that is simple to dial in, providing that familiar funk that will get you smiling when you realize what you’ve been missing!
Buyer’s Guide: Choosing the Best Envelope Filters
Most envelope filters are easy to use and don’t overwhelm several controls. However, overall they are some of the more confusing guitar effects on offer, and many will stay clear of them because of their complicated looks.
The truth is that the controls are creative and easy to mess about for all sorts of effects, from the recognizable to the damn right mashed up!
Don’t be scared! There are many possibilities for manipulating guitar sounds, and envelope pedals are a great way of gaining great musical results.
Difference between Envelope Filter and Wah-Wah Pedal
The difference is simply that a pedal operates a wah-wah pedal. It governs how the filter is applied to the input through foot operation. An envelope filter, however, is mainly set and forgotten. So you dial in your settings, and your playing dynamics control the filter dynamics instead of a pedal.
Some envelope filters have footswitches for turning them on and off, but the FX application is still governed by your playing and not the on/off switch. Envelope filters are more directly glued to your dynamics than wah-wahs.
All filter pedals more or less use this process to apply their color to your tone – they take the amplitude of the note and apply effects proportional to this, so you get a dynamic, manipulative sound that techno-colors your tone back to the 80’s disco. Funky!
Envelope filters are based on some simple mechanics:
Filters
They firstly filter the input. In envelope filter pedals, there are three main types of filter:
- High-pass which cuts low frequencies and allows highs through
- Low-pass which cuts high frequencies and allows lows through
- Band-pass which allows a midsection of frequencies through, cutting highs and lows
Envelopes
An envelope is a small section of sound. So in the context of envelope filters, this is a pluck or striking of a note, which creates a clear waveform, almost a tiny enveloped package, containing a voltage that can be processed.
The attack and decay settings control how quickly these envelopes are created from your inputs on an envelope filter pedal.
Processing
We can then take these enveloped ‘bits’ of sound and process them using various controls. For example, you can control the resonance of certain frequencies, adding bias into some frequencies to fatten them up.
You can sweep the enveloped sounds up and down. Down will suit bass guitars to fatten them into a subby, spacey, suction sound. Up will add flickering highs into your guitar tone to give it a funky glimmer.
With envelope pedals, bassists and guitarists alike can achieve all sorts of choppy, percussive, smooth, or penetrating FX, with sweeps, phasing effects, and more complicated LFO’s for filtering madness! Below are 4 of the best envelope filters for guitars, with some working for bass.
Conclusion: What’s the Best Envelope Filter?
There are tonnes of options when it comes to enveloping filtering. However, they don’t need to be precisely sifted through and set up to gain cool, musical sounds that can brighten up your palette considerably.
Any of these pedals will satisfy a need for creative FX in your tone. So, it depends on whether you want to side with the more complex pedals or, the simpler ones to gain your desired effects. The decision is, as always, yours.
The Electro-Harmonix pedals have a more recognizable, familiar tone, which ties in with 80’s funk records. The EarthQuaker provides quirks with simplicity and easily changeable knobs. Pigtronix provides full-board manipulation!