Reverb has crunched the numbers and revealed its top-selling guitar effects pedals of 2024, with podium finishes for amp modellers in all three of its year-end charts, and another strong year for Japanese stompbox giant Boss.
Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Boss was the biggest selling brand of the year, followed by Electro-Harmonix in second place, and MXR in third. TC Electronic came fourth. Kudos to JHS Pedals for a fifth place finish; the Kansas-based stompbox company’s Hard Drive distortion pedal was the ninth best-selling new pedal of the year.
Boss’s dominance, however, shows no sign of slowing. Last year, the Boss DS-1 Distortion pedal and the BD-2 Blues Driver were placed one and two in the overall best-sellers list, a position the BD-2 has maintained in 2024. As Reverb notes, Boss’s position as a market leader is almost baked into the data by this point – they also make sound investments, for your electric guitar tone and your pocketbook.
“A lesson that many guitarists learn early on is that you simply can't go wrong with a Boss pedal,” says Reverb. “They’re built like small tanks, they sound great, and their used value persists – or even grows – over time, meaning you'll pretty much always get your money back if you decide to sell.”
However, no Boss pedal claimed number one spot. As in previous years, Reverb has split its sales charts into categories. Besides best-selling pedal brand there are charts for best-selling new releases (all the pedals that have been released this year), best-selling used pedal, and best-selling overall pedals, i.e. the ones that shifted the most units.
This year’s best-selling newcomer was not from any of the aforementioned Top Five. It wasn’t an overdrive pedal or a reverb. It was IK Multimedia’s Tonex One, the mini-pedal sized amp modeller that can be your entire rig in a mini pedal.
Reverb says the figures were tight, and the pedal that it beat to number one spot could not be more different, Hologram’s Chroma Console – the $399 multi-effects pedal that defies easy categorisation, drawing inspiration from vintage studio equipment, allowing you to add grit and “instability” of old analogue devices, with 20 effects in total.
The Chroma Console allows them to take their sound to somewhere it has never been before. It is no generic effect.
The Tonex One is similarly radical, presenting all the sounds of the entire IK Multimedia Tonex eco-system into a pedal that’s the size of the Xotic EP Booster, with one large dial, and three mini-dials, and thousands of core tones to work with. Maybe options were what guitarist’s were looking for in 2024.
“The Tonex One is a very miniature pedal that gives you access to 25,000+ virtual effects and amps in the ToneX ecosystem, so perhaps it's not too surprising that it would be such a big hit,” says Reverb. “The fact that it beat out the Chroma Console – which sold in very large numbers and quickly became a fixture in many artists’ rigs this year – is a testament to just how much utility it provides.”
EarthQuaker Devices Dirt Transmitter Legacy Reissue, a limited edition fuzz pedal of 1,000 now sold-out units, came in third. Is that a new pedal? Well, it has been out of production forever and its rare silicon transistors might mean that we won’t see it again until EQD big boss Jamie Stillman can source a new batch.
The best-selling used pedals of 2024 presents us with some familiar facias, with the Line 6 HX Stomp (again, another compact modeller) in number one spot, the aforementioned BD-2 Blues Driver tied in second with the MXR M169 Carbon Copy delay pedal, and the Strymon Iridium in third.
As for best-selling overall – the pedals that moved more units than any other – we have the industry-standard Keeley Compressor in number one spot, which could be a sign that the demand for a top-quality transient tamer is driven by the rising popularity of funk guitar, or über-progressive guitar instrumentalists, or just that remains an unimpeachable choice for your ‘board.
The Boss BD-2 Blues Driver’s second place finish is testament to its versatility, and why, like the compressor pedal, a good low-gain overdrive is an essential on any player’s ‘board, no matter what genre they play. Third place overall goes to the Line 6 HX Stomp.
You can view the full placings over at Reverb. Earlier this week, the internet gear retail giant revealed that John Mayer’s unit-shifting, comment-generation PRS signature guitar, the Silver Sky, has finally been deposed at as the best-selling guitar by the Fender Player Stratocaster.
