Best delay and reverb pedals

This is the pick for most players, and the reason is boring rather than glamorous: it is the only pedal on this page whose maker publishes the numbers you need to actually plan a board around it. 75 mA, 73 x 129 x 59 mm, 450 g, 1 M ohm in and 1 k ohm out, recommended load 10 k ohms or greater. Everything else here asks you to buy on faith.

On the sound, BOSS publishes 11 sound combinations built on the original RE-201's three-head configuration, with and without the spring reverb, and — the line that matters most for this page — says you can *balance the echo/reverb blend with independent level knobs*. There is a dedicated ECHO knob and a dedicated REVERB knob. That is the whole test this page is built around, and this pedal passes it on the front panel rather than in a menu. Add true stereo in and out, tap tempo, a carryover switch so the repeats ring out past bypass, a Wow & Flutter control for tape modulation, and a CTL/EXP jack.

The cons are real and two of them are unusual. First, BOSS publishes no delay time figure at all — the specification says only that delay time has been doubled against the RE-201, which is a comparison and not a number. On a delay pedal that is a strange gap, and it means you cannot check before buying whether it reaches the long repeat you have in mind. Second, this is a tape echo voice, not a clean modern digital delay; if you want pristine, unsmeared repeats this is the wrong flavor and the NUX below has an 80's digital mode for exactly that. It is also buffered bypass only, no preset memory is published, the alkaline figure is about 4.5 hours so battery power is a backup rather than a plan, and no adaptor is in the box.

The cheapest of the three here and, on paper, the most configurable. NUX publishes three delay types each with its own range — a 70's BBD analog voice at 40 to 400 ms, a 60's tape echo at 55 to 550 ms and an 80's digital delay at 80 to 800 ms — alongside three reverbs: spring, plate with a shimmer effect, and hall. Published ranges per mode is more than most makers in this category give you.

The reason to choose it over the others is the routing. NUX publishes serial or parallel chain routing with separated dry signals, and a switch for which effect comes first — reverb into delay smears the repeats together, delay into reverb keeps them distinct, and this is the only pedal here that puts that choice on the outside of the box. The two sections have their own controls (Delay Level, Time and Repeat; Reverb Level and Decay), tap tempo runs 125 to 1500 ms across all three delay types with subdivisions and a Smart TAP footswitch, and there is a TRS input for an effects loop plus a +4 dB / -10 dB input level switch.

The cons are all about what is not published. NUX states no current draw, no dimensions, no weight and no bypass type. That is four of the figures you would use to plan a board, absent, on a pedal with two digital engines that is certainly not a light load. You cannot size a supply output for it or measure a board slot from the spec sheet, and this page's top pick publishes all of it. Stock is also thinner than the other two — it is a live listing, but not a deep one — and no power supply is included.

The maximal answer, and the only one here that is really a small ambient workstation rather than a two-effect pedal. MOOER publishes two fully independent delay engines with nine delay types each and a ceiling of 2 seconds, nine reverb types — room, hall, plate, distorted, flanger, filter, reverse, spring and modulated — plus a shimmer mode. Two delays running against one reverb is a genuinely different proposition from anything else on this page: it is how dotted-eighth-plus-quarter patterns get built.

It is also the only pedal here with presets — 24 across eight banks, with what MOOER calls hybrid parallel/serial routing for the signal flow — and the only one with a looper, at 120 seconds with overdub, undo and redo, half speed and reverse. Twelve knobs and an LCD screen drive it, three multifunction footswitches including tap, full stereo in and out at 44.1 kHz and 24-bit, and selectable true or buffered bypass.

The cons start with the same gap as the NUX and get worse because of the size. MOOER publishes the 9 V DC requirement but no current-draw figure, and this is a pedal with a screen, two delay engines and a reverb engine — the one number you most want before choosing a supply, missing on the pedal most likely to need its own output. It is also the largest and heaviest thing here at 215 x 127 x 56 mm and 1.1 kg, which is three standard compact pedals' worth of board; it is the most expensive of the three; and MOOER does not spell out how the three footswitches are assigned or confirm in writing that both delays and the reverb run concurrently. Twelve knobs and a screen is a learning curve, not a plug-in.

This is the most likely wrong purchase on this page, and it is wrong for an unusual reason: it is a genuinely excellent pedal that we recommend elsewhere. The DD-8 is our best delay pedals winner and it has a mode called +RV, which BOSS describes as *digital delay with reverb added*. If you are searching for a delay and reverb pedal and you land on the best delay pedal and it lists reverb among its modes, the conclusion writes itself.

Look at the control list instead. BOSS publishes Mode, Time, Feedback, E.Level, a Carryover switch and the pedal switch — and nothing that adjusts the reverb. No reverb level, no decay, no reverb type. The delay is fully under your hands and the reverb is a fixed garnish on it, the same in every setting. That is a fine thing for a delay pedal to offer and it is not the thing this page is about.

Buy the DD-8 if you want a delay pedal — eleven modes, up to 10 seconds, true stereo, carryover, and our full DD-8 review covers why it wins its own category. Do not buy it expecting a reverb you can set. At 100 mA it is also the hungriest pedal named on this page.

The mirror image of the DD-8, and it catches the same buyer coming the other way. The RV-6 is a very good reverb pedal with a mode literally named +DELAY, which BOSS describes as *reverb combined with delay. The synergistic effect provides rich reverberation.* Read that sentence closely: the delay is there to enrich the reverb, and the reverb is the effect being described.

The control list says the same thing. BOSS publishes E.Level, Tone, Time and Mode — reverb parameters — and no delay control at all, and nowhere states that the delay and reverb levels can be set independently in this mode. So you get a reverb you can shape and a delay you cannot, which is exactly the DD-8's problem with the two effects swapped. At 95 mA it also draws more than the RE-2 above while doing less of what this page asks for.

It is still worth owning as what it is. Eight modes including shimmer, dynamic and spring, true stereo, and a place on our best reverb pedals list. If a fixed, pleasant delay tucked behind the reverb is honestly all you want, it is the cheapest route to that and there is no reason to spend more. If you want two effects you can actually balance against each other, the three picks above are where this page points.