There are a few pedals I know of that I haven't laid hands on yet. Dwarfcraft Grazer is a good example. Ill probably get to all of them eventually.
Glitchipedia
I. Malekko Charlie Foxtrot
The Charlie Foxtrot can be a very simple pedal or it can be very complex depending on how you set it up. In most configurations its a set-and-forget box that you can turn on and get a consistent result if you need something to do the same kind of sound every time you play a part. Every function related to the glitch effect can be set to a specific value or a random value from all the options for that control. So you can set a short buffer to repeat for a specific period of time for a very rhythmic effect or you can set everything to random and the pedal will do its own thing while you play parts. You can also control all that via picking threshold or manual triggering of a single cycle. Pitch shifting up, down, or both is also particularly smooth and electronic sounding on this pedal. This is by far the synthiest pedal in the genre. Most other pedals always sound like a guitar. The Charlie Foxtrot is capable of sounds no one would ever guess came from a guitar.
Note: The 'Auto' program on a Hexe ReVolver is essentially the same effect as the Charlie Foxtrot although the Hexe does not offer the pitch manipulation the Charlie Foxtrot offers.
II. MASF Raptio
The Raptio is the most straightforward option on the market and does a simple stutter effect very well in a compact size and at a pretty affordable price point. I use one on my live board because it responds consistently and isn’t likely to get settings mixed up that throw me off during a set. Controls for wet level, dry level, and stutter speed cover the actual effect. The glitch mode is the star of the show. The hold mode is super lo-fi and doesn’t compete with a pedal like the EHX freeze but it offers a cool texture if you want a harsh held note. Also adds comb filtering if you sweep the rate knob while holding the footswitch. The Raptio doesn’t dump the buffer when you release the footswitch so you can get a fading version of the last sample if you re-trigger immediately after letting off. This isn’t good or bad. Its just different and something to take into account. If you want perfect new samples on rapid switching sequences the Raptio tends to get messy and lose the specific note information. It becomes more of a clicky bright stutter which cuts through really well. Also, if you’re in glitch mode and you move the knob while a sample is playing the pedal will completely mangle that sample in a beautiful way.
III. MASF Possessed Tremolo
If the Charlie Foxtrot is user friendly and consistent, the Possessed Tremolo is the total opposite. It does whatever it wants with your signal and you have some amount of control over a couple parameters. If it does something you like on a part once, don’t count on it ever doing the same thing again. That can be a good or bad thing depending on what you want. If you’re looking for a pedal that never does the same thing twice then this is the one to get. Worth noting that the name says its a tremolo but its more of a glitch delay with a single repeat. It fills a buffer and then spits out the contents in various ways.
IV. Bandanna Mandala
The Mandala does everything the Raptio does plus a little more. It adds the option to pitch the sample up or down at a variable rate and also has options for the switch to be latching or momentary. You can also get it to trigger a random sample rate on every new press of the switch. Its a lot of features for the money. However, its a mini-pedal which can make it tough to manage on a pedalboard. I rehoused mine and turned the two toggles into footswitches which would have made it the ultimate straightforward stutter box for me except that the pedal was faulty from the factory and after a random number of triggers or a random amount of time it stops stuttering and just passes signal. It needs to be power cycled to work again. So while it sort of works its basically a brick. I’ve read about this being an issue with some Mandalas. I definitely voided the warranty on this one though so… $200 brick.
V. Solid State Supernova Super Flutter V2
The Super Flutter is a lot of functions in one box. The Flutter modes hold a sample of a certain speed and cut the dry signal while it is playing. Then you can hold the other switch and pitch that sample up or down at a rate determined by the second knob. Or if you hit the right switch you can just go directly to pitching the sample up or down in a smooth curve. The pedal is quirky though because the right switch goes in the direction the knob says. If you hit the right switch while already holding the left then the pitch goes in the opposite direction. So ultimately you get all the options without changing settings! The Cutter mode is a hard square wave tremolo that passes the dry signal. Instead of changing pitch the right switch changes the speed of the tremolo up or down. The Super Flutter also has a tap-tempo mode and different regions of the speed knob allow for four different tap ratios. This is the only pedal that offers such a feature. On top of all that you can add an expression pedal and control the pitching up or down of the sample manually and leave it at different speeds. You can do really fun harmonizing this way. Good luck finding one of these, unfortunately. The company doesn’t seem to be in business and Reverb averages one every two years.
VI. Montreal Assembly Count to 5
This pedal does a lot of stuff and its kind of a blank box of confusion if you don’t dig deep into the user-created manuals. Its primarily included in this reference because you can re-trigger the buffer with the left switch which makes for glitchy fun. If you’re really hands-on with pedals the CT5 is a great option because you can manipulate multiple loops in real time and get a lot of different textures on a recorded loop. It can also be a good hands-off pedal where you just play and let the pedal flow along with you.
VII. Cooper FX Outward
The Outward is another box that can be straightforward or very complex. The envelope delay mode covers a lot of smoother glitch sounds that burble along underneath your playing. Then you can hold a loop of whatever is in the buffer and time stretch it to your heart’s content. Its a very organic way of making base layers to play over that don’t have much specific rhythmic or harmonic data to clash with your other playing. Being able to slow things down into a stretched smear without affecting pitch is very useful for processing with other pedals to make textures that don’t sound as much like a guitar. Also, you can leave a sample in the pedal’s hold mode and bypass the pedal to bring back that sample later on. Very useful!
VIII. Red Panda Tensor
The Tensor does a lot of stuff. Its like a Raptio and an Outward and a Count To 5 all wrapped into a box that guesses what you’re doing and reacts accordingly. Also it has a literal Random knob that lets you mix in variable amounts of random deviation from your settings. Its a lot to take in but its pretty user friendly and you can loop samples in the buffer and pitch them up and down and time stretch or compress them. You can then also go from full forward speed down to tape stop and then backwards into full reverse. And that happens in real time like the much-sought-after Digitech Space Station. The switches can be momentary or latching, the whole thing is MIDI-controllable via USB and Red Panda is consistently updating software based on user feedback. This is the pedal that covers all these niche effects from hard-to-reach builders and brings it to a mass market product. People have been salty that it doesn’t work exactly how they want but its a lot of features for the money and I’m not complaining about that.
IX. MWFX Judder
Pushing delay lines to their limits gets you a lot of weird stuff and the Judder is a good example of that. It blends two delay lines pushed to their limits and allows you to control them via envelope or LFO and adds automated parameter adjustment on top. You can get everything from simple delay to bizarre tremolo-esque modulation and wild pitch shifting. There are so many variables between the switches and controls that its hard to say definitively what the Judder is. But a good way to look at it is a box that will always give you new ideas if you flick a bunch of switches and start playing. My one qualm with the Judder is that they are extremely noisy in ‘bypass’ because there actually isn’t a bypass on the pedal. I modified mine for true bypass on the latching switch to get rid of the noise when I wasn’t using it and I strongly recommend this if you play with any amount of gain after the pedal.
X. TKOG Mini Glitch
The Mini Glitch is the next evolution of TKOG’s original Feral Glitch pedal that sold out on Kickstarter and then rapidly jumped in price in Reverb sales. Its essentially a more elaborate take on the Raptio variation of glitch pedals. The knob controls the speed of the effect and the switches give you options for random glitch, glitch that triggers on each new pick attack, and regular manual stutter like the Raptio. Dry blend is managed with a toggle. This is another Spinsemi FV1-based design and it tends to be a little smoother than the Raptio while also having some of the artifacts you expect to hear in a glitch pedal. The Mini Glitch is a good option for set and forget playing, especially on the trigger mode because it will just do its thing along with your playing without you needing to constantly interact with the pedal. Some mangling of the sample is possible when moving the knob while holding the switch but its not as dramatic as the Raptio. Worth noting is that the manual mode has a significant delay before it will play the new sample which makes precise triggering tough. This pedal is better for triggering stutters on already hanging notes for that reason.
2022 Edit - TKOG continues to refine their design and report they have made significant improvements to the capture speed of the mini glitch in additional to other updates.
XI. Hexe ReVolvers
Revolver II
The Revolver II is extremely flexible for random stutter variations and short sample lengths. It completely dumps the buffer on each new trigger and the necessary amount of signal coming in before it can make a viable sample is extremely short. You can re-trigger new notes almost as fast as you can tap and the ReVolver will spit out solid pitch information each time. Nothing else on the market competes in this specific feature. Almost everything else needs to be triggered after the note has been hanging for a bit. The ReVolver II includes controls for speed and time and can play loops in forward or reverse. It offers a manual glitch mode that works like a Raptio as well as an Auto Glitch mode that is set and forget at speed and time settings of your choosing. Tone control, volume control, and a dry cut switch let you tailor the tone and mix of the effect which is a lot of flexibility. Switching between modes is very easy with the central knob. Finally, ReVolvers are unique in that you capture with one switch and cancel the effect with another. This means you can bring back the last sample at any time by hitting the left switch.
ReVolver DX
The ReVolver DX has the same general features as the II with the addition of a longer possible sample time in a mode accessed by power cycling the pedal and choosing either a 1s or 4.8s mode. Accessing the rest of the modes differs from the II in that you hold the bypass switch to enter the mode menu and cycle through the options. The DX adds a fade feature which allows you to fade loops automatically at variable rates. The DX can also speed loops up or down on each trigger like the Super Flutter. The programs on the DX are more focused on longer period manipulation of loops such as the ping pong mode and up/down modes. These new modes replace some of the random modes from the II that are harsher and more akin to CD skipping or glitching.
ReVolver DX16
The DX16 is the same as the DX with the exception that it can capture 17 seconds of audio rather than the max of 4.8 seconds on the regular DX.
XII. David Rolo Stamme[n]
The Stamme[n] is a Spinsemi FV1-based pedal that combines a lot of programs into a single box. It offers tap tempo versions of the Ratio-type stutter as well as filtered samples, tape stop effects, and a unique broken cable emulator setting. All effects can be either momentary or latching in the current versions with two footswitches. Pictured above is the first version with a separate bypass switch. Wet/dry mix is accomplished with separate volumes for the wet and dry signals.
XIII. Meris Ottobit Jr
The Ottobit Jr is more pitch/filter sequencer and bitcrusher than glitch pedal but it does have a stutter function that works in coordination with the rate of the sequencer to stutter in a predictable fashion. It's the kind of effect you have to write for specifically rather than something you can just throw on whenever you want in a song. The stutter works as a number of repeats at a specific speed. So you have 1-8 repeats at full speed, 1-8 repeats at half speed, and 1-8 repeats at double speed, as well as a random selection from any of those possibilities. This is tricky to set exactly how you want it because there are so many divisions on the knob and you sort of have to guess where you are and then listen. Its a specific effect that nothing else does but one that can be tough to work with if you haven't spent a lot of time tweaking.
XIV. Sonic Crayon Anti Nautilus
The Anti Nautilus is somewhat of a predecessor to a lot of the glitchy pedals on the market nowadays that allow you to manipulate pitch and stutter on a chunk of audio captured in a buffer. The Malekko Charlie Foxtrot has a lot of the same qualities and features including pitch up/down, trigger or loop capture sensitivity, and buffer length. The Anti Nautilus is significantly more organic sounding and while the Charlie Foxtrot tends to sound more electronic in nature. Another case of a pedal where if you see one, buy it, because you wont see another. Sonic Crayon pedals command a massive premium nowadays. A more accessible way to enjoy Etienne's work is strolling through the world in Far Cry 5
XV. Pladask Elektrisk Fabrikat
Fabrikat is another box that covers a lot of bases with its 16 programs. The time stretch algorithms are a bit more atmospheric than the Outward or Tensor and the option for feedback in the circuit adds a lot of nuances that you won't find elsewhere. It also has programs that cover similar ground to the TKOG Mini Glitch, Drolo Stammen, and alternating forward/reverse found on the ReVolver DX and Tensor. The loop switch lets you hold onto audio and then manipulate it with the controls which makes getting an exact sound you want much easier than with other pedals. If you need an all-encompassing microloop manipulation pedal its really hard to beat the Fabrikat. Also somewhat hard to buy one but PE consistently produces new runs of their effects every few months.
XVI. Montreal Assembly 856 for Zellersasn
856 for Zellersasn is a dense pedal with a lot of stuff going on that isn't immediately apparent. The essential premise is you record a loop and then you can adjust the area of that loop that is played back, the length of the loop that is played back, the tempo and pitch of the loop that is played back, and the number of copies of the loop that are played at the same time with a delayed offset. And then you can set up different variations of that same loop to play together 3 times. You can also sample the output of the pedal back into the input and apply all your automation to the already-automated loop for rather unpredictable results. Current versions have full midi implementation and a layout that helps with workflow. Unlike almost everything else listed here, the 856 is very very very not a plug and play pedal. It takes a lot of experimenting to get used to how all the functions work and how the knobs change when you have a switch on one position vs. another. It's a great tool for building a layered loop that develops organically but not predictably.
XVII. Pladask Elektrisk Bakvendt
Bakvendt is an ILF-exclusive by Pladask Elektrisk. Its a granular synthesizer masquerading as a reverse delay. It can delay stuff in reverse, time stretch stuff in reverse, freeze stuff, pitch stuff upwards in octave intervals, pitch stuff downwards in octave intervals and generally make lots of gnarly noises. Pladask's switching mechanism of tap for latching and hold for momentary is especially useful in this pedal if you're going for more extreme sounds. A good supplement, or perhaps less option-paralysis-laden alternative to Fabrikat.
