“This is the only tremolo pedal in the world that lets you plot your own waveform shapes using controls you first got to grips with as a child”: SoundLad Sketchy review

Name: What is it?

Just because tremolo is one of the oldest guitar effects in the pedal cabinet doesn’t mean that you can’t take it and reimagine it, or that somehow it isn’t fun any more, or that there aren’t new electric guitar sounds to be found from it.

Far from being some fusty anachronism, the tremolo pedal remains one of the most radical effects you can get. We could walk through the guitar store and show you some, show you why. But we have one here from SoundLad Liverpool that will do the job. It might just blow your mind.

It’s called Sketchy, and it is a dual-mode analogue tremolo controlled digitally, with both amplitude and harmonic tremolo, each with their own tone stack. Its retro-inspired design – and name – owes much to the Etch A Sketch, and like the manual drawing toy for the kids, this lets you actually draw out your waveform shape manually.

Oh, and it comes packed with 16 onboard waveforms, your sine, triangle, square, and sawtooth, and all those classics, plus some more avant-garde shapes that do some strange things rhythmically to your sound. There are slots for a further 16 user-designed waveforms, so if you dial in new shape that you like the sound of it you can save it down.

Sketchy has tap tempo. It has a 3” display screen on which all your parameters are laid out – including the waveform shape and BPM. And you've got 32 user presets.

Here we were thinking Soundlad was kind of far out with their take on the Big Muff fuzz pedal, the MusicRadar-approved Hungry Beaver – it even has a Gravy dial! – and now this.

Specs

• Launch price: $259 approx/£199/€239 approx
• Type: Dual-mode tremolo pedal with onboard waveform plotter
• Controls: 2x multifunction encoding knobs, 2x soft-relay footswitches
• Features: Digitally controlled analogue tremolo, amplitude and harmonic tremolo – each with its own tone stack, 16 onboard waveform shapes, 10 presets from Matt Webster of the Lets Play All YouTube show, Sketchy waveform plotter that allows players to design their own waveforms, 32 preset slots, tap tempo, "shake to erase" feature
• Connectivity: 2x 1/4" input/outputs, standard centre negative power supply input
• Bypass: True
• Power: 9-volt, 250 mA
• Dimensions: 125x65x96 mm
• Weight: 21.7oz/0.615kg
• Contact: Soundlad Liverpool

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★★

Sketchy looks like a toy (for “ages 3+”!). It arrives in plastic packaging, just like it would if you had picked it off the shelves of The Jolly Giant in the 1986, and, again, that’s part of the appeal. And yet, when you take it out and pop it on the pedalboard, it feels exactly like it should, weighty, like a piece of high-end audio kit should do. Its fire engine red metal enclosure is super tough, built like a tank.

You’ve got jacks aligned across the top of the unit. There are soft-tough relay switches. And is a big stompbox. Not so much in terms of footprint – it has a standard, dual-footswitch landscape format – but in height.

Those two encoding knobs, the big plastic Etch A Sketch dials, stand proud on the pedalboard but with only two knobs, two footswitches, there’s not a lot of entry points for dust, and those knobs would help protect the screen.

Under the hood, Soundlab has wired those footswitches and connections off the board, which will arguably make this more reliable in the long run, placing less pressure on the circuitry, and, also, and if you ever needed to swap out a switch it can be done theoretically without too much pain.

Usability

Usability rating: ★★★☆☆

If you have ever found yourself complaining about too many dials on your pedal, careful what you wish for. Here we only have two wheel-style knobs, and they do pretty much everything besides adjusting the tap tempo. That’s what the footswitch on the left is for.

At first, it’s a head scratcher. The manual is not that much help. Early attempts to dial in a sound were demoralising. I felt like I had the intellectual firepower of zooplankton. But it gets better, and in no small part down to Matt Webster of the Let’s Play All YouTube channel.

Not only has he got an excellent video demonstration of Sketchy’s capabilities – how it can be dialled in to recreate some of the most recognisable tremolo electric guitar tones in popular music – How Soon Is Now (without the need for multiple Fender amps), Boulevard Of Broken Dreams, Tom Morello’s work on Audioslave’s Like A Stone – but 10 of these sounds are preloaded onto the Sketchy.

Out of the box, you’ve got those sounds to work with and that’s not only a fun place to start – that chewy Johnny Marr tremolo to the Bo Diddley beat is massive – but it’s instructive, giving you a good idea of how the parameters shape the sound coming out of your speaker.

Soundlad shows you everything you are adjusting onscreen. There are standard tremolo parameters for Tone, Depth, Thru and Level, with Thru operating like a wet/dry mix control. You’ll note how this is set low on some of the heavier tremolo sounds such as the How Soon Is Now preset.

You can cycle through all of these parameters with the right-hand dial. Press down, they’ll become illuminated in pale green and you can then start adjusting them. There’s a metronome icon onscreen for setting the exact rate of the tremolo, with four speed multiplier settings – 0.5x, 2x and 5x are onscreen, scroll left offscreen for no multiplier.

At the centre of the display you have the waveform. There will be a single purple wave form in amplitude mode, cyan and yellow waveforms in harmonic tremolo.

To the right of the waveform window you have this confusing hieroglyphic portmanteau symbol for the amplitude and harmonic modes. It’ll give you flashbacks to when you first used an Orange amp. In short: when the tremolo graphic illuminates purple, you’re in amplitude mode, when the treble and bass clef graphic lights yellow and cyan, you’re in harmonic mode.

You can move through the presets by holding the right-hand footswitch down. When you have found a sound you like, give it a name three letter name, save it by holding down the left-hand knob for a second.

Finally, you’ve got the waveform plotter. This is really where Sketchy’s USP comes into play and those two dials work in concert to let you draw – just like an Etch A Sketch – your waveform shape onscreen. And, now this is cool, if you don’t like it, you can erase it and start again by shaking the pedal, again, just like the Etch A Sketch. Alternatively, use the left-hand wheel to clear.

You can do this for both amplitude and harmonic tremolo modes, and good lord that yields some crazy sounds…

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★★

There are some things Sketch doesn’t do. It’s not stereo. There is no MIDI control, nor an app to make deep editing easy. It doesn’t have an expression pedal input. And it absolutely does not do boring. Sketchy contains multitudes and be warned: it is a rabbit-hole for anyone who has ever loved tremolo but wanted more from it.

It has so much range. Whether you are looking for wiry indie-rock tremolo, the bee-sting movement that works so well in a spaghetti western guitar tone, a simple old-school throb, the classic Vibrasonic-esque pulse of harmonic tremolo doing its thing, or a sound that has the weird, otherworldly quality of a ring mod, it’s all there and then some.

By default, the input level is set up for single-coil guitars but there is an internal trimmer to adjust if for high-output humbuckers. I used a Telecaster and a Les Paul Standard without needing to touch it.

Start with the presets, because they’re great, and they’re fun and they accelerate the learning curve. Just because the control setup is initially opaque – frustrating even – doesn’t mean SoundLad leaves you hanging. You can really dial this in.

The Tone parameter (it’s onscreen so it’s not really a control per se) has a wide sweep. You can give the tremolo a super-shiny treble sheen, or make it dark and swampy. It can go deep.

And it might sound utilitarian to say so but the Thru control does a lot of great work; often the difference between a sound that’s too much and one that really lifts you out of the mix is just a tweak away. Feeding it the Rat-style distortion from the Pulp N’ Peel’s drive circuit gave the peaks of that modulated thump a gnarly grittiness.

The nature of this design-yer-own waveform plotter means you are only limited by your imagination.

Verdict

Sketchy is not your common or garden variety tremolo. It will take you out of your comfort zone. This, perhaps, is the price we pay for effects pedal radicalism and the search for new sounds. A spirit of frontiersmanship will serve you well, sustaining you through that initial confusion.

Because you will find sounds here that you will have never heard before, and in a world that is becoming more homogenised by the day, the magic drummed out of it, a device that provides you with the unexpected is to be cherished.

Design matters. There is a playfulness to SoundLad's work that's worth celebrating. But don’t buy Sketchy because of the ‘Shake to Erase’ feature, or for the retro-nostalgic design. What makes this worth checking out are the sounds, and the fact that they are so configurable.

This is the only tremolo pedal in the world that lets you plot your own waveform shapes using controls you first got to grips with as a child.

Having both flavours of tremolo in on pedal is great. Having both, and being able to customise them to this extent, with both bands of the harmonic tremolo waveform fully user-customisable, is kind of miraculous.

MusicRadar verdict: Sketchy makes you wait for your fun but once you get a grip of its controls and start exploring the wide-open plains of tremolo you will never look back. It’s a radical 21st-century take on a 20th-century modulation effect that sounds as cool now as it ever did.

Also try

Source Audio Vertigo
Price $199/£193/€229

Vertigo is a compact digital powerhouse tremolo with normal, bias and harmonic modes, a heap of control over the sounds, and deep editing via the accompanying app.

Read more: Source Audio Vertigo Tremolo review

Walrus Audio Monumental Harmonic Stereo Tremolo
Price $279/£269
This is super-compact, has dual footswitches, stereo operation, and you can use an expression pedal to control any parameter. Lots of features but they don't come cheap.

Read more: Walrus Audio Monumental Harmonic Stereo Tremolo

Boss TR-2 Tremolo
Price $99/£99/€113
Okay, no screen, no customisable waveform, nothing complicated – that's why it's here. Complex isn't for everyone. But with Rate, Depth and an adjustable waveform shape dial, it's deceptively versatile and super effective.

Read more: MusicRadar's best tremolo pedals for guitar 2025

Hands-on videos

Let's Play All

Pedal Experiments

SoundLad Liverpool Sketchy - draw your own tremolo! - YouTube

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