A Beginner’s Guide Understanding Guitar Pedals

Guitar Pedals

We’re going to try to give a quick look at the major types of guitar effects pedals.

Boost

boost pedal can be used to up your volume over the rest of the band during a solo; to drive your amp harder by feeding it a hotter signal; to have a set volume change at the press of a button.

Overdrive

Overdrive pedals are designed to either to replicate tube amp driven tone or as a boost pedal- so you get those inherent benefits, you’ll get some added girth to your tone from the distortion created by the pedal. Most overdrive pedals have tone control giving you wider tone shaping possibilities.

Distortion

Distortion is where overdrive leaves off. This pedal emulates high gain amps that create thick walls of sound small tube amps are not capable of creating. Distortion pedals are crucial to modern guitar tone. They offer flexibility that boosts and overdrives can not rival.

Fuzz

Fuzz boxes built to emulate the sound of damaged speakers. I think its safest to call what Ike Turner created/stumbled upon was fuzz. The fuzz pedal is seeing resurgence in popular music these days. Bands like Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails,  Muse and the White Stripes rely heavily on classic fuzz on recent releases.

Compressor

The job of a compressor is to deliver an even volume output. It makes the soft parts louder, and the loud parts softer. Current country music guitar tone is driven by the use of compression. It is used to improve sustain and increase clarity during low volume playing.

Modulation

Flanger

The earliest “flanger” effects were produced in the studio by playing 2 tape decks, both playing the same sounds, while an engineer would slow down or speed up the playback of one of the dupe signals. This process produces a wooshing sound, just like the sound of jet streams. The flange is really the edge of the old school tape reels.

Phase shifter

The phase shifter bridges the gap between Flanger and Chorus. Early phasers were meant to recreate the spinning speaker of a Leslie. Phase shifting’s over use can be heard all over the first few Van Halen albums.

Chorus

Chorus pedals split your signal in 2, modulates one of them by slowing it down and detuning it, then mixes it back in with the original signal. The effect is supposed to sound like several guitarists playing the same thing at the same time, resulting in a wide swelling sound, but I don’t hear it. You do get a thicker more lush tone, but it doesn’t sound like a chorus of players to me.

Tremolo

As a kid, did you ever play with the volume knob on the TV or the radio manically turning it up and down? Yeah? Well you were a tremolo effect.

Delay

A delay pedal creates a copy of an incoming signal and slightly time-delays its replay. You can use it to create a “slap back” (single repetition) or an echo (multiple repetitions) effect.

Wah

A variable band-pass frequency filter.  You rock the Wah pedal pedal back and forth to allow lower and higher frequencies to pass though. This then produces the “wah-wah” sound.

Reverb

The Reverb effect emulates natural acoustic spaces by producing an echo making your tone sound like it’s being played in a big concert hall.

Talk Box

The Talk Box pedal has a small speaker in it that plays the signal loudly up an air-tight small plastic tubing. This tube is then taped to the side of the microphone where it sticks out just enough to be able to send the sound into the guitarist’s mouth. The guitar player then makes shapes with their mouth to change the sound, which is then picked up by the microphone.

Using Guitar Pedal And Effects to Create an Original Sound

guitar pedals

Choosing the right combination of vintage and new guitar pedals and effects can really create an original and unique sound that will set you apart from the crowd. For every superstar guitarist, the types of FX pedals they use often contribute greatly to their signature sound. It’s ironic in a way that pro guitarists will spend many thousands of dollars on state-of-the-art guitars and amplifiers, but the humble FX box will usually have more of an impact on your guitar sound, and the sound of your band, than any of these other elements.

Besides the so-called boutique pedals, you can also find a lot of the old 60’s and 70’s vintage effects for sale, or up for auction online. Buying vintage pedals can be a good deal, and when you consider how much sturdier things were built in the 60’s and 70’s, they are likely to last another 30 or 40 years. When searching for your own unique sound as a guitarist, remember, modern mass-produced guitar pedals can be reliable and a good value, but you will sacrifice originality and uniqueness of tone by using these mainstream FX.

Lining Up Your Guitar Pedals

Guitar effects pedals, also called stomp boxes, get their name because of the “stomping” action needed to make the effect work. When the pedals are off, you are playing with the guitars clean (unaffected signal) sound coming out of your amp. When you step on it to turn it on, the signal that goes to the pedals are changed creating the desired effect. You can connect more that one effects pedal to your guitar using patch cables (short cables).

You should place your gain and tone based effects at the beginning of your line of pedals. Gain and tone based effects include distortion, volume, wah and EQ. Next you should put the pedals that change the pitch or color of your sound. Then at the end of your chain, you can put the pedals that affect your timing such as delay, reverb and flanger.

Pedals can be organized and protected by using a pedal board, a flat board that all of your pedals can be placed on all connected together.

One thing to be aware of is that connecting too many pedals together can cause a lot of humming and unwanted noise, not to mention loss of frequency