Sunday, May 29, 2011

The Beginners Guide To Guitar Effects and Pedals

By Patrick Jules


In this article, I just want to touch on the delight that you can get when you use a pedal, or distortion. In the beginning, distortion was thought of as something unwanted, as a malfunction that was to be corrected, but, over time, musicians began to realize that a distortion or the effect of a pedal could sustain a guitar note, if used properly, and it could also add some other interesting sounds to the guitar that gave it a whole new range, and audience.

When amplifiers were first used, they discovered that the tubes could not handle the sound well enough to allow it to disperse properly and so, distortion happened. However, when musicians realized that there was a completely new world to be explored with the different sounds, they began to play with all the possibilities.

Many musicians still like to use the old tube amplifiers because of the distortion they give. They have a warm, more resonant tone that puts audiences in that mood where they can appreciate better the qualities of the different tones that can be created.

Later, a thing called equalization was discovered, Equalization, or EQ, happens when certain frequencies are amplified within a signal. It can highlight the treble or the bass to make it a little more equal with the sound being produced, hence the name equalizer. You have to experiment with EQ, because the distortion or the amplification you get may not work with what the rest of the band is playing.

Other properties of the pedals are known as modulations and delays and those occur when the signal is split into two equal parts so that one follows the other at an interval of your choosing. Modulations don?t have the natural sound of a delay, and so have to be evaluated as you experiment.

The next characteristic of the pedals is the pitch shift. This is where you can alter the pitch of a note or chord by operating the pedal to your liking. Again, you have to experiment with all the sounds because with pitch shift, you can go too far and go completely out of key with the song being played.

Modeling while not really an effect as much as a program is also used to imitate a certain guitar sounds that is different from the one you were just using. You press the pedal and choose the desired sound that you have programmed in. This goes along with multi-effects that combine individual effects, or allow you to mix and match according to the sound you want. This gives a depth and range that can create a whole array of different sounds.

Individual pedals have different effects, from tone to sound variations to pitch alteration to different guitar sounds. What the pedal does is allow for you, the player to create a whole world of sound and variations that will invariably delight the audience, as long as you use it right.




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