One of the best things about an electric guitar is the
freedom that it provides in terms of what kind of sound you want and the sheer
variety of sounds and effects that you can get out of it. Thanks to effects, an
electric guitar can be just about anything.
Guitar pedals or stomp boxes, as they’re often referred to,
is an important piece of hardware used by guitar players to alter, change and
customize the sound of their electric guitars and add effects to its sound.
These effects allow you to make the kind of noise you would
want to with your guitar, for instance if you want to sound like someone, or
allow you to create your own unique sound and define your own style.
If you’re unfamiliar with the world of guitar effects, or want
to know what some of them are, here are a few of the most popular ones:
1. Distortion (and Fuzz and Overdrive)
Self-explanatory and extremely-popular are two words that do
an apt job of describing this effect. Distortion pedals are the most popular pedals
in modern-day guitar-playing, and give your guitar that unclean, distorted
sound, usually head in and associated with rock, punk and metal genre music.
Distortion can be anything from clean, smooth and melodic tube overdrive to
harsh, highly-distorted, heavier and meatier sound. Distortion effects include
Fuzz and Overdrive, the latter of which allows you to deliver a good ‘tube’
sound.
2. Delay (and Reverb)
A delay effect essentially repeats the original sound after
a set period, usually in milliseconds or longer, creating an ‘echo’ effect of
sorts. A similar effect called Reverb uses processing to simulate sound so that
it feels as if sound is ‘reflecting’ off the different surfaces, making it fuller
(such as the sound heard in a hall or an enclosed venue). Delay/reverb allows
you to choose from different room sizes. In the 50s and 60s, musicians
regularly used tape-based delays to produce echoes, and some are even designed
to sound like some of the spring reverbs of yesteryear, although most
modern-day reverbs are digital delay units.
3. Wah Pedals
Often referred to as Wah Wah pedals, these pedals are used
to change and filter the tones from the incoming guitar signal, filtering
frequencies dynamically using the foot to give a ‘wah wah’ or a ‘quacking’
sound to the guitar. In essence, it is an equalizer that can be varied using
the foot in real-time. Not for beginners, since a certain amount of
coordination is required to coordinate the movement of the foot with that of
your playing.
4. Chorus
The chorus effect is a time-based effect, in which a
slightly detuned, modulated and delayed clone of the signal is played along with
the original, producing a ‘doubling’ effect of sorts (which can be controlled),
hence producing a thicker tone. The
delay can be controlled, helping produce a subtle or noticeable clone-effect to
your tone and sound.
5. Flanger
Both of these effecrs are quite similar to chorus – the
flanger effect, for starters, was produced by playing back the same sound on
multiple tape decks, while an engineer used a finger on the tape reel’s edge to
speed up or slow the clone signals. This is in fact why this effect came to be
known as ‘flanger’ in the first place. In modern times, the same effect is
duplicated by employing digital delays which are set to extremely short times
and inverting the signal’s phase.
6. Phaser
Another time-based effect, like the two above it, that lies
somewhere in between the chorus and the much-more-subtle flanger. Most notably
used by the likes of Rolling Stones and Eddie van Halen on many of their
records, the phaser is quite similar to the chorus effect but the signal changes
from in-phase to out-of-phase constantly, giving an affect which is similar to
a rotating speaker.
7. Compressor
The compressor or sustain effect limits the dynamic range of
a signal, which results in more profound and a noticeably-obvious softer sound,
while limiting the louder ones – which means that it is the opposite effect of
overdrive. The compressor sustains the notes without degrading the sound
quality. This effect is also known as a classic studio effect, and the older
compressor effect units were quite noisy, however the modern compressors have
certain system that cut off the signal once it reaches a particular level,
keeping the sound soft.
8. Multi-effects Pedal
This is the king of all stomp-boxes; the multi-effects pedal
as the name implies, includes all of the effects above, as well as a whole host
of other effects as well. In fact, a few of the multi-effects pedals have so
many effects, they can completely change and alter the sound of the guitar that
it doesn’t even sound like one anymore! These all-in-one effect pedals can replace
any and all other stomp-boxes/effects-pedals that you might have.
