“So what effects are ya usin’…”
Yes, that is indeed the question in this article.
If I had a dollar for every time I’d been asked that question after a gig.I thought I’d have a little squiz at some of the basic, more common guitar effects in use these days in this installment.
What I will make abundantly clear before I get going, is that I do NOT endorse one brand over any other. It all comes down to personal preference and budget.
So you’ve gone out and spent a few hundred dollars on the Fender squire and amp package. Excellent. Good start. You’ve been playing with it a while and you’re getting tired of it sounding a bit dry and colourless. Well, let’s see what we can do about that.
I personally have an effects rack that has some pretty tasty equipment in there, but this is going to force you to mortgage your house and your first born to get the same toys and a degree at TAFE to operate. So I’ll break it down into what I see are three or four basic effects that can have you sounding like a pro at a reasonable price.
First up, REVERB.
This little baby makes your guitar sound like your playing in a larger space rather than your bedroom. For example, take a walk into your bathroom and hum something. Hear that “spacey” sound. That’s your humming bouncing off the tiles. That’s reverb. It’s standard on a lot of amps and you can wind it up to sound like your playing in a cathedral or pull it back to something a little more controllable to suit your taste. They come in a variety of types such as plate, spring or digital. The technicalities of each is beyond the scope of this article, and some aren’t in production anymore as technological advances have rendered them obsolete.
CHORUS.
This one is almost standard fare for any guitarist. It’s a detuning/delay device that takes your original signal and spits it out slightly out of tune to the original note, thus making it sound like two guitars playing at once. Again, adding more depth and colour to your sound.
OK, it sounds really nice and sparkly now, but I want to make it sound real heavy and dirty.
Well my son, you are now ready to step into the world of OVERDRIVE and DISTORTION.
Most guitar amps have a two channel split. One for clean, and one for absolute filth and grunge. The distorted or overdrive sound is accomplished by winding the “gain” dial way up there. The higher the gain, the more the distortion. So you can dirty up your axe and still control the volume with the volume knob. I thought I’d better add that for the sake of your parents.
DELAY is not as “neccessary” as the above three to get a great working sound, but it is a nice adition if used wisely.
Rather than adding colour to your basic sound, like the above mentioned, Delay is an effect you can use on solos to make your guitar sound like it’s bouncing off the walls. The word ECHO springs to mind. Go up to Echo Point in the Blue Mountains and yell something out into the valley and see what comes back. That’s DELAY. In the old days they were all tape units. It recorded your original sound and played it back a fraction of a second later. Hence the name, Delay. Nowadays it’s all done digitally with silicone chips. Much lighter to carry too.
All of the above are available as individual units called “stomp boxes”, so you can build them up one at a time. But if you really want to lash out all at once, you can buy multi effects processors that have all these and more in the one unit. Neat, huh?
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