If you're new to the world of the electric guitar you might be curious about how all your inspirational guitar heroes manage to produce the wonderful, and sometimes weird, array of different sounds out of their instruments. Surely they don't achieve them simply by plugging straight into their amp and blasting away?
Well, there are many great guitarists whose setup is as simple as that. But in most cases there's a bit more to it. In this first part I'll go through and explain the main types of effects available.
You may not be familiar with all these terms, but I guarantee if you've been listening to any electric guitar based music from the last 40 years+ you'll have heard some if not all of them at some point.
Distortion and Overdrive
Surely the most widely known type of effect, in fact it's so ubiquitous you might not even think of it as being one. It essentially re-shapes the sound wave received from the guitar, causing it to clip or distort, resulting in a warm fuzzy sound.
You will likely already be familiar with it if you bought an amp with your guitar, as just about all have a "clean" channel (i.e. no fuzzy sound) and an overdriven channel. A "gain" control on these units will allow you to go from anything from mildly distorted, to all out metal mania!
Distorted or overdriven sounds were first popularised in the Sixties by the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin, and have been a mainstay of rock music ever since.
Modulation
This covers a range of effects, the most common perhaps being Chorus, Flanger and Phaser.
Chorus works by taking the sound signal from the guitar and splitting it, adding a very slight delay (see Delay and Reverb below), along with frequency changes to the split signal. This can give your sound an orchestral quality, as if you're suddenly multiple guitarists playing the same part! Chorus sometimes gets a bit of a bad rep, probably due to overuse in the Eighties, but it's a great effect if used carefully. One of the most famous examples of it's use is on the opening of Come as you Are by Nirvana.
Flanger effects work on a similar principle as chorus, but the effect is more accentuated. This results in a "ducking and diving" type of sound. A famous example is on the main guitar riff to Spirit of Radio by Rush.
Phaser effects again split the signal and shift the phase of one part of it. The result has similarities to what a flanger does - you can still produce that "ducking and diving" sound, but overall it's a bit more "out there". A famous example is Have a Cigar from the Pink Floyd album Wish You Were Here.
Filters
If I say "Wah-wah" to you here, and you know what I'm talking about in a guitar context straight away (and are not assuming I'm just making baby noises), then you also know what a filter effect is.
This type acts like a big tone control on your guitar sound. In the case of Wah-wah it allows you to transition from a muffly sound to a bright, clean sound through the use of a foot pedal. It's a bit like opening the door on a party - when you're standing outside, the door closed, you hear loud music, but it's all a bit muffled. As you open the door the sound becomes brighter and clearer. Party on! A famous use of Wah-wah is on Voodoo Child by Jimi Hendrix.
An equalizer is a filter that applies permanent changes to the sound signal from your guitar. This will "boost" or "cut" the sound frequencies, allowing you to sculpt a bright or a deeper sound, or something in-between. This can be extremely important if you want to fit in the mix with the overall sound coming from other instruments.
Dynamics
These can really be thought of as problem solvers. All they really do is affect the volume of your guitar signal. At their most basic this can be a volume pedal, allowing you to manually boost or cut the signal during a performance.
A bit more complex is a compressor, which squeezes ("compresses") the signal, boosting quiet notes and smoothing out louder ones, evening out the volume and giving a more fluid sound. It's particularly popular in Metal, when used in conjunction with heavy distortion to get all those nimble-fingered solos clean and clear. It needs to be applied carefully though, too much and you can ruin your overall tone.
A noise gate is a very useful effect that will help get rid of unwanted hiss or hum (e.g. from your guitar pickups) by setting a "gate" at your chosen volume threshold. Anything quieter than the threshold gets removed, anything above remains intact.
Delay and Reverb
You can think of a reverb effect as being like a room simulator. It emulates what happens after a sound occurs in a room, i.e. when it "reverberates" around. You can therefore use it to recreate anything from the sound of playing in a bathroom, to that of a cathedral.
A delay effect adds an echo to your sound, with most units allowing you to modify the number of echo repeats to create a very short or long effect. Like reverb, you can use it to give yourself a very "big" sound, or play along rhythmically to the echoes - U2's guitarist, The Edge, is synonymous with this playing style.
Summary
That rounds out the main type of effects, although it by no means covers everything. There are many other subtypes, but most vary or add to the types explained above. I hope though this at least gives you a good starting point.
In the next article I'll explain the difference between stomp boxes and multi effects units. I'll go through some examples and also focus on some of the more wallet-friendly ones available.
If you're just starting out in rock guitar and want to learn how to play in this style, here's a cool place with some very useful resources: Rock Guitar Power. Learn your riffs, plug in your stomp boxes and make some noise!
Iain is based in Scotland has been playing electric guitar for 20 years. In that time he has tried out a great many amps, stomp boxes and multi-effects units.
No comments:
Post a Comment