2. Effect Pedals in Modern Popular Music: Case Studies

Since their introduction effects pedals for the guitar have become more and more popular and in modern popular music and it is now very rare for a guitarist in any genre to perform without at least one effect pedal.  To help me understand effects pedals more and how they are important in shaping a bands sound I have decided to look at two case studies.  Both these case studies are from different genres and are both from bands that have influenced my own guitar playing and sound.  The two case studies I have decided to look into are the effects that Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine) and Dean Glover (Hans Island) use when performing live.

Tom Morello     Rage Against the Machine

Rage Against the Machine

‘Rage Against the Machine’ are a rap metal band from Los Angeles.  They are a four-piece band with Brad Wilk on drums, Tim Commerford on bass, Tom Morello on lead guitar and Zak de la Rocha on vocals.  They draw influence from rap, heavy metal and punk bands such as Public Enemy and the Clash they also draw great influence from artists such as Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan that use their music to spread political protest messages.  With this amalgamation of influences the band soon managed to craft their own unique sound that was made up of heavy driving guitar riffs and lyrical content that contained far left political messages.  Tom Morello’s guitar playing is very distinct and by using the effects that he does he manages to create a very aggressive sound that matches the political attitude of the band and gives the band an urban sound that makes most of their songs sound like chaotic, riotous masterpieces.

This is the rig that Tom Morello used when touring in 1998.  It is a typical Tom Morello set-up and has all the effects pedals that make his guitar sound so big and aggressive.  He uses the onboard distortion found on the Marshall amplifier to create his loud driving guitar sound and then uses the other outboard pedals to create his more innovative strange sounds.  In an interview with guitarworld.com Morello tells the interviewer of his early influences to innovate the guitar sound.  When he read a Rolling Stone interview with Pete Townshend in 1982, an interview where Townshend predicted the downfall of the guitar and the rise of the keyboard in popular music, Morello’s reaction was simple; “Oh, so you think the keyboard is going to replace the guitar?  Well, I’m going to make a keyboard out of my guitar”.  And so came the whammy and flange that made Morello’s guitar sound like it wasn’t a guitar and allowed Tom Morello to become one of the leading innovators in Rock music.

These two effects are vital in most of the Rage Against the Machine songs.  The Flanger pedal, the Ibanez DFL-10 in this case, works by producing a delayed signal that is slowed down and then released in order to catch up with the original signal.  This creates a sweeping effect and has been noted by many sources to sound like a helicopter or jet plane flying overhead.  Tom Morello’s use of this effect, which can be heard at the beginning of their hit single ‘Killing in the Name’, adds a sweeping sound to the song and makes it sound as though sirens or police helicopters are firing through the track.  This compliments the riotous and rebellious sound and lyrics of the band.

The Whammy pedal allows Morello to shift the pitch of the guitar by moving the foot treadle forward.  He uses this commonly in solo’s and also features it in the ‘Killing in the Name’ song.  The Whammy makes the solo sound piercing and shifts the pitch of the guitar up to a point where it is very high pitched and sounds peculiar and almost sci-fi electronic.  This is an example of Morello pushing the sound of his guitar and using his pedals to make his guitar make a sound that isn’t a conventional rock guitar sound.

Morello has also uses a tremolo effect on songs such as ‘Guerrilla Radio’.  This effect is run through the amp and then bypassed using the channel switching pedal.  This tremolo effect is also important in Rage’s sound, it swells the sound of the guitar and builds tension in the song before the tremolo is switched off and the loud driving guitar riff comes in.

Also included in Morello’s guitar Rig is a digital delay pedal and an equalizer.  These pedals are both used much more discreetly than the other pedals.  The delay pedal makes certain sections of songs, commonly solos, sound much larger and the equalizer pedal is used by Morello for its dynamics rather than its filter.  Morello uses the equalizer as a sound boost pedal rather than using it to filter out certain frequencies.  This sound boost helps Morello’s guitar solos stand out from the mix of the band and gives them a powerful volume boost so they take centre stage and cut through above the bass and drums when being played.

Last but not least is the Cry Baby Wah-Wah pedal that Morello has in his rig.  This pedal is a classical wah-wah pedal and is one of the first of its kind to be produced, created firstly by Vox and then patented by Jim Dunlop.  Morello’s use of the pedal is very innovative, not only does he use it in his solos, such as his sections of his solo playing in ‘Bullet in the Head’, but he also uses it rhythmically in the verse of ‘Guerrilla Radio’.  This sound that Morello manages to produce in the ‘Guerrilla Radio’ verse very much gives the song an electronic sound and referring back to the quote where Morello aims to make a “keyboard out of (his) guitar” it seems that Morello succeeded using the guitar rig that he does and managed to make Rage Against the Machine songs much more than your conventional rock songs and managed to push them over the boundaries into the territories of heavy metal, hip-hop and funk.