1. Guitar Effects Pedals: An Introduction and History



Les Paul



Effects units are commonly used in modern guitar playing.  Most of these effects are found in devices called ‘stompboxes’  which allows the guitarist to turn on and bypass the effect running through their guitar by ‘stomping’ on an effects pedal in front of them.

Guitar effects pedals are emulations of studio effects that began in the mid to late 1940’s when musicians such as the famous Les Paul experimented with reel-to-reel recording tape to create tape delay effects and pioneer some very innovative guitar sounds.

The first ever stand alone effects unit was released in 1948.  It was the Trem-Trol pedal released by DeArmond.  This tremolo pedal pioneered the outboard effects pedal and it wasn’t long before more effects units appeared in the form of pedals, although it took until the late 50’s for the pedals to become predominant in popular use as the pedals required high voltages to work and large transformers to power them.  They were also somewhat inadequate as a guitarist could find most of these early effects built into an amplifier and this was the preferred and practical way of using guitar effects.

Roger Mayer (left) with the Jimi Hendrix Experience

An important pioneer of the effects pedal was Roger Mayer.  Mayer (pictured to the left with the Jimi Hendrix Experience) created the Octavia pedal in 1968; this pedal shifted the input signal one octave higher.  The Fuzz box was also created by Mayor and it wasn’t long before his friend Jimmy Page started to bring this distortion sound into popular music.  Jimi Hendrix also had Mayor make him a Fuzz box distortion pedal as well as the Cry Baby Wah-Wah pedal; he also used the Octavia pedal which is notable in his classic hit ‘Purple Haze’.  With pioneers like Mayor creating new guitar sounds and creative guitarists such as Hendrix and Page using these sounds and broadcasting them to the masses it wasn’t long before music changed and the control guitarists had over their instruments broadened.

The ‘stompbox’ emerged itself into the life’s of classic rock guitarists such as Pete Townshend, Jimi Hendrix and Dave Davies, and their music became much more dynamic due to the increase of physical control they had over the sound their instrument was making.  But by the 1980’s music began to change and digital multi-effects processors started to become more predominant in music.  These digital processors allowed the guitarist to control a number of effects using just one pedal.  These digital pedals overtook the ‘stompbox’ and became very popular although it soon became apparent that the analogue pedals gave a higher quality of sound and it wasn’t long before early 90’s rock bands, such as Nirvana, catapulted ‘stompboxes’ back into popular use amongst musicians.

 Effects pedals can now be categorized into groups according to what they do to the sound of the guitar and how they effect the guitars input signal.  These categories are:





Dynamics                     These effects pedals are created to alter the volume of the guitar.  Pedals such as a clean boost pedal allow the guitarist to boost the volume of his guitar without having to touch his amplifier.  Another dynamics pedal is the compressor pedal which compresses the sound wave, boosting quieter signals and reducing louder signals.  The tremolo effect is also considered a dynamic effect; it produces a variation in the volume of the note or chord played.  Songs such as ‘How Soon Is Now?’ by The Smiths is an example of the tremolo effect in use.  Roger Mayer, mentioned earlier, created a tremolo effects pedal called the Roger Mayer Voodoo Vibe.

Tone                            These tonal pedals are probably the most common type of effects pedals, used in most modern rock music.  They can be found in pedals which alter the tone of the guitar, most well-known pedal under this category being the distortion pedal.  Distortion pedals work by adding overtones to the original tone of the guitar.  This makes for a warmer sound.  Many distortion pedals also have a level knob that can be changed to alter the volume at which the distortion works at.  This means that the distortion pedal will not only change the tone of the sound but also the dynamics of the sound.  An overdrive pedal works in a very similar way and is classed as a distortion pedal in its own right.

 

Filter                            Common effects pedals that filter the sound of the guitar are the Equalizer pedal and the Wah-Wah pedal.  The equalizer pedal works the same as other equalizers found in car stereos or home sound systems, the guitar player is able to boost certain frequencies on the pedal and the equalization will take place once the pedal is ‘stomped’.  Wah-Wah pedals work in a similar way to the equalizer pedal in that it alters the frequency spectrum of the guitar although in doing this it creates vowel like sounds.  This pedal is commonly found in the form of a foot treadle that can be opened and closed.  This opens and closes the potentiometer and alters the threshold at which the pedal vocalizes the sound.  Roger Mayer can be name checked again as his own Cry-Baby Wah-Wah pedal is one of the most popular pedals of its kind on the market.

Pitch/Frequency           These pedals alter the pitch of the sound in different ways.  Many of the pedals under this category have been inspired by classical music.  The chorus effect mimics the effect used by choirs and splits the sound signal and then changes the pitch giving a very slight difference in the tone and pitch of the sound.  So it somewhat allows the guitar to harmonize with itself.  The vibrato effect also takes influence from classical music and makes the sound produce rapid variations in pitch to mimic the sound of a violin when the violinist sustains a single note.  Other examples of pedals that alter the pitch are the pitch shifter pedal that simply transposes the notes the guitar is playing, used in ‘My Iron Lung’ by Radiohead.  The flanger pedal is also worth mentioning, this pedal creates a comb filter which adds an altered delayed version of the original signal and layers the sound.

Time-Based                  Pedals that lie under this category include the delay pedal and the reverb pedal.  The delay pedal works by duplicating the original sound with a slight time delay; this gives the sound an echo effect and makes the guitar sound larger.  These delay pedals are very commonly used in guitar solos in rock music because it gives the sound a larger sound without actually boosting the volume.  The reverb pedal works by creating a large number of echoes which eventually decay.  Reverb is a vital post-production technique and reverb pedals have allowed guitarists to replicate the studio sound live and the ‘stomp’ of a pedal.