Guitar Effects Pedals: An essential reference book

Cafe Society
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A Recommendation from the Guitar Geekery Department:

Guitar Effects Pedals: The Practical Handbook (Amazon link)

In their attempt to maintain brand loyalty, Gibson began an email newsletter around a year ago. While I find their attempt to evolve into a “lifestyle brand” - whatever that is - to be yucky, the newsletter itself is pretty good; it usually has one or two articles on new guitars, on cool lists (e.g., best dual lead albums or something), on technique or gear maintenance - you get the idea. You can find the articles on Gibson’s website and most likely subscribe there, too.

Anyway, they started excerpting from this book - I liked what I read, so I got the book. It is excellent. Doper guitar types who have read my posts know I am NOT a pedal guy - I have a couple in my rigs that I have reluctantly acquired over the years to meet specific needs.

But this book is great because:

  • It provides great history and context on how the effects evolved
  • It has enough electronic lingo to help a tech-type, but is not so jargon-y that non-techies get lost
  • It is very well-written - very easy to read all the way through, or accessing as a reference
  • It has an opinion - the writer, Dave Hunter, is not afraid to state which effect types are better than others, and which makes and models are the best examples. I happen to agree with his POV, which I suppose helps. But reading him describe a flanger as a second-tier effect was cool - I have always felt that way, but never heard anyone else say it.
  • It focuses on Tone first - again, if you’ve read my other guitar posts, you know I put the sound you are getting before pretty much anything. This book seems to, too - he discusses the concept of “brick wall processing” - where an effect is like a brick wall - it transforms your sound and is opaque to some of the dynamics of your playing style - and what to avoid to avoid it. He also mocks some amp set-ups as real 1980’s Tone Suckers - so true. I guess my point is that he has a point of view that is focused on tone, is refreshing, and I found myself mostly in agreement with.
  • It comes with a CD with a ton of sound samples.

I have never known the difference between a fuzz box, an overdrive or a distortion pedal - this book makes it clear and helped me clear up some questions I have had for a long time. There are lots of things like that in this book. So I don’t see myself going out and having a massive pedal GAS attack - but I can see where I might fine-tune my set up a bit more over time…

I strongly recommend it as a reference to have around - I suspect you will use it more than you realize…

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I’m somewhat of an amp purist. I don’t use pedals often (if at all). I get a great clean tone from my amp, and a monster distorted sound, and that’s pretty much what I need. I do have a multifunction wah pedal around somewhere that’s collecting dust (because I lost the fucking power supply), and that thing was cool. I don’t particularly like the sound of heavy chorus, flange, delay stuff, but it has its place.

That book looks like an interesting read though. It will help me make sense of all the stomp boxes at Guitar Center.

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Thanks WordMan. I don’t post much in your guitar geek threads, but I read them all and they have been very enlightening. Also I am currently in the market for some effects peddles so this book may be just what I am looking for.

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Thanks and glad they are helpful…lot of people who seem to know their stuff on the SDMB, so you get a good cross-section on these threads.

Hopefully the book helps you - remember with effects, as with all things - less is more.

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I’ll try any pedal, rack effect, stomp box, or other gimmick I can get my hands on. But I usually only have an Ibanez Tube Screamer, a Digitech Main Squeeze compression pedal, a Cry Baby wah, and sometimes an old worn out chorus pedal. Oh, and an old EQ that mostly needs the jacks re-soldered. Using this rig I can plug into damned near any amp on the planet and get a nice tight bark to come out of it.

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Really?! I don’t have that experience at all - where I can plug into any amp and get “my tone” - I mean, of course I sound like me, but not how I like like me - you dig? :slight_smile:

What role do you look for an amp to play in the creation of your sound? I wonder if we approach this differently…for me, the amp is, well, HUGE.

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See, and while I appreciate some of the amps I’ve played through, most of the stuff I play is short on nuance and heavy on, well heavy. The main thing that I’m looking for out of an amp is volume. My sound is mostly made up of a scooped midrange, so that sucks a lot of tonality right out of most amps, and then it’s the pickups and my playing that are doing most of the work. I put far more value on hand strength and pick technique than I do on which big black box is blaring behind me. That being said, I like high wattage and Celestion speakers, but it can say Mesa or Marshall or Randall or Krank or Orange or Fender on the grill. I don’t even care if it has tubes or not. My Crate that I play through most of the time is solid state and I think it does a fine job without any of the sound lag that tubes can give.

All that being said, my “tone” is the tone of a thousand other metal heads and punk players. In those genres I’ve always thought that it’s more how you play than what you play.

ETA- My own two personal tone heroes, at least as far as the sound I want goes, are Dimebag from Pantera and Kerry King from Slayer. They both play (played :frowning: ) two of the simplest live rigs I’ve ever seen a real pro use. On the other hand of the spectrum is the Reverend Willie G from ZZ Top, who’s rig needs an electrical engineer and three trucks to cart around.

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OK, so please dish: what does Mr. Hunter declare the difference to be? I think I know, but my definition probably wouldn’t be very satisfying. I do know that historically fuzz came first, then “distortion” pedals once mid 70’s to 80’s amps had sucked the air out of the room. And somewhere not much later came overdrive boxes. But I’m working from memory here.

Back in the day, I’d drive a compressor (MXR) with the compression on low, the level on high, and drive that into a Tube Screamer then off to the amp. Then I’d just click the compressor on/off for “lead” tone, saturating the Tube Screamer. Now I just use a POD (and very recently a wah pedal just for fun). :slight_smile:

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Yup - 180 degrees opposite from me tone-wise. I’m all about midrange and sizzling tubes. No worries - as long as you sound like what you are going for. But it certainly explains why you can rely on a few boxes and I can’t…

Okay - here goes a summary; sorry if i misquote or misinterpret:

  • Overdrive: the least distortion; considered “soft clipping” in terms of how much of the signal is clipped, or distorted. Meant to sound like an overdriving tube amp; accomplished by boosting the guitar’s signal into the amp and providing a little transistor-based distortion. Really best used with a tube amp; an overdrive pedal sounds lousy if you play it direct into a board (i.e., with no tube-based signal to act upon).
  • Distortion: more distortion; considered “hard clipping” in terms of how much signal is clipped, or distorted. Meant to sound like, well, an amp with added distortion to it. A distortion pedal played directly into a board will sound decent; the pedal is meant to impose itself into the guitar’s signal more completely. The ProCo Rat (my favorite) is considered the first true distortion pedal (vs. say an MXR Distortion+, which is really (who’s on first) an overdrive…having fun yet?)
  • **Fuzz **: both the earliest of the family of effects and the most imposing on the guitar’s signal. Originally created so a guitar could emulate a horn-like lead sound, they quickly found new uses. Really thickens up single-note lead runs, so hearing that Hendrix was the first true explorer of a fuzz’s potential is no surprise.

Does that help?

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To each their own, but have you ever played around with those dial-a-tone guitar synths? Guitar Center has some nifty things that let you dial in someone else’s classic sound, even down to particular songs. Of course they’re thinly veiled referance names (SRV comes up as ‘Texas Pride’ or something like that) but I thought that it sounded pretty good. It’s more than a pedal though, this is into the realm of rackmounted proware, especially in price.

They didn’t have a Mahavishnu Orchestra “Birds of Fire” tone though. That weird John McLaughlin tone would be fun to play around with and just do crazy long runs over and over.

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Most definitely, thanks. D+ was an overdrive? Who knew? I had one back in the mists of time, but wasn’t that happy with the tone most ways, but it was a huge leap better than the Big Muffs and transistor amp distortion (Peavey et al) that abounded in my teens and early 20s. The Tube Screamer that I still own was much nicer and had a clearer tone even when abused with high input levels.

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Look, Cluricaun, there’s no way I am going to get out of this without sounding like a wine-snob boutique-gear elitist. Ultimately, you have to trust YOUR ears and decide how open YOU are to other folks’ definition of “good tone.” To the extent that you are comfortable with your definition - cool. Feel free to ignore the following:

[wine-snob boutique-gear elitist]

Those “dial-a-tone guitar synths” aka “modeling amps” that enable a player to dial up the tone of some classic amp using digital modeling - are fine and have a place. It is my understanding that some session players dig them because they are rugged and can be used to fake your way through a variety of guitar tones. But let’s be clear: at best, those amps deliverable a service-able tone. They are akin to a Swiss Army knife: Yes, they provide a lot of tools (jack of all trades), but in no way is any one Swiss Army knife blade even close to usability / functionality of a well-designed individual blade / tool (master of none).

I have played more than my share - at best, they can replicate a tone in a “kinda sorta” sorta way - but the main thing that makes a “magic” amp so amazing to play - more than the tone of how it sounds (seriously) - is how “touch dynamic” it is. Playing a tube amp with your desired amount of gain dialed in is a thing of subtle responsiveness. The barest of palm muting with your picking hand shades the tone. The amount of squeeze of your fretting hand - complete with a little wiggle of vibrato - coaxes out feedback. A slight change in pick attack moves from cloudy arpeggios to sharp major-chord break up. Think Hendrix painting pictures with a varied and subtle palette.

Well - modeling amps can’t do that. It’s that simple. They can kinda sound like they are doing those things, but it’s more like you are using some sort of magic golf driver where typical non-golfers can belt a ball 300 yards - but if the same duffer was using one of Tiger Woods’ drivers they probably would shank it 30 yards because they don’t know how to use such a precision tool.

[/wine-snob boutique-gear elitist]

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You succeeded admirably. :slight_smile:

I appreciate what you’re trying to say here, but this is poppycock. You can well say that current modelers do not currently do some things, like your example of changing tone in some fashion according to how hard they are driven, and I’ll believe you. But saying they can not, ever, do this is silly – there’s no reason why this sort of response couldn’t be modeled in software, and I’ll dare to say that it will be done if it isn’t already. There’s nothing impossible about doing such a thing other than doing the necessary analysis of the real amp given different playing styles and ways of driving the tubes. All that’s needed is sufficient time, talent, and a desire to solve that problem.

ETA: I’ll amend what I said above to discount cabinet and speaker modeling. Some things simply need to be physical.

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Wouldn’t one of the problems be that the sound being produced matters on what exactly you’re plugging that pedal or rack-mounted amp tone emulator into? Wouldn’t that be a major consideration and hurdle in modeling a particular amp’s sound? I’m no guitarist, but I have both a software-based amp modeling thing-a-ma-jiggy I use with my computer, and my brother has one of those Korg amp simulators, and, to my non-guitarist non-tone-geek ears, they don’t compare to the real thing. Maybe one day, but that day still seems rather far away to me, and I don’t have an intimate relationship with the instrument.

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Amended to Wordman’s summary: Fuzz is a step beyond distortion. It is extremely high-gain distortion that clips so hard that the extremes are heard as “fuzz.” It usually, therefore, compresses the signal more than any other type of distortion. This has the somewhat unexpected effect of “taming” the signal, despite the high gain. It can be an extremely complex sound that can range from Hendrix-y psychedelia to raging, boomy “Doom”. The hardware geekery varies. Most classic fuzzes are made with germanium diodes, while more modern ones are normally made with silicon. Some have mixed diodes. All this subtly (or drastically) changes the sound. My favorite type of fuzz is the kind that you can sound a note, and it sounds like a full, rich violin, and sustains forever. A friend of mine (who designs and makes badass pedals) describes the sound as “laser beams wrapped in fur coats.”

My pedal board: MXR Micro-amp (boost) -> Sitori Sonics Brownies and Cream -> Sitori Sonics Tidal Phase -> Sitori Sonics Tapeworm Delay -> EHX Pulsar Tremolo -> Dunlop Crybaby Wah -> Fender Bassman 10 amp.

My buddy runs Sitori Sonics (free plug), and he makes, bar none, the best pedals I have ever heard.

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Oh, and to add to the tube/solid state debate - all my amps are all-tube. I love them. But I can’t beg some sort of gear snobbery, because I run my signal through some serious solid state machinery before it hits my tube amp. Purist? I am not. I don’t give a damn about gear snobbery. It’s all about getting the sound I want, by whatever means will do it.

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I’m sure its a hard problem to solve, no question. I was just disagreeing that its a problem that cannot be solved. Its a quantifiable and testable problem, in a domain (signal processing) where there’s a plethora of people doing great work. Which doesn’t mean it will happen, but that it can happen, which was my point.

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Oh yeah, It WILL happen eventually. In fact, modeling technology is getting quite good. Not quite to tube-amp sweetness, but it isn’t too far off, and it will be dead on eventually. No question about it. There’s nothing magic about an analog signal that can’t be duplicated by hard work and dedication. It’s just electricity and wires.

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Settle down team! :smiley:

Sorry for the word choice - when I said :Well - modeling amps can’t do that" I meant right now. The current generation don’t have the subtlety. Do I think that modeling amps can get there? Sure - or at least close enough for the majority of uses. Heck - they are getting close now; the wine-snob distinctions I point out don’t matter much in a gigging or session situation and amps like that are fine (just like super $$ Custom Shop guitars; any tonal subtleties vs. a “standard” guitar are lost in loud band settings.)

My basic point is that there is a difference - it is “close enough” for some situations but the difference is there. Kinda like being able to look at a CG image and pick out something “off.” I know - the visuals are getting super close and I can see that it’s likely that amp modeling can get that close, too - but it is not as close as visuals right now - to my ear, they are a generation or two behind where technology is at with CG Imaging. And when I am playing on my own and in full geek mode - the difference currently is obvious.

**Ogre ** - it sounds like you have a cool friend! What does the Brownies n’ Cream do? Some combo of EVH’s Brown sound and come Clapton-creamy fuzz? Also, you discuss the fact that pedals have chips, so already acknowledging that you have digital components in your otherwise analog signal. Hunter goes into that in the book a bit - it goes to the concept of “brick wall processsing” - if the effect puts its own stamp on the signal so that little of the guitar’s true nature is used, then yeah, the amp is less important, per Cluricaun. But pedal geeks consider a truly great pedal to be one that adds to the guitar/amp pair. Look at when I was describing the differences between overdrive, distortion and fuzz - a key difference is how the effect sounded directly input into the PA. Hunter regularly points out how the majority of effects depend on a good tube amp and tone as their foundation - and that they sound awful on their own…

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Thanks, I will keep that in mind. Your little write up on knob fiddling changed a lot about how I create my sound (it was a huge perspective shift from what I had been taught). Since we are talking about peddles anyway, maybe I can ask for a bit of advice. Forgive me if I ramble a bit, I am having a hard time figuring out exactly what it is I am looking for, since I really know very little about peddles. I had a wah that I sold because I never used it, and I had a Big Muff that I wasn’t crazy about the sound on (too metal sounding). But that is the extent of my peddle knowledge.

I have been a no peddles purrist for the longest time, but for the band I am playing with now I am starting to run into a wall as far as the diversity of my sound goes. Depending on the song we are playing I either need a big boomy bassy sound, or a tightly compressed distorted sound, or a clean bright sound…sometimes within the same song. We are a 3 piece, 2 guitars and a drummer (I know, but after going through 4 bass players we decided to do without.) So the rythm guitarist and I are handling the duties of filling in the low end, kind of bouncing back and forth as needed. He is playing a Tele into a Fender DeVille, and is for the most part laying down the mid range tones and basic “normal” rock rythm guitar. Think kinda like a Kieth Richards thing. I am then either playing standard lead over that, or punky power chords, or quasi bass with a lot of sustain. It’s like a Built to Spill/White Stripes/70s post punk kind of sound for me. I am either playing big sustained chords, choppy power chords, finger picking harmonies, or playing that quasi bass I mentioned. (I was thrilled when I figured out what configuration on the neck pickups I needed to get my guitar to sound like a bass) I am playing an ES-335 reissue though a 1978 Marshall combo amp.

I am getting a bit of what I am looking for simply by switching between my neck and bridge pickups and overdriving my amp, but I am am starting to feel like a good fuzz box at the very least will help me out a lot. A buddy just loaned me his Boss fuzz box and I am going to play around with that a bit.

So I am looking for something (or a couple of somethings) that will allow me to control my sustain and kick in either a tightly compressed distortion (like a fender twin) or a ragged boomy bassy distortion. From reading this thread so far it sounds like I want an overdrive and a fuzz and a compressor. Is that sounding right to all of you?

Some samples of some of the sounds that I have in mind. (Youtube Links)

Bad Weekend by Art Brut the lead riff has a similar sound to one of the sounds I am going for.

Carry the Zero by Built to Spill. Both the primary guitar sounds in this are goal sounds.

Three Girl Rhumba by Wire That post punk sound. Similar to, but different from, the Art Brute.

I think I am getting the other sounds I want from just my amp and guitar. But these are the ones I am having trouble grabing without losing the other more bassy tones. Also, I am not looking to mimic these pre se, just get into the ballpark.

What do you think, am I on the right track with what I am looking for?