2014/08/19

Guitar Effects 101 - Understanding Guitar Effects

We always have this constant question on all guitar oriented forums -"what order do I put my guitar effects in? While there are some simple guiding principle, there is no "right" way to do it. It's all a matter of taste and your personal tone. Let your ears be the final Judge.
Guitar Effects are electronic device that connects a guitar and an amplifier or mixing board. Their main purpose is to modify and enhance the tone, pitch of the guitar and create special sounds using a guitar pedal or a combination of several pedals. These effects transform sounds in many ways and bring "life" to sound. It is usually used in in-recording studio accompanied with vocals and live performances. A Guitar Effects device consists of analog or digital circuitry which processes audio signals. Effects processing circuitry are similar to that found in music synthesizers; it may include active and passive filters, envelope followers or envelope modifiers, wave-shaping circuits, voltage-controlled oscillators, or digital delays.
Effects device come in several formats, the most common are the "stomp-box" and the rack-mount unit. A stomp box or "pedal steel" is a small metal or plastic box containing the circuitry which is placed on the floor in front of the musician and connected in line with the patch cord connected to the instrument. The box is typically controlled by one or more foot-pedal on-off switches and usually contains only one or two effects. Rack-mount effects unit contains identical electronic circuit, but is mounted in a standard 19" equipment rack. Usually, rack-mount effects units contain several different types of effects. These are typically controlled by knobs or switches on the front panel, and often by a MIDI digital control interface. "Guitar pedal boards" are used by musicians who use multiple stomp-boxes; these may be a DIY project made with plywood or a commercial pedalboards.
Nowadays, modern desktop and notebook computers have sound processing capabilities that rival commercially available effects boxes. Some can process sound through VST or similar plugins, such as LADSPA, RTAS or Direct X. Musicians in the modern world can play any instrument through a computer's sound card, emulating effects units or amplifiers. These VST-plugins can be downloaded for a little or no cost.
Guitar Effects are divided according to effects description; Amplitude based effects which composed of volume control, tremolo, auto tremolo, panning/ping-pong, gating/repeat percussion, compression, expansion, asymmetric compression, noise gating, attack delay, ADSR (Attack Decay Sustain Release), and limiting, auto swell. There is also Waveform distortion effects which can be done by Symmetrical clipping, asymmetrical clipping, infinite limiting, Half wave rectification, Full wave rectification and Arbitrary waveform generation. FILTER/FREQUENCY RESPONSE EFFECTS can be achieved through EQ/tone controls, treble/mid/bass boost, cabinet simulation, resonator, wah, envelope follower also called as Auto wah, tremolo wah, "vibrato", and phase shifting. For time delay effects; echo, reverb, true vibrato, flanging, chorus/ADT, slapback, and reverse echo/reverb. We can also add other miscellaneous effects such as octave division, harmony generation, phase lock tracking, Noise addition, talk box, and voice tracking. Leslie, aphex and enhancers are examples of common combinations effects.

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