Recording - July 2011 - 12

In many ways, the role of the guitar effect pedal has come full circle over the years. It started out with analog pedals being the “only game in town” for guitarists looking for interesting sounds. But then those pedals were pushed aside to a degree in the 1980s when rack-mounted digital effects became more affordable and all the rage of axe-slingers touting their perceived “cleaner, more professional” sound. Fast-forward to the present, and we find that high-quality analog and digital effect pedals are not only available, but happily coexist side-by-side in many a player’s pedalboard. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that you can now just slap together all these little Boxes Of Sonic Inspiration, without first putting some serious thought toward the ways they can be chained together to give you the unique sound you’re looking for, with the least amount of noise and hiss. Time to get wise! Single pedals or multieffect units? First, step back a moment and consider your own specific needs—do you actually need individual pedal effects at

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before or after it. So if, for example, you hate the chorus effect that just happens to be smack in the middle of the effect chain for that spiffy-sounding preset you’ve spent hours perfecting... you’re basically screwed. Presets can be convenient, but depending on the unit’s design it may be difficult to suddenly edit a parameter on one of the effects... what if it’s buried in layers of menus rather than having a knob you can grab quickly? Also consider how the pedal maker chooses to order the effects, which might not be flexible enough for your needs. For example, it might assume you always want things in this “classic” order: wah, distortion, chorus, delay, and finally reverb. But if you have more creative needs—say, you wanted to put the chorus after the delay to create a more lush, atmospheric effect—you may not have the option to do so. Using individual effect pedals instead can negate these concerns. You can mix and match effects from your favorite pedal makers so you always have what you consider the best sounding effects on tap, easily change settings with no

Get your guitar effects to perform their best in the studio
all, or would an “all in one” multieffect pedal unit better suit you? If “grab it and run” portability and convenience is critical to you, a multieffect pedal is certainly a valid option. You can have a respectable number of excellent-sounding effects that are already optimized to work well together, in a relatively small single package, usually with the ability to store effects combinations in programmable presets. These are available from many makers such as BOSS, DigiTech, Line 6, TC Electronic, VOX, and others. Plug your guitar in one jack, plug your amp into the other... done. You’re ready to jam with minimal fuss. However, doing so also assumes that you’re happy with the sound of all of the effects that particular maker puts into the unit—and you might not be. Consider: you might love how a certain pedal maker’s delays sound, but find the distortion-based effects totally lame. Some makers do provide an insert point where you could potentially slot in other effects that you like better, but often you have limited control of where this insert point goes in the chain—and if the unit doesn’t provide an insert point at all, you’re pretty much stuck with only being able to add other effects completely menus, and reconfigure the effect order itself into any way you like. Of course, the trade-off is that you have to put some thought into the best way to do all of this! But for many folks, the effort is worth the results: an array of effects that is optimized for your specific needs. Keeping it clean For starters, you’ll want to keep noise and hiss under control—while there certainly are times when noise can actually be a good thing for creative purposes, you really want that noise to only occur when you specifically want it to! Keeping uncontrolled noise to a minimum in the first place gives you control, and provides a clean solid sonic foundation upon which you can then slather on all the dirt you desire—and make it go away when you’re done. Start clean, end clean—and feel free to be PigPen all you like in the middle. Let’s go to the beginning of your pedal chain. If you use any dynamics processing effects such as compressors, “clean sustainers” such as the Pigtronix Philosopher’s Tone, or some acoustic simulator effects like the Boss AC series, you’ll want to put these before your other effects, typically the first one in line immediately after your guitar.

RECORDING JULY 2011

Recording - July 2011

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