How to improve your guitar sound with effects
I'm always asked by guitarists who are just beginning about how to improve their guitar sound. Do I buy a better guitar or get a better amp? Whilst both of these will help, guitar effects also play a major role in improving your guitar sound. A good reverb or distortion effect will do wonders for your sound and I always found I wanted to practice more when I had these effects in place. No doubt because I was able to imitate my favourite guitar heroes. The following article will give you the low down on what guitar effect are and what types are available.
Gary Moyle (Founder of www.learntheguitarnow.com)
Guitar effects are one of my favourite areas and its very rarely I plug in my shector Tempest without dialling in some effects.
For those of you who don't know -- effects pedals can manipulate the sound of your guitar in many ways and you'll undoubtedly hear effects on almost any hit song.
Reverb is one of the most popular effects on the guitar will make it sound like you are playing in a large concert hall.
The Delay effect will constantly repeat what you play over and over again. The quanitity and timing of the repeats is adjustable and you'll hear delay used very masterfully by the Edge from U2. Just check out anything on the Joshua Tree.
Rock guitarists will use Distortion or Overdrive which gives them a sound on the guitar that makes it sound either crunchy, wheezy, hard metal sounding or just rough as nails!
There are literally hundreds of effects available and you'll need to decide whether you want an individual effect pedal or a multi effect board.
The first is a SINGLE effect pedal. They contain only 1 effect and cost usually around $50 - $150 per pedal to buy. Here's what a single effects pedal looks like...
Very simple and straight forward with 4 knobs to adjust the effect, and an input and output jack. To turn the effect ON -- use your feet to press down.
To turn the effect OFF -- do the same thing! The only trouble is if you want 5 or 10 pedals, you'll need to by 5 or 10 of these things and it can get expensive, not to mention connecting all these up in a line when you go to play on stage!
The second is a MULTI - EFFECTS Pedal. It's exactly what is sounds....'multi' meaning many effects in one unit..
They offer a lot more options and effect settings. Many allow you to create / combine your own effects also! These are recommended for advanced players as they can get a bit complex to operate.
They also allow you to program different effects in and save them to each pedal. So during songs you can switch from one effect to another. Very hot tool.
There are slightly smaller ones that are still multi effects pedals but instead of having 4 pedals, they have 2. They are about half the size of the above image and slight cheaper also.
To check out a few effects pedals and get a rough idea on pricing, go to:
....they usually have a few great deals on as well as match other stores if you see the same thing for a cheaper price!
Bottom line -- get into effects pedals. They add spice to your playing and make you sound like a rock star -- even if you're only in your bedroom!
WRITTEN BY ELMORE MUSIC
Learn the Acoustic or Electric Guitar in 30 days! Highly recommended!
Check out: http://www.guitartips.com
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