Guitar Effects Advice

Guitar Effects Advice

Guitar effects pedals can add a whole range of tones and sounds to a guitarist playing that would not otherwise be achievable. It is quite possible for a guitarist to spend more on their effects than on their amp or guitar to sculpt the correct tone. Pedals can also degrade tone quality, so understanding how to set them up is important to minimizing these issues.

1. The "Best" Pedal

o The tone qualities of pedals are subjective, so there is no such thing as a best one. Any well built pedal is likely to have a guitarist get more out of it. Even having a larger range of settings is not necessarily a good quality for everyone. A distortion pedal with a higher level of gain will work for someone that will turn it up, but for lower gain users, it would not usually allow the same level of fine tuning as a pedal with a smaller range. Advice on reliability and quality is useful when looking at pedals, but tone and function are subjective from player to player.

Pedal Order

o The order of effects pedals is important, but there is no single correct setup. Changing the order of the pedals will usually alter the tone and the function of the effects when combined. A volume pedal in front of many pedals will alter the signal strength going into the pedal, which can greatly alter how that effect functions (particularly with something like distortion or overdrive), while a volume pedal after an effect will alter the signal strength, but mostly maintain the tone characteristics of that pedal.
The most significant exception to this rule are tuners, which function the best at the front of the chain (or in the separate tuner loop that is a feature of some amps). Tuners need to measure the pitch of the guitar strings, and will be much better able to do this with as pure of a signal as possible. Tuners are not going to provide a good reading after many effects, since many of them do have a minor effect on pitch.

True Bypass and Buffered Effects

o There is a misconception that true bypass is automatically a good feature on a guitar effect pedal. In some cases this is true, but in other cases, a guitarist would likely be better off with at least some buffered effects. True bypass pedals basically route the signal directly from the pedal input to output when the pedal is off. A buffer pedal will have the signal go through some circuitry, even if the pedal is off.
True bypass pedals are usually better for guitarists with only a handful of pedals. Passing the signal through buffer circuitry will alter the sound a little bit, but true bypass is not all that different in tone from passing through a guitar cable. On the other hand, guitarists with massive pedal boards will find that adding buffered pedals to the mix will help improve the signal clarity and definition. If only true bypass pedals are used in these longer chains, then it ends up being equivalent to passing the signal through a long enough guitar cable that the signal will start to degrade. Buffered pedals help to maintain the signal strength through these longer pedal boards by helping to boost and clear the signal.