Saturday 18 December 2010

The Brilliance Of Guitar FX

By Emma R. Edwards


If you play the electric guitar, you may have tried experimenting with guitar effects to achieve certain sounds, which in most cases is a question of trial and error. There are the various effect pedals that exist, which many famous artists use as their signature sound, but do you know how to manipulate your guitar feed for the effect you want?

There are certain elements to guitar effects, from reverberations, delays, echoes, distortions and making your guitar sound like it's part of a chorus of guitars - that all make up the guitar players arsenal of sound. Since most guitar players tend to be more concerned with perfecting their own sound than that of others, here are some techniques and rules to remember.

Reverberation will give you the effect you want, whether you're playing in a small room, a large room, or indeed a large concert hall. Reverb can be manipulated to "fill" the space you and your audience occupies. The larger the reverberation, the larger the space should be. Reverb gives an added dimension of atmosphere, and is one of the most common guitar effects that players are first exposed to, as it is the most easily manipulated.

For distortion and delays, there are a few things to keep in mind. In setting up a delay, there are two ways to do this - either before or after the distortion. N putting your delay before your distortion, you can fill space more subtly than if you were to set it up for after a distortion (in short, it's less noisy!). On the other hand, putting the delay after the distortion will help you to achieve a much more aggressive, boisterous sound.

To achieve the pre-delay echo effect, you tap out your beat in advance of what notes you play. So if you're counting in a beat, you can step on your pedal in time with the beat just before you pick any strings. When you pluck your guitar, it will replicate whatever notes you play in accordance with the level of the settings. There have been some notable artists to have used this technique, such as David Gilmore and Pat Travers. It is also a 'cheat' to sound like you can pick very fast, even if you can't - try it.




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