7 Top Guitar Pedal/Effect Combination Tips and Tricks to Get What You Want
Using a guitar pedal like a looper or a delay is a common thing for any guitarist like you to do. Using these pedals, you can get the effects you want while playing your guitar. There are innumerable effects you can create with a single pedal if you know how to utilize your pedals. However, there are some pedals or effects you will find that simply work best together. But to reach such a level as a guitar player you will have to practice the right way, experiment vivaciously and of course research relentlessly. To help you with your research, here are some common tips and tricks given for you to start trying.
1. Be Sure What You Are Looking for
Well, one of the very silly and commonly made mistakes by the guitarists is the negligence to differentiate between the processor and the effect. They often tend to put effects like echo or reverb and things such as equalizers or compressors in the same league while they are entirely different doing totally different work. For instance, reverbs add to the ‘dry’ sound and so do the echoes. On the other hand, the processor based mode equalizer’s job is to normalize the sound without enhancing the rawness of it. Even the compressor does not mess with the original sound much. It is indeed a fact that processors can be used as a great effect generator but as long as you are not sure what exactly you are searching for or what the end result would be, try to stick to the basics and clear up your concept of which are which and what they are used for.
2. Have Fun with Filters
Filters are really very important in getting the effects you want. The placement of a filter can be tricky in the signal chain as depending on the variations in its placement you will get different results. For example, placing the ‘sweeping low pass filters’ right before the delay can give you perfect movements when the delay lines are concerned. For having the ‘drum loops’ effect the filters can come in real handy as well.
3. Ecstasy of Echoes and the Delicious Delays
Like it has been mentioned before, delays and echoes are two of the most on demand and pivotal effects that a guitar player can want. As a guitarist yourself, you should also focus on exploring these effects so that you can be able to get the superbly done enhancements to your true sound. Remember echoes or delays are not really original sounds; they are repetitions or reflections of the original sound that you create with your guitar. Do not forget, the use of feedback, in case of having delays, is minimum while echoes need feedback to generate. Moreover, an instrument like a digital delay will give you wonderful echoes while buying an analogue one can be proved musically beneficial as it can give your echoes a more subtle sound than an average one.
4. The Passion of Panning
A guitarist cannot deny the power of panning in the music or compositions s/he creates. The trick about panning is using a couple of different processors to get the output of the left and right side of an ‘auto-pan’ effect. This way you can add variety to the styles and treatments you get by mixing them together. For example, a ‘send-return’ loop along with a pair of nice phasers can work the magic-mix here.
5. The Reverb Reprise
There is hardly any musician on this planet who does not use reverbs to add something extra to his original guitar tone. Even you might not be immune to the charms of some refreshing reverbs. There was a time when you would have needed a vast set up to get the kind of reverbs you want. That time has changed now as there are two major types of reverbs are available to toy with. They are the synthetic ones and the convolution ones. The first one of these major two is famous for creating a dense or thick effect of reverb similar to the sound you might come to hear in a place like a large hall room. It uses multiple feedbacks, filters as well as delays to achieve that. The second one between the two was not so commonplace or so affordable a few years back. However, now they come with a price tag that maximum number of the guitarists can afford. With the use of IRs also known as impulse responses, it can create the exact ambience when the sound was initially recorded. With such a device, you can record real-like reverbs 24/7 and that too in any place you want.
6. Agree to Use an ‘Amp-Modeller’
It goes beyond doubt that the amp simulation and pitch shifting can work hand in hand in order to cover up the flaws in the original sound. However, to add some nice twists you can use an amp modeller to clean and cover up the minor mishaps and find surprising outcome in the process. You can use reverse reverbed, auto-tuned and resonated sounds through this modeller to get different kind of results. Try to run tiny chunks of music through the modeller so that you can differentiate among the results and pick the ones that work to meet up your musical needs.
7. Master the Modulated Delays
Pitch modulation is a thing that is used to get effects like flanging, chorus, phasing and even the pitch vibrato. However, many guitarists find creating the perfect vibrato is a bit trickier than the others. The trick to make it easier is to delaying the original sound signal only by a number of milliseconds and then using an LFO also known as a low frequency oscillator to modulate the time of the delay to get a genuine vibrato. There are also many other effects to attain that but this is most probably the easiest and the most effective one.
Playing with the effects and the pedals to find the perfect combinations is an endless process with countless possibilities. As mentioned in the above tips, there are many ways that you can achieve these sorts of results which will ultimately not only please you to endless limits, but also they will entertain and impress the audience a hell lot more! So, all you have to do is follow the above steps and stay confident in what you are doing and try to find your very own signature and style based on your need and you should be good beyond doubt.
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