Effects Pedal

From GuitarWiki

Jump to: navigation, search

Effect pedals are small/medium sized units, typically made of metal or plastic, that modify the incoming signal from your guitar and send the result out to an output device of your choosing.(Such as an Amplifier or Mixer)

Contents

Different shapes and contents of effect pedals

Effect pedals come in a few different forms:

Boss/DigiTech Basic Style

  • This shape is also used by a few other companies but
    DigiTech and Boss are the main people who d use the style
  • This shape is characterized by a rectangular shape(long way top
    to bottom) with a few knobs at the top half or fourth
    • Usually 3 or 4 knobs
  • The bottom half or three-fourths is a large hinged piece that is
    pressed down with the foot to engage/disengage the effect
    contained within the pedal.
  • This usually contains only 1 effect

MXR/Danelectro Style

  • Just like I stated in the last style, other companies
    use the shape but the names used above are the big
    players who use the shape
  • This shape is characterized by a rectangular shape(long ways
    can be horizontal or vertical) with knobs lined up at top or
    placed near the top in a triangle-like formation
  • Near the bottom, instead of a large hinged piece is a small,
    metal push-button to engage/disengage the effect contained
    within the pedal

Wah/Expression Pedals

  • This shape is mainly used by:
    • Dunlap(Wah-Wah)
    • Morely(Wah)
    • Vox(Wah)
    • DigiTech(Whammy and multi-effect pedals(see next section))
  • There are two main shapes to this pedal:

Shape 1

  • The more common, for Wah at least(used by Dunlop and VOX), is a long
    rectangular shape, about the length of your foot where the top half rocks back
    and forth and the front pushes down on a small metal push button to engage/
    disengage the effect contained in the pedal.
    • The rocking motion causes the effect to modulate and make different
    sounds depending on the position it is at on the hinge it rocks on.
    • On some pedals such as these there is a knob on the side of the pedal to adjust
    the amount of the effect(also know as wetness

Shape 2

  • The second shape, used by Morley and DigiTech(Wah and Whammy respectively)
    is a flat, almost square, metal board and has the rocking, foot-length
    pedal sitting on top of it to the right side of it and adjustments
    and buttons to completely engage and disengage the effect
  • The rocking pedal does the same thing as in "Shape 1"

Multi-effects Pedals/Effect Boards

  • This shape description is just a generalization of shapes made by
    many different companies
    • Many of the shapes different companies use differ a bit
    from the following description
  • Most Multi-effects Pedal and Effects boards have many
    different effects that can be used together simultaneously
  • For shape, at/near the top, is a display starting from the
    left and takes up about three-fourths of the board
    from left to right and about half from top to bottom
  • The display typically consists of:
    • A small screen
    • A few buttons to Navigate the screen
    • A few dials to navigate on the screen/set effect strength/select effects
  • Depending on the make and model, there will be between 2 and 7 small
    hinge-like switches to engage/disengage effects and/or switch preset
    combinations of effects.
    • These hinge-like switches are lined up along the bottom from left to right
    leaving just enough space for the following item
  • Included on the far right of the Multi-Effects Pedal/Effects Board is
    an expression pedal that, depending on the effect programmed in the device,
    can be assigned different expressive effects such as Wah, Whammy, Ya-Ya,
    Volume Control, etc...

--Jammin Jim 10:54, 12 June 2008 (CEST)

Retrieved from "http://www.guitarwiki.com/index.php/Effects_Pedal"
Personal tools