WHAT IS A GUITAR PEDAL?
A pedal is a small electronic device that is normally operated by a switch to either enhance your electric guitar sound or to add a different tone or colour to your sound. They are usually set up on a board on the floor and act as a buffer between your amp and your guitar, and are operated using your foot to tap the switches on and off. The idea of using pedals can be daunting because there are so many options to choose from, but if you have a specific idea of what you would like to do with your guitar sound, pedals can be essential in achieving your goal.
HOW TO SET UP YOUR GUITAR PEDALS
Most pedals will require 9 volt batteries to function, and whether you have one or several pedals in your rig, you’re going to need a power source. If you’re only using one pedal, a 9 volt DC adapter should be all you need for it. The plug attached to said adapter should be plugged into the input slot that matches the sized of the DC cable. If you have multiple pedals, I would highly recommend that you get a power supply box with multiple plugs that you can use for all of your pedals. I would also recommend getting a specific pedal board if you have multiple pedals and attach them to the board with velcro. This keeps your pedals in one place and allows you to pack them in a case if you need to travel with them.
Once on the board, you will line them up side by side and use short connector cables with quarter inch ends to daisy chain the pedals. Be sure that your cables are plugged into the appropriate inputs and outputs to keep the signal connected.
Once your pedals are lined up side by side and connected to your power supply, you’ll want to connect them to your amp before you plug in your guitar. Take a longer quarter inch cable and connect it from the input of your amp into the input of the first pedal in your chain. Take another
cable and use it to connect from the output of the last pedal in your chain into your electric guitar, and you’ll be ready to make some noise.
TYPES OF GUITAR PEDALS
As I mentioned before, there is such a variety of pedals and pedal sounds. So, I am going to break down just a few of the most commonly used pedals by working guitar players across the board.
DELAY
This is used as an effect across various genres of music. When a delay pedal is on, it provides an echo of the notes being played that fades about as quickly as an echo. You can use delay to fill in space for leads or you can shorten the echo to where the it stops immediately for an effect called “slap back.”
BOOST
Boost pedals are used to push your signal from your amp to make your guitar sound bigger by adding more decibels. These are often used for lead players to push their signal over the rest of the band to make their lead parts or solos cut harder. Sometimes, the boost can just as easily be part of the sound as the amp or the guitar itself, depending on what kind of music is being played.
FUZZ
There are many pedals that can be used for distortion or breakup of the signal of the amp to make your guitar sound dirty, nasty, and mean. However, a good fuzz pedal can really add some thickness and grit in a way that not a lot of distortion pedals can do. The sound waves created by a fuzz are larger than what most distortion sounds can do, which can make a guitar sound very monstrous and noisy to the point of chaos if you don’t know how to use it.
WAH WAH
The most commonly used pedal is probably the wah wah pedal. It’s comprised of two boards, one on the base, and the other that is on top can be moved up and down by the user’s foot to create expression with the “wah wah” sound. If the top board is “cocked”, this creates a separate tone on its own as well.
CONCLUSION
Of course, we’re just scratching the surface of what can be achieved with the pedals I have listed. There are also so many other sounds that can be achieved by other kinds of pedals that might require and individual blog post for each one. One more thing I would recommend on any pedal board is a tuner pedal. These are important, because not only does it keep your signal contained for an accurate reading of your tuning, but it also mutes the guitar while doing so. Nothing can derail a performance like tuning a loud guitar that can’t stay in tune.
