It's the garden variety "instrument" cable that is going to be your biggest concern. Let's start there. Known to many simply as a "guitar cable" the instrument cable you might be familiar with is technically an unbalanced TS cable.
A TS instrument cable or your garden variety guitar cable can be easily recognized by the single insulator ring. Another term you'll often hear is "patch cable" which usually refers to a TS instrument cable that is much shorter, designed to be used between pedals, like this:.
These patch cables can often be just a few inches long and are designed to minimize length and space between guitar pedals. In the above example, I've used small low-profile right-angle patch cables to make sure I have minimal cable length between my pedals and that they're able to be placed close together. We'd recommend using those or pedal couplers for improved electrical conductivity and more efficient use of your pedalboard space.
Pedal couplers do the best job of reducing cable length, though low-profile right angle patch cables are best at minimizing space between pedals. The low profile patch cable design shown here is one of the best for minimizing space between guitar pedals. In most cases, all the connections between your pedals can be handled by unbalanced TS patch cables or pedal couplers. Though they're almost identical in appearance to TS cables, TRS cables have a second insulator ring that allows them to handle balanced and stereo signals.
This effectively gives it a positive conductor, negative conductor and ground, meaning it can be used for a balanced line out connection, like going from a DI box or guitar amp line out jack to a PA system. It's easy to see the two insulator rings on the TRS cables.
TRS cables are generally not needed unless you have something like a balanced mono signal running from a line out or input on a mixer or audio interface.
They can also be used for connecting a stereo output to a stereo input. XLR cables are typically used for microphones or to connect a DI box to a channel on a mixer. As it concerns your pedalboard, XLR cables are generally not going to be necessary. An important part of cabling your pedalboard is minimizing cable length whenever possible. As we've already alluded to, a lot of this happens with pedal-to-pedal connections, which can be shortened by pedal couplers and patch cables.
It's worth mentioning that not all guitar players adhere to this practice. Take a look at one of Eric Johnson's pedalboards :. One of Eric Johnson's pedalboard arrangements. We do not recommend this. It's hard to argue with Johnson's success as a guitar player, but I wouldn't recommend his cabling work. If possible, use cables that cover the ground metal piece in a jacket. This is just going to look like material that encases that part of the cable, which makes it less likely to fail and helps to protect the most fragile part of the cable where the tip is soldered to the wiring.
Here's how I'd break down your most typical options:. The thicker the jacket is over the connection, the better. In addition to dealing with instrument cables on your pedalboard, you're likely to be dealing with power cables for each pedal as well. The type of cable will vary, but most look the same: They're small, black electrical cables with a power jack on each end.
One end goes to your power supply and another goes to your pedal. These cables are usually included with a guitar pedal power supply. Heavy and heavier. All about distortion in this section.
We've covered some basics on how to use a distortion pedal. But here, I want to go more in-depth about setting one up and getting the most out of your gain-based effects in general. We'll look at distortion pedals, but also amp-based distortion, overdrive pedals, fuzz pedals, and how to set them all up on your pedalboard. First, I'll define the most common types of gain pedals.
Keep in mind, gain is the type of effect while distortion, overdrive, etc. The most common type of gain effect is distortion. However, the term "distortion" can also be used to describe a number of gain-related pedals, including overdrive and fuzz pedals.
In that regard, distortion is often mistakenly assumed to be the parent category and not a type of effect within the gain category. As its own effect type, distortion creates a heavy, saturated layer of high gain that covers the clean signal and makes it sound distorted hence the name.
Distortion is increased gain along with decreased output. The higher the gain, the more distortion you'll hear. Though similar to distortion, overdrive is a smoother, less aggressive form of gain that's often meant to mimic - or be produced by - a tube amp. Overdrive pedals still create distortion, but they sound warmer, smoother and less edgy than a typical distortion pedal. The fuzz effect is created by a flatter cap over the increased gain, giving you more of an edgy distortion sound that's less refined than regular distortion and the opposite of the smoothed out overdrive effect.
Fuzz pedals are not as commonly used as overdrive and distortion, though still a popular part of rock and blues styles. Boost pedals are in the gain effect category and are often sold in the same sections as distortion and overdrive pedals.
However, they aren't really distortion because they "boost" gain without capping off output. This lack of an output cap means you don't get any distortion from a boost pedal, but just an increase in decibels. We'll cover how to set up and use all four of these gain-based effects, as well as some related best practices. In most cases we would recommend not placing a distortion pedal in your effects loop. As we'll discuss more in the next section, a distortion pedal is effectively a second amplifier, which means placing it in an effects loop isn't really necessary and doesn't make sense.
The wrong way. Don't put your distortion pedal in your amp's effects loop. The right way. Distortion goes after tuning, compression, filters, and before everything else in your main signal chain. Most professional guitar players use the distorted channel on their amplifier as their primary distortion source.
This makes more sense than a pedal because your amp already has a preamp and power amp handling gain and master output. This is why I said adding a distortion pedal is like adding a mini guitar amp to your signal chain with gain and output control.
If you have a nice amp , we would recommend first getting your distortion from that amp, then adding the pedal if further tweaking is necessary. Generally speaking, the nicer the amp, the better quality distortion you'll get. A lot of pros use amp-based distortion because a lot of pros predictably have really nice amps with a good onboard gain channel. It also depends on the style of music you like and the type of amp that produces a distortion to match.
For example, the Fender Deluxe has a good dirty channel for distortion, but it's very much blues and classic rock, not at all what you would consider a modern-voiced distortion. To get that, you would have to go to Mesa Boogie or Diezel for that heavy, percussive distortion sound. But let's say you do end up using a distortion pedal. There's nothing wrong with that, because tons of guitar players still do it.
The first thing you need to do is make sure the gain levels on your amp and pedal are matched up, or at least appreciably close. Remember, introducing a distortion pedal into your rig is effectively a second preamp and power amp, so we've got to get them playing nice together. In other words: The output from the pedal should match the output from your preamp. This way, the master volume on the amp will push everything up starting from the same spot.
Our goal in doing it this way is to avoid a big discrepancy in volume between using the distortion and not using it. If you have volume control for a particular channel, it should match the volume level coming out of your distortion pedal. If you have multiple channels, like in the above example, you'll want to match volume levels for each channel which are all controlled at the preamp level , to the volume or "master" output of your distortion pedal.
Once you do that, the gain control on the pedal controls saturation usually without impacting volume and the Master volume control - at the power amp level - controls the output of everything. After you get volume taken care of, the gain control on the distortion pedal controls saturation levels distortion intensity and the MASTER volume on the power amp controls the "final" output and volume of your signal.
The overdrive is a smoother type of gain boost, usually less aggressive than distortion and often used in blues or lighter styles of music. When setting up an overdrive pedal on your board you can treat it the same as a distortion pedal, as the difference is a matter of style and not typically one of functionality. A DOD overdrive pedal still has a gain and level control, just like we see on most distortion pedals.
Flickr Commons image via Terekhova. Most overdrive pedals still have a preamp control and a master volume output, though often the overdrive pedal labels gain differently, sometimes using "drive" to indicate the same function.
Most fuzz pedals have a volume, tone, and gain control, mirroring the typical distortion pedal settings we've already seen. I'd recommend using the volume knob on your electric guitar to manage the intensity of the fuzz, while keeping the tone and level or volume of your fuzz pedal a bit higher. Use the volume knob to manage the intensity of the fuzz pedal.
The above demo isn't a great example, just because that particular fuzz pedal has a lot more control than most. A typical fuzz pedal, like the DOD fuzz pictured below will only have three controls, volume, tone, and gain or "fuzz" in this case. Typical fuzz pedal controls include volume, tone, and gain or "fuzz" in this case. Boost pedals are more complex and versatile than they seem. How you use one depends on where you want to increase volume.
Unlike other gain and volume effects, you can actually put your boost pedal in an effects loop and often get a better result than you would if you had it in your main line. There are three main placement options to consider:. If you have an effects loop, it's a great place for your boost pedal and will give you a cleaner result. If you want your boost pedal to function more like a volume knob on your guitar or a distortion source, you can put it in the front of your signal chain, before everything, as follows:.
A pre-pedal boost will give you the volume bump before it can be impacted by more pedals. This creates what's called a pre-pedal boost, meaning you're boosting your signal before it's being run through any additional processes. Depending on the pedals you're using, this can have a different effect when compared to a post-pedal boost which we'll look at next.
Boost pedals can be placed at the back of your pedal chain to boost an already effected signal. In the above diagram the boost pedal is placed behind every other effect in the chain, right before it meets the amplifier. This - like the effects loop placement - will get you a cleaner boost in volume and will always boost an already processed signal from all your other effects pedals. The particular method you choose will depend on the other pedals on your board and might require a bit of experimentation.
The Spark Mini Booster pedal simply increases the decibel output of your signal. Modulation pedals are some of the easiest to use and the most straightforward to set up. To be categorized as a modulation effect, a pedal needs to create its sound by manipulating the waveform of your signal. This can be done by an analog circuit or an algorithm in a digital signal processor. Per our earlier recommendation, modulation effects should be placed in the middle of your signal chain, right before your ambient effects.
Chorus pedals create several slightly off-pitch waveforms of your dry signal and then layer them over the original dry signal creating a slightly shifted sound that is usually adjustable by rate and depth. Phaser pedals create an out-of-phase sound that is layered back over the original waveform to create the swirling phase sound.
Increasing speed on a phaser means the swirl effect will complete its circle between the peak and notch quicker. Increasing depth will usually causer a deeper distinction between the in-phase and out-of-phase wave. Flangers are similar to phasers in that they're created by peaks and notches in the waveform, though a flanger processes the sound with a slight, gradually increasing delay between each peak.
This creates a sound that's often compared to a jet flying over your head. Tremolo pedals are the simplest of the modulation effect. At a basic level, it's simply the rapid increase and decrease of your signal's volume in synchronized succession. Most tremolo pedals will have at least a speed knob that allows you to control how fast the peaks and notches complete. We've already addressed placement in your signal chain. However, there are a few additional best practices that are helpful to keep in mind when it comes to modulation pedals in general.
In most cases, these will apply to all modulation effects because they're so similar. In fact, there are a lot of guitar players and musicians who would argue that there isn't a ton of difference between chorus, phaser, and flanger sounds at all. I wouldn't necessarily agree with that, but these best practices can be applied to all four of the modulation effects mentioned above.
When you add a chorus or phaser pedal to your rig, its primary job will be to add a layer of nuance and decoration to your clean signal. Use modulation pedals when you need some thickness or a little more substance behind a clean chord progression or melody line. Read the review: Boss BF-3 Flanger.
All modulation pedals should have at least a rate and depth knob for control though some, like the MXR Phase 90, only have a speed control. It's a good practice with waveform effects to start with these settings at the 12 o'clock position or whatever the middle position would be. From there, you can adjust up or down as needed. Along with ambient effects, modulation pedals are commonly put in an effects loop. The effects loop will also help modulation stay more consistent with your amp's volume.
Chorus and phaser pedals - in particular - can sound too chaotic if you push settings too high. It depends on the pedal, but be careful not to over-saturate your clean sound with waveform manipulation. Ideally, you want modulation to flavor your clean tone but not to the point where it's distracting from it or covering up the clarity of your notes.
Here's an example of the settings I typically use on my Boss BF-3 flanger, which came from the above audio sample:. Settings example for a Boss flanger pedal. Though multiple modulation effects can be useful on a single pedalboard, using more than one at the same time isn't advisable. It will typically sound too chaotic and will quickly overpower your clean signal.
Ambient effects have a much shorter pedal roster, as they're limited to effects that manipulate time instead of volume or waveform. The only two significant pedal types in this category would include delay and reverb. Delay pedals record a sample of your original signal and then play it back with a certain number of repeats. Reverb plays back an ambient persistence of your dry signal after that signal is produced, meaning you'll hear a trail of sound after you play.
The other type of pedal you'll see is echo or tape echo, which is essentially the same as delay, albeit a more vintage flavor. All ambient pedals - delay, echo, and reverb - should be placed at the very end of your signal chain, whether in the main pedal line or an effects loop. Delay can be a tricky effect to implement because it manipulates the timing of your signal. Like an echo, it repeats a certain segment a certain number of times. Thus, you have to think about the following properties:.
Other controls on delay pedals might include frequency, EQ, modulation controls, and more depending on the pedal in question. But the three things mentioned in the above list are going to be the most important. There is a way to calculate delay time based on timing subdivisions. First, let's look at the note durations we'd be using:. For example, the eighth note sub division means you repeat the note eight times within each beat. This is what that subdivision indicator on a delay pedal would mean, which is sometimes displayed on a pedal, like this version of the MXR Carbon Copy:.
Five different selectable subdivisions on the Strymon DIG delay pedal. In the Strymon example, you might notice the dots behind the quarter and eighth notes. This creates a dotted quarter note and dotted eighth note, which is worth three quarters of a beat.
Read more here: Dotted Eighth Notes. Though reverb pedals can get somewhat complex take the Walrus Audio Descent for example most are far simpler to use than delay. Instead of a rhythm repeat, reverb leaves a trail that is still based on time, but is a persistence of sound and more ethereal than rhythmic.
Many amplifiers, specifically Fender combo amps , have been known to include a reverb effect. If you have an amp with reverb and you're happy with the reverb tone, you may not need to add a pedal. However, if you want a reverb effect with more functionality and versatility, you can add reverb pedals that go extremely in-depth.
Take the Strymon BigSky, for example:. The Strymon BigSky reverb pedal has a ton of versatility and multiple reverb algorithms. Pedals like the BigSky give you access to different reverb algorithms, combined modulation, and multiple ways to mix and manipulate the reverb effect. You can even make changes to specific aspects of the reverb's trail. Within the ambient category, we'd recommend running a reverb pedal behind delay, right before your signal reaches your amplifier.
As you may recall from earlier, the wah pedal is considered a filter effect because it manipulates your tone, just like the tone knob on an electric guitar. However, wah pedals can do this a lot quicker and to a greater degree than your average tone knob, which gives you an almost vocal-like sound that is often used in a lead guitar context. For more detailed information, checkout our step-by-step guide on how to use a wah pedal. Most wah pedals will engage via a bypass switch, just like other guitar pedals.
The exception would be Morley's switchless pedal series, as they function simply by stepping on the pedal and moving it, without a bypass switch. Once you've hit the bypass button you can rock the foot pedal back and forth to move the tone from high to low. Once engaged, the wah pedal functions with a back and forth motion. In most pedalboards, a wah pedal is going to get the most active and frequent use, at least in terms of your foot actually touching a pedal.
To make these easier, put your wah pedal in the most accessible part of your board, which - as we mentioned earlier - is the lower right-hand corner of your pedalboard. The Morley wah pedal occupies the most accessible portion of this pedalboard. Again, you find the wah pedal in the bottom right hand corner of the pedalboard.
In most cases, this is going to be the most comfortable place for your wah pedal, since it's one of the only pedals that your foot stays on for extended periods of time.
Otherwise, it's a fairly simple effect to setup and use. Most wah pedals don't have settings some have what's called a contour knob , but if you make sure it's easy to get to and keep it in the front of your pedal chain as a filter effect, the rest is pretty straightforward.
Though it's not an unbreakable rule, most guitar players tend to use their wah pedal for solos and lead parts of a song. Godsmack's Tony Rombola does this a lot. A good example on the track "Greed" embedded below:. If you have a tuner in your signal chain and a wah pedal, I'd still recommend putting the tuner before your wah pedal as your signal's first stop coming out of your guitar.
As we mentioned in earlier sections, compressor pedals are a bit of an anomaly in terms of where they should be placed in a signal chain. They're one of the few pedals that we'd recommend putting before your filter effects, including your wah pedal. If you have a volume pedal, it should go in front of your wah for the same reason a compressor goes in front.
A volume pedal controls the ensuing output of your signal, just like the volume knob on your guitar. Flickr Commons image via Kuyabic. The positioning of your EQ pedal is harder to pin down since it doesn't necessarily have a default effects category. It's almost like a tiny amplifier, which means a good starting spot would be at the very end of your signal chain, right before your actual amplifier.
Here's how that setup might look:. However, there are a few different ways to use an EQ pedal, which will depend a lot on the style of music you play and the other effects in your rig. We'll cover a few options here. Tom Morello has been known to use a DOD EQ pedal with all the settings set to their mid point, but the decibel level control set higher to use as a signal boost. The following is a diagram of Morello's board, which he strangely places between his phaser and delay pedal.
The most conventional way to use an EQ pedal is to put it at the very end of your signal chain to mix the signal coming out of your effects before it goes into your preamp. This makes it a kind of preamp for your preamp, where you get one last chance to tweak your signal before the amplifier functionality takes over.
This is the arrangement we covered in the first example. Some guitarists will put an EQ pedal all the way at the front of their signal chain to tweak the signal coming out of their electric guitar. This gives you more control over the sound going into your pedals. This arrangement allows the EQ to tweak your tone before it goes into your pedal chain. You can also place your EQ pedal in relation to how you have your gain effects set up.
Since it can double as a booster pedal or as a tone manipulating effect, an EQ can help you tweak or change what your signal is doing when it comes out of your gain-related effects.
This means it can be helpful after a distortion pedal, but before ambient and modulation pedals. Here the EQ is post-gain, be pre-modulation and pre-ambience. As we get into the more advanced aspects of pedalboard setup, MIDI controllers are one of our first and most helpful stops. While it's not common for beginner guitar players to incorporate these into their rigs, anyone who wants to setup an advanced pedalboard should at least be familiar with MIDI connections and how they can benefit your rig.
That means a MIDI-compatible rig can have the following components:. Almost any time you have some kind of a rack effects unit, you'll have a MIDI controller that switches between those effects. Here's a really simple example of how that might be set up:. A MIDI controller can be used to switch between sounds and settings in a rack effects processor. Image via Guitar. MIDI connection in the back of a Strymon reverb pedal.
Image via Strymon. This depends - of course - on the MIDI controller you're using and the pedals or devices that they're controlling. I covered the connection process in detail in this article on pairing MIDI foot controllers with compatible devices , so I won't rehash that content here in full, but I will go over some basics.
The difference is that you'll need to use MIDI cables in between each one, as in the following diagram. Once you connect all of the MIDI devices together you can use a single MIDI foot controller - assuming it's capable of recognizing and controlling multiple devices - to assign channels and presets for each device. Most rack effects systems have MIDI ports, though a lot of guitar pedals as I've already mentioned and a growing number of amplifiers are also controllable through a MIDI device.
The Morley ABY switch allows you to mix input levels and route one or two guitars to two different amplifiers. As your rig gets more complex you might want to incorporate multiple amplifiers or even multiple pedalboards depending on what you're playing or what kind of gig you're doing.
By far, the most common implementation of this device is to run a single electric guitar signal and pedalboard into two different amplifiers. Here's how that looks in diagram form:. Here are a few best practices to keep in mind:. In this article we've covered all relevant aspects of setting up your guitar pedals in the most optimal way possible. However, It's important to keep in mind that these are simply best practices that might not be optimal for your situation, depending on the specific make-up of your guitar rig.
What these guidelines can do is give you a starting point or a control that will allow you to make changes and tweaks as you develop more creativity within your own rig. When I was learning how to set all this stuff up, I found it helpful to know what the baseline looked like, then over time I was able to make changes based on my sound and make it my own.
Do you have questions about setting up your guitar pedals or signal chain? There's a lot of material covered here, so I'm happy to take questions on an specific aspect of it and expand the conversion. If you have thoughts you'd like to share, drop them in the comments section below and I'll jump in.
Modern players like Gary Clark Jr, Philip Sayce and Dan Auerbach are just some of the notable guitarists who use fuzz as a key part of their sound. So if you are looking to create similar heavy blues and blues-rock tones, you need to add a decent fuzz pedal to your rig. Though as is always the case, navigating which of the many fuzz pedals out there is suitable for you, can be difficult. Here then are some of the main elements you need to consider before buying a fuzz pedal, in addition to some of the best fuzz pedals out there for the blues:.
Before you buy a new fuzz pedal, it is first worth establishing whether it is going to help you create your desired tone. This is of course important when buying any new guitar pedal. However it is arguably more important here, as fuzz is often confused with overdrive. And although similarities between these guitar pedals do exist, there are significant differences.
So you want to make sure you understand these properly and end up buying the best guitar pedal for your rig. In other words, they fundamentally change the sound wave from your guitar and turn it into something different. It is the way that the different guitar pedals do this however, which determines your sound.
They round off the edges of the sound wave, which creates a warm and only slightly distorted sound. Conversely, fuzz pedals clip the wave form in a much more extreme way. They take the softly shaped wave signal from your clean guitar and turn it into a square shape. This creates a heavily distorted sound that is only possible when using this type of guitar pedal. Within the fuzz pedal category, there are further differences you need to consider.
As you might expect, and as is true of all guitar pedals — fuzz pedals will differ greatly in their features and number of switches and dials etc.
Yet beyond that, the key factor you need to consider when looking out for a new fuzz pedal, is the type of transistors that are used. There are two types of transistors that are commonly used — germanium and silicon. Historically, fuzz pedals were made using germanium transistors. All of the early pedals made in the s used germanium transistors. So amongst a lot of guitarists, there is a feeling that you should opt for a pedal with germanium transistors if you want vintage Jimi Hendrix style tones.
There are many tonal and practical benefits to using fuzz pedals with germanium transistors. The most significant of these are listed below. Fuzz pedals with germanium transistors:. These benefits are important. They allow you to produce a range of unruly fuzz tones, yet they also give you control over your tone. With germanium based fuzz pedals, you can really change your tone through your playing style and by adjusting the volume controls on your guitar.
In this way, these fuzz pedals respond more like overdrive pedals. It is just that they produce a lot more distortion. There are two main downsides to fuzz pedals made with germanium transistors.
The first, is that although these guitar pedals do pronounce mid-range frequencies, the same is not true of notes at the top or bottom ends of the spectrum. For the same reason, more complex chords, as well as quick licks and melodies can lose their definition and sound quite muddy. The second is that fuzz pedals made with germanium transistors are not so reliable. Most notably, they are affected by temperature. This means that they can sound quite different depending on whether you play them in a hot or a cold environment.
If you are a gigging musician, this could be problematic. You could potentially dial in the perfect fuzz tone at home, only to find that it changes when you are on stage. To help deal with these inconsistencies, in the late s pedal manufacturers switched to using silicon transistors in their fuzz pedals. And since that point, most fuzz pedals have been made with silicon transistors. These guitar pedals are more reliable than their germanium counterparts.
Significantly, they are unaffected by temperature. In addition, there are some further features of these pedals which are very beneficial, depending on your style of playing. Fuzz pedals with silicon transistors:. This last point is important. Unlike germanium based fuzz pedals, those made using silicon transistors have a more pronounced top and bottom end.
This enables you to really cut through in a mix. It also allows you to play more complex chords and phrases, without your playing blending into a wall of sound. So if you are looking for a higher gain fuzz tone, which is easier to dial in and will be reliable, a pedal with silicon transistors could make a great choice.
The main and significant drawback of these fuzz pedals, is that they are less responsive to the nuances of your playing. As such, these guitar pedals operate in a more binary way. When it comes to choosing either a germanium or silicon based fuzz pedal, there is no right or wrong answer.
Neither type of pedal is better than the other, and they both have their pros and cons. It all just depends on your playing style, and what you want from a guitar pedal. Broadly speaking though, I would suggest that you opt for a germanium based fuzz pedal if you want a vintage style tone that is slightly lower gain, and you also like to use dynamics and volume to alter your tone.
Some of the best choices here are as follows:. Conversely, if you want a more modern, high gain sound and you also want to dial in your tone and leave the pedal alone, then I would recommend going for a silicon based fuzz pedal. The above is intended as a guideline. For whilst the differences between germanium and silicon transistors is significant, it is not the only factor that influences the way a fuzz pedal responds.
To start with, not all germanium and silicon transistors are the same. They all react differently and produce different amounts of gain.
Additionally, different pedals use different numbers of transistors, which also impacts how the pedal reacts. As such, the differences between silicon and germanium based fuzz pedals are not always as pronounced as you might think. For this reason, if you are looking to add a fuzz to your set-up, I would strongly recommend you try it out first.
This will help you to understand if it works with your playing style and the rest of your rig. Unlike the guitar pedals listed above, all of which have the potential to play a key role in your sound, wah-wah is an effect that you are likely to use much more sparingly.
In technical terms, a wah-wah pedal acts as an envelope filter. This means that in different positions the pedal blocks certain frequencies. When the pedal is all the way up and the heel end is depressed , the pedal acts as a low pass filter. In other words, it lets the low end frequencies through and blocks the high end frequencies. Conversely, when the pedal is all the way down and the toe end is depressed it acts as a high pass filter.
It lets all of the high end frequencies through and blocks the low end frequencies. If you rock back and forth on a wah-wah pedal — as is very common amongst guitarists — you are essentially shifting rapidly between the two extremes of the tonal spectrum.
This produces a unique sound that you cannot create without the use of a wah-wah pedal. Over the past 60 years, wah-wah has been used to amazing effect by a whole range of different blues and rock guitarists, including Eric Clapton , Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. If you want to recreate the specific tones of the guitarists on these songs — and on any of the other countless blues and blues rock songs that use wah-wah — then you need to buy a wah-wah pedal.
You will not be able to recreate or get close to that unique sound using just your guitar and amp. Then, once you are happy with your base tone, you can add a wah-wah pedal to your set-up to capture the specific sounds on some of the songs listed above.
When it comes to wah-wah pedals, there are two main brands that have produced the vast majority of notable guitar pedals in this category.
The first of these is Vox. Vox created the first ever wah-wah pedals in As it happens, they did this accidentally, whilst trying to modify the Vox Super Beatle guitar amplifier.
The potential impact of this error was not fully realised at first. In fact, some of the engineers involved were insistent that the effect be used for the saxophone. This was not as unusual as it might at first sound. It is for this reason that Vox used the name of Clyde McCoy — a famous trumpet player — for endorsement when they released their early pedals. Yet despite this, people soon discovered the suitability of the effect for the electric guitar.
Eric Clapton adopted the effect soon after its release, and used it on a number of famous recordings with Cream. Jimi Hendrix was soon to follow, using a wah-wah pedal on his album Electric Ladyland to great effect. If you want to recreate the vintage wah-wah tones from these early albums, then a Vox wah-wah pedal could make a great addition to your rig. The majority of early rock and blues rock guitar players used a Vox V Wah-Wah pedal.
The great news, is that reissue versions of this pedal are still readily available. So if you are interested in authenticity, then the Vox V Wah-Wah Reissue would be an amazing choice. The other significant brand to consider if you want to buy a new wah-wah pedal, is Dunlop. Shortly after Vox released the first wah-wah pedals, Dunlop trademarked the Cry Baby name. They then began to release their own wah-wah pedals.
The Dunlop Cry Baby has since gone on to become synonymous with the wah-wah effect. They have released a wide range of different wah-wah pedals, which have been used by a huge number of notable guitarists across different genres. As such, there are many different Cry Baby guitar pedals that you can choose from. And in contrast to Vox — whose wah-wah pedals are vintage voiced and simplistic in their design — there is a much greater variance between different Cry Baby pedals.
However, if you want to utilise your wah-wah pedal a lot, or if you are looking for a boutique guitar pedal, then there are a further number of options to consider. These allow you to adjust the frequency range of the pedal, which is a very useful feature. The Gary Clark Jr. These are designed and modelled on the wah-wah sounds of those guitarists.
So if you want to recreate the tones of those specific players, one of those guitar pedals could make a great choice. Of all of the guitar pedals listed here, EQ pedals are perhaps the most misunderstood and also the least appealing. EQ is not exactly fun. I think this is partly because EQ pedals function slightly differently to most guitar pedals. Unlike the majority of guitar pedals listed here, EQ pedals require a little more work and direction. In fact, if you just step on an EQ pedal, nothing at all will happen.
This is because they rely totally on you moving the dials. You might think that this is not so different to using a boost or an overdrive pedal. After all, with those guitar pedals you have to set the knobs at the level you want. Yet whilst this is true, their controls are typically quite intuitive. You normally just need to set one or two knobs at the level you want.
And whilst of course there is room for error when it comes to using an overdrive pedal, it is easy to make adjustments on the pedal until you find your desired tone. The same is not true when you use an EQ pedal. EQ pedals usually have anywhere between 5 and 10 dials. And altering the settings on each of these dials can have a profound on your effect on your tone.
As such, compared with using some of the other guitar pedals listed here, using an EQ pedal can at first seem complicated and overwhelming. For it is these same features which make EQ pedals amongst the most useful and versatile guitar pedals out there. To run through all of the different ways that you can use an EQ pedal, as well as how you can dial in specific tones, is beyond the scope of this article. It is a topic that I will cover in much more detail in the future.
However, here are some of the key ways you can utilise an EQ pedal in a blues and blues rock context. You can use an EQ pedal in your rig to:.
If you leave all of the dials on an EQ pedal in place and just increase the level dial, your volume will increase when you engage the pedal.
In this way you can get an EQ pedal to act exactly as one of the boost pedals listed above. This function also works well if you are playing live and are switching between different guitars. If you switch between a guitar with humbucker pickups to one with single coils, you will lose a bit of volume.
To counter this, all you need to do is step on your EQ pedal. Overdrive pedals all have different core tonal characteristics. Some guitar pedals — like the Ibanez Tube Screamer — have a distinctive mid-hump. This means that they disproportionately boost the middle frequencies of your signal. One way of dealing with these differences is to buy more overdrive pedals.
In this way you can ensure you have the right pedal for any given moment. But as you can imagine, this approach is both impractical and expensive. This is where an EQ pedal can come in handy. You can put it in front of your overdrive pedal and use it to alter the frequencies that are boosted. In this way you can totally alter the sound of your overdrive pedal s. So by just adding an EQ pedal to your set-up, you can get a lot more from a small number of guitar pedals.
Both B. King and Freddie King played guitars with a Varitone switch. The Varitone is a 6 way rotary knob that helps guitarists shape their tone.
This knob is connected to a notch filter, which is linked to 6 separate capacitors. The first position on the Varitone switch is true bypass. Then in positions , the Varitone removes certain frequencies from your sound. It is quite rare to find guitars fitted with Varitone switches.
But luckily, you can get close to recreating the sound of a Varitone circuit using an EQ pedal. Like a Varitone, an EQ also slices away certain frequencies in each position. The key difference between a Varitone and an EQ pedal is that the settings of the Varitone switch are hard wired. There is some discussion around the exact frequencies that are removed by the Varitone in each position.
There are also those that believe that the Varitone switches that were produced in the s sound notably different. But below is a rough guide to the changes in EQ that happen at each position of the circuit:. Hopefully you can see then, that if you take an EQ pedal and altered the frequencies as above, you can replicate the different positions of the Varitone switch.
This will help you get closer to the killer tones of B. By this point I hope I have convinced you of the benefits of adding an EQ pedal to your set-up. I really believe that if you use one correctly, it has the potential to not only improve your tone, but to give you many more options to tweak and adjust your current set-up. If you do decide that you want to add an EQ pedal to your set-up, then the great news is that EQ pedals are also amongst the cheapest guitar pedals on the market.
All of these guitar pedals have a similar design and features. They are all graphic guitar pedals, which allow you to visualise the changes and see how they correspond to changes in your tone.
Until the last few years, I never thought of delay pedals as being essential — or even particularly useful — in a blues or blues rock context.
I had always associated them with ambient soundscapes. And as such, I had dismissed them as only being useful for more experimental or alternative genres. You can see him demonstrate this starting at the 9. As you can see, his use of the effect is subtle. Yet at least to my ears, it unquestionably improves his tone.
It gives it extra depth and also softens it slightly. I think that part of the reason delay pedals are under utilised amongst blues guitarists is that delay and reverb are often confused with one another. And although there are similarities between the effects, they are actually quite different. As noted above, reverb is a natural effect. When you make a sound, you create a sound wave which is absorbed by the objects in your surroundings.
Part of that sound wave bounces back to you. And the rate and length at which this happens determines the sound of the reverb that you hear. Delay is also based on a natural effect. If you are in an open space, and create a sound, you will typically hear a distinct echo. The difference between this and reverb, is that in the second case, the echo occurs as a separate sound.
This is the natural effect that delay is based upon. This is different from reverb. With reverb, there is no separate echo. Instead, the reverberating sound you hear is closer to an extension of the original sound that you create.
Typically, delay pedals allow you to define the number of times you hear your playing repeat. Instead I would recommend you buy one of the guitar pedals listed above, as they will all have a greater impact on your tone.
If you have the basics in place though, or if you are happy to spend a little more on your set-up, then a delay pedal will make a great addition to your rig. Conversely, if you are playing alternative styles of music in addition to the blues — or if you want the option to create a greater level of delay — then either the tc electronic Flashback Delay or Boss DD-8 Digital Delay would work well.
The final category of guitar pedal to consider if you want to improve your blues guitar tone, is chorus. As is true of delay pedals, chorus is not an essential effect if you want to dial in a killer blues tones. In fact, compared with the majority of the guitar pedal categories listed above, chorus pedals have been used very sparingly by blues guitarists. On a number of songs, both of these guitarists used the chorus effect heavily. Yet for the most part, they used chorus subtly to thicken up and add some depth to their tone.
But similar to delay, chorus can make a subtle but important difference to your tone. I would recommend adding a simple chorus pedal to your rig. There are a huge range of these available, but some of my top choices are as follows:. The key with these pedals is to use them sparingly. This will help thicken your tone up without overly modulating your sound. Well there we have it, some of the best guitar pedals for the blues. There are further categories of guitar pedal out there, and within those categories, many more individual guitar pedals.
And of course, some of these guitar pedals have applications within a blues and blues rock context. Guitar pedals like compressors, phasers and tremolo all have their place.
What I have done here however is to highlight some of the guitar pedals I feel are most relevant if you want to create a killer blues guitar tone. Instead, I would recommend that you start with the one or two pedals that you feel are most relevant to your set-up and the tones you are trying to achieve. Experiment with these, and try to get closer to the tone for which you are striving.
Keep iterating and trying different things out. And when you feel comfortable and happy with your sound, think about adding a few additional guitar pedals to your rig from the list above. Follow the same process of experimentation and iteration, and you will be amazed at what it does for your blues guitar tone. Good luck guys! Let me know how you get on in the comments. Feature Image — Titoslack iStock Photos.
Image of B. Many of the links embedded in this article are affiliate links. As such, if you buy one of the pieces of gear I recommend, or an item from the same store after clicking one of these links, I will earn a small commission.
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