Effects

What has been considered the traditional view of effects and their role in getting a signature guitar tone has changed several times over the years.

In the early days, with the introduction of pedals like the fuzzface and wah, effects available in a variety of pedals offered a radical way of shaping your tone. These early devices were primitive, yet effective. A major disadvantage to these early units, not often realized, was their inconsistency between stomp boxes of the same type. For instance players like Hendrix who was a dedicated fuzz conesouerr would resort to sorting through several seemingly identical boxes until he found the one that had "the sound".

Things progessed through the seventies and the number of effects increased and so did their popularity. It was very common at this point for players to use front-end signal boosters, chorus, delays and echos, and types of phase and flange. The overall quality of effects improved and so did guitarists techniques for using them. For the vintage stompbox collector, the 1970's may be the golden era of analog effects. Many guitarists became purists who would allow nothing to process their signal before it reached their amplifier.

Enter the 80's. Several things happened that changed everything. First, the tubescreamer was introduced to the world by Japan which was one of the first op-amp type overdrive boxes. Prior to the Tube SCreamer we just had front-end signal boosters like the Rangemaster or fuzz pedals. This was the first of a new type of overdrive/distortion boxes that would become very popular. With advances in the microchip the production and manufacture of effects became very cheap. Enter companies like Boss who introduced a large line of interesting and forward thinking stompboxes.

Now players could have pedal boards with up to ten Boss pedals daisy chained between your guitar and amp. It was soon realized that these marvelous little boxes suck the hell out of your tone. With the addition of each box to your effect chain, whether on or off, its circuitry was changing and diminishing the sound of your pickups and original guitar tone. Effects had a price. Guitarist using very heavily processed tones became the norm. The no effects straight into the amp purist, although, still out there, became a rare bird indeed.

Next it turns out that as signal processing became more the norm that stomp boxes were not good enough and too signal degrading. Rack systems with multi effect arrays were introduced. Now you can easily process your signal without the added noise and signal loss (well sort of) and rack units offering many different effects became the norm.

Little did we realize that these multi effects were thin and weak when compared to the original guitar and amp signal. The idea and sound of a processed tone was so in vouge that the traditional sounds were no longer what guitarist were searching for anyway. It was the 80's. The 'me generation', self indulgence, and individual identity ruled. It was common to have a typical guitarist with a whole rack of multi-effect signal processors and limiters followed by expanders along with advanced and specialized reverb and delay units. Racks were so popular that guitar amps started going out of fashion and players wanted rack mounted guitar power amp and pre amps. The level of versatility and tweak-ability was at its highest.

During this period the number of guitar plugged straight into the amp players increased. It didn't take long to figure out that these units albeit complicated and expensive sounded thin and cheesy. Actually, given the level of sophistication there were some quite functional and remarkable rigs out there that did sound good but these systems were expensive and complex; not readily available to the Boss and DOD sporting masses.

Enter the 90's. We threw away all that complicated gear and everybody started plugging straight in again. Guitarist rediscovered the actual sound of their guitars and amps. Instead of wanting to change this sound we liked it. Somebody plugged in an old fuzzface from the 60's and the entire process has sorta started over again but with perhaps a little more taste and sophistication.

First, the vintage effects of the 70's came back into demand. Reissues and clones of these classic analogue designs started popping up. Players realized that despite their limitations analogue gear does sound better. Designers, mostly on a small scale, started taking advantage of modern technology and lessons learned to improve the original circuits. True bypass systems preserved the guitars original signal when off for example.

The larger pedal companies are happy reissuing old circuit designs, sometimes straight up as "reissue models" but more often passing them off as something new and re marketed. Meanwhile, boutique builders have cropped up. Boutique pedals incorporate the classic designs with high quality components. The inconsistencies that hampered early boxes are now known and removed from the designs. Effects are being built better than ever. Low noise designs that do not change or signal or even degrade it slightly are now the standard. These high quality boxes are expensive but their production by small companies has removed the flaws and limitations of production by large mass marketing companies.

ENTER a MAJOR POINT! You often here the criticism that their are to many guitar manufactures or pedal makers today. "Don't go into building guitar or pedals because the market is flooded with to many small companies and you all can't possibly make any money". THIS IS WRONG. THIS THINKING IS FLAWED BECAUSE we can't build good effects or guitars on a massive level. Look at the dissatisfaction amoung guitarists with guitars and effects produced by the big companies. Mass production schemes that are required just can't keep the quality up. WE DO NEED THE EXISTENCE OF MANY SMALLER COMPANIES to keep quality up. It as as simple as that. As long as the balances of supply and demand are in check guitarists are a lot better off buying their gear from smaller companies (unless you can afford vintage its the only way you are going to get decent sounding gear). OK RANT OVER POINT MADE

Back to pedals....

Enter where we are today. With the high cost of boutique gear and given the fact that these are simple designs anyway we are entering a new age. The Do It Yourself (DIY) age. This has been made possible by the internet and the coming of the information age. Now the guitarist is or can be more educated than ever before. With the advent of the internet all this information about guitars and gear is free and online. We can seek it out for ourselves. What were trade secretes or information that was just limited to a few individuals or guru's can now be in the hands of everybody.

It did not take long to figure out that you can build a boutique quality fuzzface for a lot less than you can buy it. Now simple soldering skills are becoming as relevent to the guitar player as changing strings. With the help of companies like BYOC, players can build their own effects. Not only do players get to take advantage of proven designs, but the limitation of mass production schemes, profit margins, and product/production cots are all forgotten as Johny guitar hero heats up his soldering iron. Now we can build our own clones. I have yet to see a Boss pedal outshine any DIY project now that I think of it. This is really good news.