Selecting the Right Effects Stompbox Will Keep Your Sound on Sure Footing

JAN/FEB 2011 ISSUE JAN/FEB 2011 ISSUE JAN/FEB 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM GEAR manually by a potentiometer, which is distortion, I go between a vintage DOD 250 connected to the pedal action. When you Overdrive Preamp, a Maxon OD808 and the move the pedal back and forth, it shifts vintage MXR Distortion+. I love my vintage the mid-range spike point, causing the solid state EchoPlex and also my Line 6 wah-wah effect. I use wah-wah to sculpt Delay Modeler for echo. an instrument’s sound—it’s great with Hammond organ, electric pianos, Clavinet How do digital and analog pedals and even drums and vintage synthesizers differ? like the Minimoog. Delay is also very useful SCHIERBAUM: Digital pedals use a in creating an extended space for an digital model of an analog pedal—or a

instrument. A short delay can create a nice Weintrob Michael digital algorithm—to create an effect. Digital ambience, while a rhythmic delay can make effects can have an advantage for effects for a nice timing effect. A long delay with a that are the same every time, and if you want long trail can really expand an instrument’s a high level of programmability. But in my sound—organ and string tones, for example— experience, modulation, fi lter and distortion especially when you swell into them with a effects benefi t from the anomalies and volume pedal for a smooth attack. variations of analog circuits.

What types of musicians use pedals? How do you string pedals together? BRADSHAW: Anybody can use these. BRADSHAW: It’s important to use high- I’ve seen people put wah-wah pedals on quality cables. And when you string multiple

trumpets and all sorts of stompboxes on Bootsy Collins pedals together, make sure you have a way vocals. If you’re open to being experimental, to properly bypass each device, so it’s not pretty much anything goes for any genre. wrecking your original sound. If you have too different permutations. He uses a whammy SCHIERBAUM: One great example of a many in line, capacitance builds up and it pedal, which shifts pitch, and a lot of overdrive musician using effects pedals in interesting can roll off high frequencies, degrading the boxes, too. But his main thing is echo—it’s ways is Reggie Watts. He’s a singer who sound. It’s important for most effects to be a key component of U2’s sound. Different uses the Line 6 Delay Modeler for looping, in loops so they can be bypassed properly. echo pedals have different character. The harmonies and effects—I’ve also heard SCHIERBAUM: It is really important to singers do brilliant avoid placing lots of pedals things with the Korg together and destroying your Kaoss Pad. Michael ‘Stompboxes can offer a musician tone. It’s also important to Brecker used the wah- know that some pedals have wah sound on sax, a huge amount of possibilities.’ true bypass and others don’t. Bootsy Collins uses True bypass means that if you fi lter pedals on bass –Arlan Schierbaum turn the pedal off, the signal Selecting the right effects stompbox will and Stanton Moore passes from your input jack uses fi lters, distortion and other effects on and doesn’t run through a circuit in the TC 2290 Dynamic Digital Delay is a good keep your sound on sure footing his drum loops live. Lots of new DJ mixers pedal, so it truly bypasses the electronic one, and there’s also the Electro-Harmonix have fi lters and delays built in, but outboard components of the pedal. Memory Man. That’s a classic stompbox delay effects for DJs are very useful as well. that he uses. Many legendary rock moments—Jimi Hendrix designer and the founder of Custom Audio amount of possibilities in sound choices, and BRADSHAW: U2’s the Edge loves How do you pick the right stompbox? wailing through an Octavia on “Purple Haze,” Electronics, a music technology fi rm that will often change the way the instrument stompboxes. He uses different effects and is BRADSHAW: It’s all personal preference. What are your favorites? or the Edge’s lush delay on U2’s “Where has created tailored stompbox systems for reacts while being played. always tweaking his signal chain, playing with I wouldn’t dissuade anybody from using BRADSHAW: I’m a big fan of the latest the Streets Have No Name,” for example— artists including Dave Grohl, Eric Clapton BRADSHAW: There are different “food anything. The crappiest little pedal could be were crafted using carefully chosen effects and Toto’s Steve Lukather. Schierbaum is a groups,” so to speak. One category is gain pedals from Eventide. They make very high- quality rack mount processors and they’ve the coolest thing in the world to someone—a pedals. Guitarists of all genres use these vintage keyboard specialist who integrates devices, like fuzztone or overdrive boxes. $59 Japanese fuzztone may be perfect for small, specialized signal processors to tweak stompboxes with instruments ranging from Another group is modulation devices like now created pedals as well. They’re MIDI Kevin Mazur Kevin a given situation. their instruments’ sounds in wildly creative electric pianos to Hammond organs. He has chorus, tremolo and vibrato circuits, which controllable and you get a lot of different sounds out of one box. Another batch of SCHIERBAUM: Various pedals respond ways. And they’re not just for guitarists worked with acts like the Pointer Sisters, manipulate the sound either by pitch or differently to different instruments—a phaser anymore: Bass players, keyboardists, Daniel Powter and Mandrill. They spoke with amplitude. Then there are time-based really nice pedals is the DigiTech HardWire on a Wurlitzer will speak differently than a vocalists and even horn players are adding us recently about how to select a stompbox— effects, which are typically echo, reverb and series. They are also very high quality, phaser on a Fender Rhodes. Unfortunately, effects pedals to their signal chains to add and how to get the most out of it. delay—and fi lter effects, as well. There are rugged, great-sounding pedals. They can there’s a bit of trial and error and no a new level of spice, variety and nuance to also all kinds of subcategories. work at either instrument or line levels of absolutes. I recommend borrowing pedals their performances. What do stompboxes do? input, so you can put them in an effects from friends and experimenting, and when Effects pedals come in a candy-store SCHIERBAUM: They’re generally a portable What are your go-to effects pedals? loop for your amp as well. Another forward- you hear an altered sound from another variety of sizes, shapes and fl avors, and sound-manipulating effect that’s put into a box SCHIERBAUM: Most often I use wah- looking company I’ve collaborated with is musician you like, try to create a dialogue fi nding the one that’s just right for you can small enough to lay at the feet of a musician, wah and delay pedals. The wah-wah Dunlop, and the Ibanez Tube Screamer is about the effect and how it’s being used. be a challenge—so we turned to experts and placed in line with an instrument. You basically fi lters the sound, giving a boost of a ubiquitous pedal to say the least. It’s an Most importantly, plug it in, turn the knobs Bob Bradshaw and Arlan Schierbaum for can add a stompbox to any instrument or equalization somewhere in the mid-range amazing overdrive box. guidance. Bradshaw is a guitar system audio path. They can offer a musician a huge frequencies. That boost point is moved SCHIERBAUM: I have a Dunlop Custom and listen to what happens. U2’s the Edge wah-wah pedal that is always amazing. For –Michael Gallant

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