You Know What's Awesome About Effects Pedals?
 

Even if you what you're playing is ****, you can still make it sound good if you're using the right combination of effects. They give hope to ****ty guitar players like myself because they hide mistakes very well. Still, it makes me wonder which guitarists nowadays are just hiding behind effects..

If your using effects pedals to hide your mistakes, you're a ****ty guitar player because you're using them for that purpose, not because your not amazing at playing your instrument.

thinking that effects actually cover up your mistakes is about as sensible as thinking that buying a high end guitar will offset any lack of practice and turn you into a virtuoso.

Well, sometimes a hefty splash of reverb can add some 'forgiveness' to your tone.

I like how Omar Rodriguez-Lopez uses his effects... not to hide mistakes, but more as an extension of the guitar itsself. I love effects, I think they're wonderful, but yeah, if you're using them to mask mistakes it'll end up sounding like mud, effects or not.

I agree, effects are great to enhance a piece, not to hide a f**k up, besides, sometimes it makes it worse.

Actualy, he uses his effects to wage battle with the guitar. He's on record in interviews as saying that in his early guitar playing, he hated the guitar and only stayed with it because it fit the band. He used effects pedals in order to get the guitar to sound as little possible like a guitar. he "used to consider pedals as ammunition in my war against the guitar"

fair, but no amount of delay can cover up the fact that you're fingers are moving off time hehehe

I use tons of reverb and delay in my playing, I'll occasionaly flub a chord, and I'll hear it, but it sounds much better with all of those awshome effects then when I flub the same chord on my acoustic. Wait, or maybe it's just that I think dissonance and such sounds so much better when candy coated in layers of milky reverb and smooth delay giving it a nice tasty flavor, Hah!

I personally don't understand the reasoning behind using an effect to accomplish anything other than having the effect in your music because it belongs or is musically creative.

How would a classical guitarist go about hiding mistakes with delay and distortion without sounding ridiculous? Do people just resign themselves to playing a musical style that uses effects just because they suck at playing? Seems pretty limiting to me.

Effects have their place in particular situations regardless of whether someone plays well or not. To use an effect not for its value, but simply to hide crap playing, isn't going to do much in the grand scheme of things. You're still going to sound like crap if your playing sounds like crap. I think the problem lies in the person doing it not realizing that.

Learn how to play your instruments properly, and apply effects when they're called for. Otherwise you'll just sound like crap or, if you're lucky, you can get away with being considered "experimental"...

ever walk into a music store and hear someone trying to mimic Hendrix? rocking the wah back and forth on the beat instead of using it to highlight accents on the lead lines. turning up the fuzz to make chords feedback instead of turning up the amps so loud the speaker starts to tear when you hold the chord for too long. et cetera, et cetera.

yeah, there are plenty of people resigned to using effects because they're 'supposed' to.

Yes, I've heard his story, but that's sort of what I mean. Also, he's said that in recent years he's become more comfortable with the guitar.

I tend to think most of his claims are a load of sh*t, but I still dig what he does with his effects and the sounds he gets. He's easily my favorite player.

Effects are important for the psychological factor-if your tone is s**t,you will not be motivated to play.All the effects in the world will not mask bad playing.But to each his own,as long as it makes you happy who cares.

Adding effects to a foundation that is dodgy in the first place is only gonna make matters worse. It's like having a crappy old car and then giving it this amazing metallic purple moondustglow paint job. Ok, you can see the paint but the car's still crap underneath and really it's just a waste of good paint...

Many are saying you can really hide knowing how to play with effects. I beg to differ. Someone who sucks clean is 99.9 percent of the time going to suck with reverb/gain/delay/flange etc on.

^agreed. i often wonder how much actual experience most people making these claims have with using multiple pedals. last time i tried, if i screwed up going through a delay, i heard my mistake, over, and over, it didn't somehow get fixed before the repeats.

or do i just need a better delay?

nope, thats what happens with delay pedals, what you using?

i was being sarcastic. i have a Danelectro echo and a DOD digital delay, i'll also have a rack mount delay (Roland i think) if i pick it from my old man's place. :beer:

Woo I just got an origonal Big Muff and a Rocktron Classic Wah. Both sound fantastic.

nice, i have a green Russian muff i like quite a bit even if the tone knob keeps falling off.

can't really comment on Rocktron if you're happy with it then giddy up! i've had my vox wah for going on 15 years, i'll be sticking with it until my foot goes through it.

:thumb:

My Rocktron compression pedal is a total peice of ****... so I'll stay away from anything made by that company.

While I can't speak on Rocktron pedals from experience, I just want to say that compressors take knowledge to use correctly and it's not exactly an effect that's ready to use just by arbitrarily turning some knobs.
You could buy the best compressor out there, but if you don't know how to use it, it's not going to do anything for your sound.

I'm not assuming you don't know how to set up a compressor optimally, but I just want to put that out there.

i had bad luck with my compressor as well. it was a DOD Milkbox (from the 90s when everything needed a 'funky' name). it lasted about 2 months before breaking down into something that makes nothing besides a REALLY loud buzzing sound when clicked on - regardless of how the knobs are twiddled.

best i could pull from it when it worked were some really nasal lead tones a la Neil Young. otherwise, pretty much useless.

much prefer an octaver for buzzy fuzz tones.

If you're wondering why I hated the thing it was because it completely sucked the tone out of my signal... the bypass system was ****ing ****.

Bumping this thread because I saw a band last night covering Gloria Gaynor and rocking the wah pedal like a fucking kick drum. It was pretty obvious he was only doing it to cover up his mistakes.

^ that's a typical noob mistake with a wah pedal. unfortunate but it happens, some people just don't get how to rock their foot properly. if you're just going to be going from one extreme to the other you might as well just get an autowah and set it to go nuts.

i'm guessing the rhythm was also quite choppy as well.

Effect pedals give guitarists their own unique tone and style. I think that if you do try to hide your mistakes, well whatever. If sounding good artificially suits you and boosts your confidence, go for it. But be careful when playing at your local guitar store, if the wrong person hears your TRUE playing, you might get yelled at.

dunno about that, i've seen people be politely asked to play a different riff when busting out stairway or freebird but that's it. usually it's in a joking manner too. if it's not coming from a clerk that's when you offer up the guitar to the heckler and get them to step up or shut up.

i've never EVER seen anyone hassled for not being 'that' technically proficient in a music store, everyone in there has been a beginner at some point. on the other hand if you've been running your mouth about you shredding skills.... well, that's your own fault in that case.

I was exaggerating. But what I have seen is some 12 year old kid playing One, and another kid about 16-17ish came up to him, and said turn off the reverb and go back to guitar hero, you suck. I felt so bad for the poor kid.

I have muff too, it's made from metal taken from Russian tank.

In soviet russia muff distorts you!! Ahhh...

Maybe in Soviet Russia my Big Muff would have cost less :(

I use my pedals to make incomprehensible noise. I've got a couple pedals that can be used as a sound source so I don't really even need to play my guitar through them to make crazy sounds.

I've never used any effects pedals yet. I want to be a good musician before I start experimenting. But I'm not gonna vote because I might be missing out and they might make my sound so much better for all I know..

It's probably good to start with basics before you get into experimenting with a bunch of pedals. I played guitar for a few years before I ever bought any pedals, but ever since I started buying a bunch of pedals, the way I play music has changed so much. I don't even really rely on my technical ability to play instruments anymore as much as I rely on my ability to tweak knobs on pedals at the right time to make whatever sound I want.

:(

A lot of the music I've been doing lately involves lots of tape loops through guitar effects, and it's hard to say that there's technical skill involved in pressing play on a tape. I hardly even play guitar through my pedalboard anymore. It's a lot easier to make a sound to manipulate with a keyboard or a sound generator.

Fair enough. I misunderstood your original comment.

Anyway, I think poor use of effects pedals can really butcher any guitarist's playing. Like if somebody's rocking a wah back and forth on every quarter note, no matter how good the guitarist is, it's still bland and tasteless use of a wah pedal.

your music sounds kinda interesting. do you have any songs you can post here?