THE TAP - DANCING GUITARIST

So you’re walking up to the stage to throw that $20 bill into the tip jar, when you notice a seemingly endless array of boxes at the guitar player’s feet. They’re covered with small lights, knobs, and buttons, and the guitarist seems to know what each one does, as he tap dances across them, making the lights blink on and off, bends down to turn a knob ever so slightly, all the while shredding his guitar to pieces.

Welcome to what is fondly known as the signal chain. From the guitarist’s brain, to the fingers, to the guitar string, to the guitar pickup, to the pedals, to the amplifier, to the speakers, to the mic, to the sound board, to the p.a. system, to your ears. There are as many variations to this chain as there are models of automobiles. But like a car, they basically run on the same principles, and serve the same purpose.

We’ll take a look at the pedal board. Most players plug their instruments directly into a string of effects pedals ensconced in some sort of carrying case. These pedals do exactly as advertised, affecting the signal (sound from guitar strings) they receive. There are hundreds of effects, and countless numbers of pedals to choose from. When I say countless, I mean that Americans spent $3.2 billion on pedals in 2022.

The prices of these pedals range from free to tens of thousands of dollars. While the debate is eternal on whether cheap pedals are inferior to more expensive ones, one thing is certain: being a professional guitar player takes some investment — in addition to time, of course.

Some pedals are quite familiar sounding. We’ve all heard the smack of a wah-wah pedal in every funk tune we love and every Metallica solo ever (slight exaggeration). It’s a pedal which you operate with your foot to go from high to low like a gas pedal. Distortion and overdrive pedals give us the grit we associate with rock and metal. Pedals like these have an on and off footswitch, with knobs and buttons that tweak the sound for variety and creativity. These pedals usually go from slight effect to outrageous amounts of saturation with the push of a button, operated by stepping on it. That is why effects pedals are also known as stomp boxes.

There are reverb and delay pedals that cause the guitar to sound as if it is in a cave or large hallway, while delay repeats the original guitar part in a variety of patterns and time signatures. Along with distortion pedals these are by far the most widely used. David Gilmore of Pink Floyd is well known for his use of these effects, as is The Edge from the band U2.

There are compressor pedals that squeeze the signal in order to cause the intense notes and light notes to be close to the same volume. There are chorus pedals that sound like the intro of every ’80s rock ballad ever written (slight exaggeration). There are pitch-shifting pedals that modulate the original note up or down as the artist desires. There are acoustic simulator pedals designed to make an electric guitar sound like an acoustic guitar. And the list goes on.

Your friendly neighborhood guitarist has to not only play the instrument well, but must also work with numerous different technologies, use the science at hand and navigate a commercial market bent on extracting every cent it can with the newest and the greatest. And this does not include digital pedals with amp simulators and impulse response that can combine hundreds of pedals into one.

Seeing all this, you reach into your pocket and pull out another $20 bill (slight exaggeration).