Distortion tends to be slightly thinner and more percussive sounding while fuzz, on the other hand, tends to have a lot more octave generation and sustain to the sound. In the realm of jazz playing and general solo work comes the overdrive and clean boost pedal. This is made to do just as it says, add an audible decibel boost to allow the sound to cut through. Overdrive pedals add a slight amount of distortion to the signal to allow the tones to break up, but these as a whole are used to fill out the sound of a guitar to provide a blanket of warm sound upon which to rock. Finally, in the realm of general tone-shaping effects is the world of compression & sustain. Basically what compression does is allow the player to set a minimum threshold of sound coming into the circuit and a maximum ceiling of sound, thereby making all of the player’s notes fit within a certain decibel range. This allows minor mistakes to not be heard
and notes that may be incidentally played too hard to be brought under control. This overall “tightens” the tonal qualities of the sound you are producing and provides for a more consistent sound, especially when playing lead guitar. In addition to compression is sustain: this setting allows the player to increase the amount of time harmonic notes are held in suspension thereby allowing the note to continue on or “sustain” beyond its normal. Most pedal or rack units will have a knob for both of these settings, but many vintage and even throw back boutique-style are one knob compressors…simply on, up and rock! The one downfall and frequent complaint I have heard over the years, however, is the complaint of additional noise in the line with a compressor during tacet moments on the strings. This is a side result of the fact that you have set a minimum
threshold. This can be easily avoided through the old trick of simply riding the volume control of your instrument or even using a volume pedal.
The other option, of course, is to just never stop rocking. But hey, even the best us can get winded after a 23 minute long solo, right?
So there it is a brief introduction to the wonderful world of effects. Again, these are just some of the many options that are available. In the near future we will explore the uses and applications of many other wonderful exciting sounds such as delays, flangers, ring modulators and more. So until time, may your strings always be wound tight and your tubes always warm. Christopher Jordan has been a live audio/video engineer and recording artist for over 15 years and owns AustinHotMods.com an Austin,TX based pedal modification and repair company.~
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