Understanding Gain-based Effects on Pedal Boards

Video Transcript

"Hi! This is Adam Anderson on behalf of Expert Village. I am going to talk to you about your game based affects on your pedal board. The first type of affects you will want to put on your pedal boards are your game based affects. Included on your game based affects are your distortions, your compressor, your equalizer, your terminal pedals. Anything that has to do with determining the signal level of your actual guitar signal. The first type of pedal I am going to talk about is the distortion pedal. The distortion pedal is very important in the tone of rock guitar. The distortion pedal actually overdrives the signal to a level that the actual pre-amp of the amplifier cannot take any more. That's how that gives you that fuzzy or distorted tone. The next type of pedal that I like to have on my pedal board is some equalizer pedals. There are many different ways that you can use this individual pedal. One of the first ways that it can be used is to manipulate the different frequencies of the actual guitar tone. This equalizer pedal actually works with your guitar amplifier or your distortion pedal in tandem to actually determine the type of tone that you are going for. The second way that you would use an equalizer pedal is the way that I actually use it, I use it as a boost pedal. You can actually manipulate the level that comes out of this pedal and you can boost or cut it and I use it to boost the signal for guitar solos. This individual equalizer pedal that I use has a level control on the far right side of it. That in the middle is the level of the guitar signal that is going through the pedal. You can either cut it or boost it using the level control right there. What I do is I actually boost the signal so when I step on the pedal, it will engage the pedal and it will boost the level of the guitar signal that is going through the guitar pedal and what results there is louder volume coming out of the guitar amp so you can hear the guitar louder in certain spots of the particular songs you are playing. The next type of based affect I am going to talk about is the tremolo pedal. The tremolo pedal was very popular in the 50's and 60's in surf style music. What the tremolo paddle does is it boosts and lowers the amount of volume that comes out of the guitar amp so it gets louder and gets soft, gets loud and gets soft based on the speed you sat on the individual controls of the pedal. "