Guitar effects pedals

K

KingstonRock

PC load letter?
Does anyone know where I can find an explanation of how popular effects pedals work, like the boss phase shifter, does it double the signal and then shift the phase of one? And someone at a music store told me that chorus, reverb, delay/echo, flanger, and wah wah were all basically the same effects with different depths. Now just from listening to a those pedals it sounds like he's completely wrong. Does anyone know anything about the technology behind the pedal board?

A wah wah to me sounds like a paremetric eq that you sweep with the foot control, a reverb is a reverb :) , a chorus is like two instruments are playing at once, and a delay is doubling the signal and holding the double back. I could see some similarities in chorus and delay, but they certaintly are not the same effect, at least I think. Flanger I dont even know, maybe someone else does?
 
I can't help you with the tech differences but like many who work in music shops he don't know as much as he thinks, if indeed he does think.
 
Sounds like the guy don't have much of a clue...

I think your music store guy is way off, although your assumptions are pretty much on the nail

. Firstly, wah and phase are frequency-domain effects based on modulation (or otherwise) of frequency, whereas flange and chorus are time-domain effects, based on the modulation of short delays.

Flange and chorus are pretty much different versions of the same effect and are related to, but not exactly the same as delay/echo.

Reverb uses a series of very closely-spaced discrete delays to simulate acoustic spaces, so in that respect, is closely related to the above.

One of the guys here will no doubt correct me, but I think I'm pretty close on this one.
 
Ok...let's see...

1) Tell the guy to shut his mouth if he is not aware of what he is selling. He is a salesman, OK, not a technician, so he should say "sounds great" not "is this or that"

2) Phildo is pretty accurate in two aspects:
a) You are close.
b) About the effects explanation.

3) Wah, in fact, is a frequency boost (bell type) that you swipe across the spectrum. Wahs vary in the spectrum that they handle. Nowadays, you can find variable or adjustable spectrums to "swipe". "Make" a wah by boosting your EQ and then moving the FREQ knob as fast as you want on your mixer.

4) Flangers are the result of a short delay (1 to 10 ms or so...) that creates a "comb filter" what means that some freqs are cancelled along the spectrum (like a hair comb, it gets tighter in the high freqs). The "rate" is the speed that you swipe that filter back and forth to cancel different freqs (like <- and -> on the freq. spectrum) and "depth" is how far you go on both sides of the spectrum (you cancel more freqs in a side to side way, or you limit them to a "narrow" space). You can get a home-made flanger miking your amp with two identical mics, at the same distance from the amp, same position, and moving one back and forth. The faster you move it, the more "rate" you will get.

5) Chorus are like flangers, but from 10 to 30 or 50 ms, what makes them sound like "detuned" (you actually can get a chorus sound by tracking your guitar and doubling the track with a slightly detuned one). They also have rate and depth (same as flanger) and sometimes they have "voices" what means that you can have, let's say, one of the delays at 10ms, other at 20ms and other at 35ms, getting 4 tones due to a slight time difference.

6) Reverb are short echoes. Delays are the same but in a longer period of time, what emulates a bigger enviroment. Our ears can't separate the echoes from the main sound if they happen within the first 50ms (Reverb) and they do can separate them from the source after that (Delay).

Hope this helps.

Peace...

PC
 
guitar.com has a cool section that describes fx and then has a cool little applet that let's you use different fx with each other and different order etc.
 
cool, thanks a lot, this isnt the first time this salesman was wrong...

I still wonder what a phase shifter is though, I think it might be similiar to a flange, as far as creating a comb filter of sorts, being that delaying a signal would put it out of phase, hence phase shifter, but maybe at a different rate or depth. I suppose it could be another name for flanger.

Eric
 
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