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Effects are one of the most misunderstood parts of a guitar rig. When you mention effects 9/10 older people think of "stompboxes" - little metal boxes you push with your foot to turn them on and off, and younger people think of "plugins". Me being a computer guy (I refuse to call myself TechBro or Nerd out of principle, since I can't stand either)...me, I see the physical box or software as a "form factor" and see the "effect" as the actual sound it makes when put into use.
Form Factors - Here's all the major form factors of effects...
| PICTURE
| DESCRIPTION
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"STOMPBOX"
"PEDAL"
| Basically, a plastic or metal box that sits at your feet that you can turn on and off, it might have from one, to many knobs on it, and most likely just has one type of effect in the box, or a few related types of effect in a certain genre. These are more often than not, run either in front of the amplifier, or in an FX Loop on the amplifier. If used in software, they are usually run between the audio interface and the guitar.
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| "RACKMOUNT"
| A staple of 1980's rock guitar rigs, Rackmount effects are often listed in "Units", determined by the distance between 4 screws. 1u (1 unit) is roughly over an inch tall. Some can be as big as 2 or 3 units for more complex or older modulation/time based effects. Rackmount devices were the most popular in the 80's and fell out of favor in the 1990's. What's nice about these is they can often be controlled via MIDI footswitches (not brand specific) and can be networked together with other devices over MIDI to recall patches, setings, and whatnot on the fly making them great for live performance.
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"MULTI-EFFECTS"
"AMP MODELER"
| These are like the "Stompbox" or "Pedal" type setup, but are typically bigger, ranging from 10"x10", all the way to huge monstrosities like my Line6 HD500 which are almost 24" wide and can take up an entire tier of an entire pedalboard. The benefit is they can have multiple rackmount units-worth of effects built in, and even amp and cab sims, and they have MIDI in a lot of cases, and can even act as a (passable) Audio interface... but the downside is they can be big, cumbersome, and cheaper units made of plastic are not as durable as metal units. They also are a bit more delicate than a lot of stompboxes due to size, and cheaper components to save cost that are more rugged on your typical stompbox. Also, they can be tricky to program - just like a modern rackmount (some Amp Modeler boards have rackmount equivalents) - especially for musicians who aren't used to computers/technology.
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"SOFTWARE"
"PLUGIN"
| These are fully software solutions such as the effects in "Guitarix" or plugins for reverb, chorus, or other effects. These have no "physical" entity at all (unless it's on physical media ie: CD-ROM, Floppy, etc...). They are loaded through your Digital Audio Workstation or a special purpose made application that allows you to use your computer or smartphone like an amplifier. Some can only do one or the other, some can do both.
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Now, let's talk about Effects TYPES...
| EFFECT TYPE
| NAMES/SUBTYPES
| DESCRIPTION
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| DYNAMICS
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| Dynamics based effects are often used at the beginning or end of signal chains either to limit noise, or compress a signal (make all notes "roughly" the same velocity/volume as each other, strenghtening weak notes and weakening ones that are too strong).
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| GAIN EFFECTS
| - Treble Booster
- Overdrive
- Distortion
- Fuzz
| Probably the most used of effects in music with guitars. These effects all raise the "gain" of a signal to "boost" it or make it louder, often with the intent of "overdriving" the signal ahead of it, or distorting the current signal before sending it on to give it those buzzy, growling, sawtoothy sounds we like so much. These are often placed early in the signal chain so other effects process the output of the pedal, rather than distorting the effects already applied (though that can be desireable in some scenarios).
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| FILTERS
| - Wah Wah
- Vocoder
- Synth Pedals
- Equalizers
| These effects either filter and/or alter the signal of the instrument going into them. The most basic would be an Equalizer, which filters out frequencies of the signal, and can sometimes even boost frequencies using an on-board amplifier on the effect. A Wah Wah pedal is basically a "mid-sweep" filter controlled by rocking the foot back and fourth, or some kind of modulation circuit doing it for you automatically. Vocoders basically use the passage of another audio source (usually the human voice via microphone) with the signal allowing the guitar to speak, and a more rudimentary version of this called a "Talk Box" worked simliarly by feeding the guitar audio through a small amplifier, into a tube into the mouth, and then sending the mixed signal of voiced-up guitar and regular guitar back to the amp. Lastly would be modern "Digital" effects that make your guitar sound like an entirely different instrument - I'm talking Synthesizer Pedals basically. These take the guitar signal, convert it to digital using a AD converter chip, process it through a computer, then send it back out converted using a DA converter chip.
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| PITCH EFFECTS
| - Octave Pedals
- Harmonizers
- Pitch Shifters
- Doublers
| Harmonizers are pedals that alter the pitch of an instrument, or make duplicates of it and provide the ability to shift the pitch up or down. Among the earliest of these were Octave pedals which basically halved or doubled the frequency of the incoming signal and mixed it with the original signal to create an octave up or down. Harmonizers started to appear in the 80's and use a mix of this and/or digital signal processing to create pitches other than halving (octave down) or doubling (octave up) the frequency of a signal. One of the earliest users of this was Big Country. PItch Shifters such as the Digitech Whammy work a lot like modern Synth Pedals, the guitar signal goes into a AD/DA converter at each end respectively, and in the middle is computer processing the signal to create whatever interval you want - including even the same pitch slightly modified to create a chorus-like "doubling" effect.
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| MODULATION
| - Vibrato
- Tremolo
- Phaser
- Flanger
- Chorus
| Next up are Modulation Effects. How these work, is they sound like they are modulating in some way - ie, performing a cyclic effect on the sound that provides movement in phase, pitch, or dynamics. Vibrato works by taking the signal, and doing things to it electronically to make it subtly rise and lower in pitch "around" the note you're playing. Tremolo just turns the sound on/off/on/off, some of which use just an optical sensor and a blinking light source to create. Phasers shift the phase of the signal, giving sort of a "milkshake machine" sort of sound to the instrument run through it. Flangers recreate an old tape technique used in studios where an engineer put his finger on the reel of a tape, and caused the wheels to slacken, then re-tighten, causing a metallic shifting sound. Chorus is like a less extreme version of flange, where the sound is slightly delayed and even slightly detuned even, which gives a combo of a very very light flange and a very slight vibrato, all the way to that shimmering warble Kurt Cobain was known for on some Nirvana tunes.
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| TIME-BASED
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| Time Based effects take the inputted signal, and then make a recreation of that signal at a later point. The earliest of this was to mix a tape machine with the playback head movable to change the interval between when the note was recorded, and when the note was played back (also works for Chorus). Reverb instead tends to create a "echo" which initially was done using plates or springs to which the signal was run through and created a physical delay, but currently a lot of this is just done using digital electronics such as a Beltron brick or a PT2399 echo/delay chip.
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Now, a lot of people who play guitar have a different view of this. Some people are 100% dead set on a "pure signal" "straight into the Amplifier", while other people maintain the right to use whatever effects chain they damn well please. I'm of the later camp. That said, that doesn't mean you shouldn't have consideration of where the effects are placed in your setup.
Effects Order - Unbuffered Effects - Typically, people put effects that are "un-buffered" at the front end so the guitar has maximum control over them, this is often older "Fuzz" and "treble booster" designs that are made in such a way as to allow your guitar to work with them - ie Dallas Arbiter/Dunlop Fuzz Faces and my own Fazz and Skullfuzzes are like this (Unbuffered). But what does "Unbuffered" mean?
Unbuffered simply means there's no "buffer" transistor or op-amp in between the pedal circuit's input and outputs. Most modern effects designs tend to prefer to put a "0 gain amplifier" at each end of the effect to make the tone more consistant, increase input impedance (removing much of the guitar's influence over the pedal's behavior), and in general, prevent other elements of the signal chain from influencing the effect or vice versa.
For example, I notice with my Fazz Fuzz, I get a little more low end, and a little less "cut" when using it because some of the grounded off capcitors used for the tone shape of the pedal affects my signal slightly. It's not enough to discourage me, but it is noticeable to the trained ear, and it's something I can kind of adjust with the pedals controls even though it should be true bypass.
Effects Order - The Basics - The main thing to keep in mind for a front-of-amplifier effects setup, is each effect that comes after the previous in the chain from the guitar to the amp, is "effected" by all previous devices. That means, if you put a chorus before your Distortion (Kurt Cobain used to do this), your chorusing effect is getting distorted, instead of your distortion getthing chorused, which gives a different sound.
The "egghead nerds" of the guitar community love to piss and moan about practices like this, but I feel these views are extremely limiting of inventing new sounds, especially when it comes to buffered pedals, or unbuffered pedals, or having more than one like I do. THat's a big point to using effects, it's not to "improve" your guitar playing (only practice fixes that) or to "mask" anything (actually, Effects can make your inability to recognize differences in technique required VERY obvious in some cases) - they are there to create new sounds impossible otherwise with just a guitar and an amplifier.
Personally, I start with the unbuffered devices, usually Fuzzes, because I want my guitar to interact with them, and affect how they behave, since that's a catalyst to new sounds. That meant back when I had a BOSS TU-2 tuner on my board, I had the Fuzzes BEFORE the BOSS TU-2 because the BOSS TU-2 has buffers on it, and I noticed when it came BEFORE the FUzzes, some sounds I could get with them before the tuner made those sounds unavailable or unusable as they would have been with the unbuffered fuzzes first.
After that, I would put your Tuner Pedal - however, if I wanted to "buffer" those Fuzzes, I could put them after the pedal. Just depends on what you want. Tuners should always be toward the front of the chain to get as unaffected guitar signal as possible.
Usually after the Unbuffered pedals, and the Tuner, I usually put the "Pitch Effects" in, since the idea is twofold, first off, it's to get rid of the "computerized" or "robotic" sound of a more primitive/cheap Pitch Shifter/Whammy clone. This means your pitch shifted signal, everything else can process that signal properly. Which leads me to the next thing in my chain.
After that, I put any digital filter devices if they are going into the preamp (and not after the Effects loop, which I'll discuss that strategy later). Because if I'm running something like a Synthesizer Pedal or so warped a Fart Pedal, Pizza Pedal, that wacko Hatsune Miku thing...I want to be able to control it's voicing with everything afterward. In my case, it's just the Synthesizer pedal (BOSS SY-1 in this case). However, I find the way I use it, it's better to find a way to sync that up via some kind of FX loop type setup and the amplifier itself (depending on the amp).
Next up are your filter/EQ effects - so that the tone shaping into the amp can occur, or boosts for solos are put in here, as well as anything else that might help the signal along. Wah Wah goes here.
After that, Modulation - Chorus, Flangers, Phasers. Usually I put the Chorus last because I like the phaser and Flanger to be covered in a nice chorus for some "movement" to the sound. Some people use
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