I remember when I was younger and I had just bought my first delay pedal. The Boss DD7 digital delay, I was so excited to use it and the moment I got back home from the guitar shop I unboxed my pedal and I was completely flabbergasted when I noticed that the pedal had TWO input jacks and TWO output jacks! I quickly learned that the input marked "Input A (mono)" and the output marked "Output A (mono)" were the ones that I needed to use in order to make the pedal function the way that I expected it to, but I was eager to bring the pedal in to my next guitar lesson to ask my teacher what the...
These days there is no shortage of armchair experts who use the word "compression" in ways that can be confusing if you're unfamiliar with the term. I've often heard people describe modern music in general as over compressed, or I've heard people describe an overdrive pedal or an amplifier as having a nice tube compression. I've even had people advise me that some issue I'm having with my guitar sound can be solved by compression. But what exactly is compression and can a compressor pedal really help that much, or can some of this just be chalked up to placebo effect? In my younger days all of this vague conversation around compression caused me to experiment quite a bit with compressor...
Do high quality patch cables really make a difference? Is there an actual incentive for you to spend more than you might think on a high quality patch cable or is this the kind of purchase where frugality is prudent? These, like many other questions in the online guitar community can be surprisingly divisive. Today I will stick my neck out and provide you with my subjective take on this topic in the hopes that this might reach the eyes of somebody looking for pragmatic advise on cables.In my conversations with other guitarists I have encountered those who believe that spending top dollar on a patch cable really does make a significant positive impact on your tone. Often...
Pedals are problematic. I really love them, but I can't afford them. One thing that I've learned about myself however, is that my inability to afford all of the effects pedals that I come across online or in guitar shops really doesn't do much to deter me from purchasing them. Another thing that I've learned over the years is that the price tag of a pedal, much like many other goods and services on the market does not guarantee its quality. Some of the best pedals I've ever bought were ones I had very low expectations of on account of their affordability, and some of the most expensive pedals I've ever bought sit in my closet waiting for me to...
Sooner or later every guitarist gets trapped knee deep in the gear hole that is effects pedals. I know that when I was in music school my pedal board was bigger than anything I could have ever possibly needed, and even though it may not have been the most prudent of my endeavours, I constantly sought to increase its size and complexity almost as a point of pride. Years of gigging taught me that a complex pedal board is dead weight if some minuscule part should malfunction during a show, but it also taught me something else that some of you out there may not know yet. The order that you connect your pedals has a huge impact on their...
