Top 5 Pedals for Guitarists and How To Set Up Your Board

Once you start to get the ball rolling with your guitar playing, the hunger starts to kick in for more unique sounds. You may have learnt a few chords and licks, or mastered the classic clean verse to overdriven chorus song structure using your amps in-built distortion, but you want more than that! You want to test the boundaries.

When it comes to guitar effects, the possibilities are endless and you have the ability to experiment with a variety of pedals. If you’re new to buying pedals it can be a little overwhelming, to say the least, so we thought we would put together a guide for you, helping you to choose the best guitar pedal.

1. Boost Pedal

The Boost Pedal is the simplest effect pedal out of the family, it simply boosts the signal of your guitar. With an increased volume level you will drive the input part of your amp harder and provide more gain.  A boost pedal means that you don’t need to use distortion to get a volume kick, the pedal pushes your amp without the grit that a distortion pedal would add.

2. Overdrive Pedal

An overdrive pedal can produce subtle warm tones with slight overdrive when using an overdrive pedal. With this pedal, you retain a lot of the original sound of your guitar and amp. Mainly used with valve/tube amps to push tubes to their limit and allow them to bring out natural distortion. Overdrives boost frequencies and diminish the bass and treble.

3. Reverb Pedal

This pedal is one you may not necessarily need, as there are chances that your amp already has one installed. What a reverb pedal does is it gives you an echo effect, like it is reverberating off the walls. Reverb can be a subtle effect, especially when playing in smaller rooms, but when you are playing in larger rooms/venues you don’t need to use much of it as the room produces the effect itself!

4. Distortion Pedal

The clue to this one is in the name, it takes the signal from your guitar and distorts it, adding extra volume, crunch and sustain – making it almost completely different to the natural sound. Distortion is often used in the chorus of many of your favourite songs. You may not notice it, but an experienced guitarist will be able to hear the difference! A distortion pedal also changes the sound of your guitar and responds differently depending on which guitar you use.

5. Delay Pedal

This is a great pedal for those musicians who are performing live or recording their own music. A delay pedal takes the original signal/guitar chord and plays it back exactly how the pedal heard it, you can have this playing back just once or multiple times. On the market there are also Analogue Delay Pedals, the major difference between the two is that digital delay pedals will offer longer delays and a ‘cleaner’ exact sound, however, guitarists often prefer the analogue sound for a slight unpredictability in sound.  With delay pedals, the best one is down to your personal preference!

Stay tuned for next time where we will be providing some advice on how to set your pedal board up!