The Wampler Belle Overdrive is a medium to low gain circuit based on the classic Nobles ODR-1, which had historically been a session player’s trade secret until YouTube made the pedal famous, driving prices sky high on the used market. Clones began popping up as well as Nobles themselves rebuilding the brand with a series […]
Going down the pedal rabbit hole can be a little overwhelming given the pedal choices out there, but the journey has always been a rewarding one when you find those jewels in the rough. This was the case with the Barber Electronics Small Fry Burn Unit. Being a previous owner of their Tone Press parallel […]
The Vemuram Jan Ray is a fully hand-built overdrive pedal with all the characteristics of a blackface-style amp’s full harmonic and dynamic range in a robust and aesthetically pleasing brass housing. It features simple and intuitive controls designed to emulate the “Fender Magic 6” settings of a pushed amp. Overall, the Jan Ray features impressive […]
Electric guitarists constantly dream of building their ideal pedalboard. For most players, number one on that list is a solid overdrive. Seeing the price of legendary tone machines like Klon Centaur or the Analogman King of Tone, however, is enough to pull working guitarists right back down to earth. But excellent tone isn’t only for […]
So you finally have a boatload of effects pedals to play around with and a beautiful pedalboard to mount them on… Now comes the difficult part — figuring out what order to put your pedals in. After hundreds of gigs and studio sessions over the years, not to mention many hours of arduous experimentation, I […]
One of the ultimate pleasures of being a guitarist is setting up your pedalboard. Whether you’re new to the guitar realm or a veteran shredder, curating a solid set of stompboxes can pave the way for tons of creativity.
Many times in guitar shops, especially when talking about distortion or overdrive effects, we hear the terms “hard clipping” and “soft clipping” used to describe the different sound effects that are created by pedals. It can be confusing if you don’t understand these terms or how they affect your sound.
If you are a guitar player looking to create your own unique sound, one of the best ways to do this is to build your own equipment from scratch. A good portion of “Guitar Electronics” is just very simple circuits that can be built and modified at home.
Dynamics and gain are the most basic of guitar effects. They deal with Volume, and they’re designed to help control how loud or soft your signal is. The Volume control built into your guitar might not seem like it, but it fits into this category. What might seem like even less of a fit in […]
Overdrive Overdrive is usually a naturally occurring clipping of the signal. It’s often created by turning the volume up too loud on the gain stage of the amp, or by using a gain-boosting pedal that makes the signal too hot going into the amp or another pedal. Often, this will drive the later stages of […]
Let’s talk about the difference between germanium and silicon transistors and what it means to guitar players and audio in general, especially fuzz. The Fuzz Effect Fuzz is a type of distortion that guitar players use. It is most often found in an effect pedal and it creates a buzzy tone that’s associated with an […]
In discussing the differences between overdrive and distortion, what creates them, and how they’re used, we’ll begin with the relationship between a device’s maximum signal level and its threshold. Every device in your guitar rig, or your home recording studio, has been designed to accept a maximum signal level. The maximum signal level that a […]