by Fish Paste

Created on: June 22, 2008

When most people think of effects pedals they conjure up pictures of enhancing sound and making their guitar and amp sound crisp and right'.

When I think of fx I hear destructed, layered sounds in my head, a complete mess of octavers, wha wha's, fuzz, harmonic distortion and delay all churning out of the amp in an alien sounding mess. I see a pedal chain 4 miles long plugged into a wall of stack amps all cranked so loud that the volume knobs are broken, complete with complex systems of channel splitters and loop selectors.

When I think of pedals I think of Adrian Lopez of The Mars Volta, John Fusciante of The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Tom Morello from Rage Against The Machine and Adam Jones from Tool.
Mostly I think of Adrian Lopez. The things I have heard coming out of his amp... He is one of the most gifted guitar players around, no doubt about that, excellent technique and comping with a very well trained creative spirit, but that is not what I like about his playing. He can completely destroy the sound and lock it into a loop and then modulate it with his feet while adding to it as he keeps playing. Just when you think your speakers are going to burst from the heavily saturated sounds everything stops and the song fades into a mellow introspective part.

The atmosphere and soundscapes that the Volta creates through effects are amazing. They have effects on everything. The keyboard, the vocals, the bass and the guitar. The only thing that is clean is the drums.

For those purists who believe that less is more, listening to the Volta must be an exercise in extreme tolerance. But it is not, it gives people a new way to look at the guitar. Every pedal you add to your chain is another extension of your playing. It widens your musical horizon and in combination with your other effects can produce new and alien sounds that are not supposed to be made by a guitar.

The other side of the coin is players like Tom Morello and Adam Jones. Most of the weird sounds you here from these players are done with minimal effects. Tom Merello even catches a Korean radio station on his guitar amp at the end of Guerrilla Radio. You can only do that through understanding or luck or both, effects won't help you there.

On the new Tool album in the song called Jambi, the solo sounds like it is played with a violin bow. What he actually uses is a lady's electric razor. This is just pure innovation.

Just as a point of interest, people used to put their amps really loud to distort them. This was the humble beginnings of the distortion pedal as we know it today. The phaser was discovered by accident due to a malfunctioning amp that was out of phase. Most of the pedals were conceived from accidents. This led to whole market of sound destruction machines.

Effects are cool; they allow you to do things that would not be possible otherwise. You can make a lot of cool sounds without any effects. A big chain will sound messy, but with the right attitude you can use this to your advantage.

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