March 2015

Wah-wah pedals filter the frequencies of the incoming guitar signal to give it a distictive, human-like sound when rocked back and forth.

Wah-wah pedals are used by many famous guitarists in their riffs and solos. Some guitarists use wah-wah pedals in one position to create a filtered tone, while others play them the conventional way of rocking the toe of the pedal up and down. This creates a sound similar to a person saying “wah” hence the name.

Auto Wah effects mimic wah-wah pedals, but do not have the foot rocker found on normal wah-wah pedals. The incoming guitar signal triggers the effect to create wah type sounds automatically.

There are many different delay and echo effect processors and stomp boxes. Each offer different functions to make use of delay such as looping.

Delay effects use digital or analog circuitry. Digital delay effects have a wider spectrum to work with than analog delays, but some guitarists prefer the analog delay’s warmer tone.

Reverb (short for reverberation) is an effect that alters the guitars sound to recreate the subtle echoes of a room or other environment.

Reverb is commonly included in guitar amplifiers using spring reverb tanks in the amp. The size of reverb tanks allow them to be placed inside the cabinet of combo amps and in the head amplifiers. Solid state amps sometimes feature digital effects and reverb.

Spring Reverb units are usually a metal enclosure containing a spring or springs stretched to each side connected to a transducer on one end and a pick up (similar to those used in plate reverb) on the other end. The sound of the guitar’s signal causes the springs to vibrate creating the reverb effect.

Stand Alone Reverb Units usually have longer springs and often look similar to a guitar amp head in appearance

Analog Reverb effects are produced by several different manufacturers. Since these pedals use analog circuitry, they aren’t as sonically flexible as Digital Reverb effects. Both come as pedals or stomp boxes, and in rack mountable units. Digital reverb units processes the guitar signal to create spring reverb type effects as well as more extreme reverberation effects for more ambient sounds, but often lack the warmer tone analog effects produce.

Tremolo is an effect created by the consistent alteration of the amplitude or volume of the guitar’s sound signal.

Tremolo is similar to turning the volume knob on your guitar up and down slightly or dramatically while sustaining a note or chord.

Vibrato is similar to tremolo, but alters the signal’s pitch up and down at a set speed.

Distortion and overdrive effects mimic the tone and sound of a cranked tube amp. This is done by boosting the guitar’s signal causing the sound to “clip”. This clipping is what creates the overdrive or distortion sound.

Overdrive effects produce a more subtle tube amp tone, saturated with less “bite” than distortion.

Distortion effects use higher gain and produce heavier, crunchier tones.

Open chords are guitar chords that use at least one open string on the guitar, meaning one or more strings are played without being fretted.

The open position, refers to the first few frets where Open Chords are able to be played. The guitar chord diagrams below are basic major and minor open chord forms. The strings that are played open are shown with a “O” at the top of the guitar chord diagram. An “X” in the chord diagram shows which strings are not played or muted.

Major Open Chords

Major Open chords for guitar in standard tuning. Major Chords are identified by their root note as shown below.

Click the button next to the diagram to play a sound clip of the chord.

Minor Open Chords

Minor Open chords for guitar in standard tuning. Minor Chords are often identified with their root note next to a lower case “m”.

Chorus refers to the sound of multiple sources creating the same, or very similar sound at the same or similar time. An example of this is a choir singing; multiple voices in different pitches.

Chorus effects are produced by slightly delaying a sound signal and also altering its pitch while mixing it with the original sound signal. This creates a sound similar to two more more guitars playing together.