Stomp Racks: The Brain

Rainbow your pedals for fancier tone.

The idea i had when I was 15 of owning every Boss pedal to create the ultimate rig is stupid on more levels than we have time to list.  Besides having ab-normal stepping accuracy I would also have to be able to do it near instantly.  Going from verse to a bridge i might have to step a dozen times.
Welcome to the future!  We’re here right now.  Sort of.

Now there are systems that you can throw in stompboxes, midi modules, rack units and powerbooks in it and out the other side spits out your take on well controlled tone and puts it all on the floor.  It’s kind of great.
It also seems like a pros have gone to this set up from the opposite ends of gear philosophy.

A tight "Floor Rack" from Mike Vegas of Nice Racks NYC

You’ve got the guys with the monster racks that they have to pay to transport and only their tech knows how to run, wanting to get it all on the floor.  Then there are the guys that kept adding stomboxes to their board and have been dealing with “tap-dancing” between parts and learning to live with noise issues.  

Stomp-Racks

The “brain” of these set ups are in the midi foot-controller itself.  The brain sends commands to either the units themselves or to loops that engage the stompbox itself.  The foot-controller holds presets that can simultaneously several effects at once.  It’s similar to using presets in a multi-fx processor except you’re using any gear you want.


The RJM mastermind is a great little board.  It’s very straight forward to set up and a good deal.  
There are several companies that make units like this now.

The Softstep's sensor switches can change parameters six different ways.

If you want an absurd level of control the Keith McMillen Instruments Softstep will keep you real busy.  We’ll talk more about that another time.

Let’s just say that you had 2 combo amps, 4 stompboxes and midi-module pedal like the Eventide Timefactor.
You stomp on the RJM Mastermind and:
a signal is sent to the Effects Gizmo, RJM pedal looper device, to switch on your distortion and flanger pedals,

RJM Amp Gizmo

Eventide Timefactor

RJM Mastermind

A signal is sent to the Amp Gizmo, yep, these are the real names, to switch from the Blues Deluxe to the mesa or switch channels on the amps themselves. Finally a signal is sent to the Timefactor to change to a short slap-back delay.  If you decide later that you want to a huge, psychedelic delay, just hit the switch on the Timefactor itself.

This one is real nice

It’s huge freedom to decide what you want to play through and the level of control that you dig.  Another way I look at it is that it’s a work in progress.  It’s a real workbench that you can keep adding, subtracting and rerouting to always make it work for you no matter what new, “game-changing” effect comes out next month.

Players will always argue digital vs analog as far as sound goes but when it comes to control you can’t deny.  Digi rules.

-Jay Bois

Stomp Racks: Effects Modules

My idea of the ultimate rig @ 15

I remember, in high school, staring at that Boss pedal display at the guitar center thinking, "If I slowly save up for each one,
my rig will be unstoppable!"  I also figured that after buying each
pedal, Guitar Center would probably just give me the multi-tiered
display itself.  Yep, I was pretty much a huge dork.

All hail, Lord of the Dance!

I managed to get my hands on some pedals and they were great but soon
I grew both bored and frustrated.  I wanted more options.  I wanted to be able to switch smoothly between sounds without having to Riverdance on 5 switches.  Not to mention, all those  pedals seemed to weaken my overall tone even when they weren't on.  I eventually switched to a multi-effects pedal board.  Boom!  Now I
had effects that I never had before.  A tuner, less tone suck, and the the ability to change multiple effects with one-button by using presets.  Was I satisfied?  For a bit I guess.  It was very convenient for recalling parts of songs in bands, but seemed restrictive when it came to spontaneously creating new sounds.  Sure I could create a preset with the perfect fuzz, flanger, and delay but what if I wanted to change from a flanger to a chorus?  I would have to create a whole new patch.  Scrolling through menus while trying to be creative is a great way to kill whatever "vibe" you might have found.  Sure, I could make a few changes within a given patch but then it got to be huge memory game of which function button in which patch changed which effect which way.  In other words, I was lacking real control over what you would call "global changes".

I then resigned myself to the fact that I would have to construct a "rack".  I knew it would take me a long time to save up for each component.  Living in NYC with a lousy back, makes transporting gear a
nightmare with subways and buses. I already started to have anxiety about carrying both the rack and the footpedals around, but I was willing to do it to have the level of control that I wanted.  Besides the size and price, a rack-based system would give me all of the flexibility I wanted but it just

Mike Vegas of Nice Rack NYC built this amazing board

seemed like a bit much.


Enter the midi floor rig. 
It seems like a lot of players getting to a
similar place from two directions.  Getting their rack on the floor or adding midi control to their stompboxes.  Either way the benefits are clear.


Eventide Factor pedals are a good example of these new specialty
multi-effects pedals.  Each of the 4 pedals control an
effect type.
The Time Factor is a dual delay unit.  The Mod Factor has a boatloadof modulation and filter effects effects.  The Pitch Factor features the Eventide pitch shifting that I grew up hearing only world famous players have.   Finally the Space pedal produces classic reverbs and massive

Eventide Pitch Factor

atmospheric and ambient effects.Each pedal can be used as a section of your effects chain.  Much like a modular synthesizer has sections consisting of oscillators, modulations, voltage-controlled amps and filters, guitarist  signal chain can be looked at the same way. Each of these Factor pedals can hold midi presets that can be changed
with the units footswitches or a midi controller.  With certain midi
floor controllers you cansimultaneously send midi signals to each of

Eventide Time Factor

the units with one switch.  No more Ben Vereen when changing tones.
You can then change the settings on each of the Factors foot switches
to give you what you want at that moment.
The effects on the factor pedals are often a blend of effects typessometimes covering the ground of two or three simple effect types. There are pitch mods with delays, reverbs with filters, and delays with
modulations.  It's clear Eventide cares more about dynamic, modern effects than aping classic tones.  That's probably why I dig them.

A few other companies are making pedals that work in a similar way.

Strymon Timelin

Strymon has just released the Timeline Delay  which is

Nova Drive

similar to the Time Factor and are set to release a competitor to the Mod Factor in 2012.  TC Electronics has the Nova Drive which is an all-analog

Line 6 M13 and M9

dual-clip pedal that uses midi presets, and Line 6 has the
M5, M9 and M13 pedals with midi control over 100 different effects.
Extremely useful and agreat way to experiment with a huge number of new effects before you shell out for specialty units.

Next time we'll talk about how to reign all of that in with midi.

-Jay Bois

Playing Guitar with the iPad

So, we can now plug a Les Paul into a magazine-sized touch-screen computer and play through mountains of virtual gear.  Where does one begin?
-In order to play your guitar through the ipad there are two main decisions that you will have to make:  Which interface and which app.

Don't be this guy

Interfaces
There are two basic kinds of guitar interfaces for ipad.  
Headphone Jack Interfaces:
These units are by far the cheapest and are very simple to use.  Because they are line-in through the headphone jack they suffer from line noise so not ideal for amplification but you can get by at lower volumes.
-Griffin’s Guitar Connect is the cheapest at only $20.  It does not come with any apps but you can download the basic version of iShred for free.

Griffin Guitar Connect

-IK Multimedia, makers of Amplitube, offer the iRig for $40.  It includes a basic version of Amplitube for iPad.

iRig and Amplitube

-Peavey’s Ampkit Link is $30 and includes a basic version of the Ampkit app.
Of all these units, only the Ampkit Link is battery powered.  This gives it a huge advantage in sound quality.  Also, the Ampkit Link plays very well with other apps whereas the iRig has been shown not to.

Peavey Ampkit Link

Dock Connected interfaces
These units use Apple’s 30-pin dock connecting resulting in far better sound quality and very low latency.  

The Apogee Jam offers much bang for the buck.  It not only works with ios but also Mac osx.  In simplest terms it’s an ¼ inch to USB converter.  This means that it can accept an array of audio sources from guitar to bass to voice.  There is also a gain control to balance output signals from different pick ups.  A great deal at $99.

Apogee Jam

The Alsesis IO Dock is everything Apple left out to make the ipad a musical instrument.  It features an assortment of quality audio ins and outs, video out and even a foot switch jack for controlling apps.  All of this is packaged in a portable control surface.  Considering all this thing does, it’s a steal at $200.


Apps
It feels like every month a new rig modeling app is released.  Most of these work in the same manner.  You select amp and effect models with a very friendly, familiar interface.  
Basic apps may come free but expect to pay for in-app purchases to upgrade to additional gear(that’s how they get ya).

-IK Multimedia’s Amplitube has gained a great name for itself as a great assortment of guitar tone tools and their ipad app is no different.  The basic version comes with the iRig and a loaded version is $20.  There is also a Fender edition for $14 featuring gear models from the legendary company.
-Peavey’s Ampkit basic version comes with the Ampkit Link and Ampkit+ is also available from iTunes for $20.

Peavey Ampkit

-iShred only comes in a free base version but there are many in-app purchase options available.

Garageband for iPad is really hard to beat.  It’s a very usable version of the popular Mac program and has flexibility and options that the previous apps can’t touch.  You’ll still find the familiar amp and effect interface similar to the other apps but that’s just where it begins.  It’s a multi track studio.  It has a wide array of midi instruments that can be played with on screen keyboard or an external midi controller.  This is the only app mentioned here that does not feel like a novelty.  All for only 5 smackers!  What more do you want?

Garageband

The Bottom LIne
If you want a very low budget, portable practice rig with good sound get the Peavey Ampkit Link and use the free software. Also, download the free basic version of iShred for some extra kicks.
Total Cost-$30

If you want quality sound and great portability in an ipad guitar set up then the Apogee Jam is for you.  Couple this with the Garageband for ipad and you have a usable ipad studio for $105.

Is the ipad becoming a significant part of your live or studio setup?  The Alesis IO Dock is THE way to go for musicians who play multiple instruments, use multiple apps and who want to make serious music with the iPad.  Again, use this with the amazing Garageband for ipad and you have a sleek, portable studio for $205

Alesis IO Dock

Also..
Do you dig synths?  Check out the Sonnus i2M.  This device is a $99 way to play all of the software instruments for the ipad and mac in a tiny package.  Mind you, it’s only monophonic.  But, many of the great analog synths are as well.  Now you can impersonate Jan Hammer with your strat on the cheap!  To confuse you even more, the i2M also runs audio allowing you to use it the same way as the Apogee but at a lower quality.

Sonuus i2M

Effected: Delay

Regenerate Yourself
Delay is one of the most powerful and versatile effects you can have on your board.  Many players are obsessed with it having several delay pedals or complex rack units to summon it’s many textures.  Players rely on delay to thicken up their tone, to create pulsating rhythms or to send a a listener spiraling into fractal complexity.  A modern delay pedal is a Swiss Army knife of tonal possibilities.





Delay Basics
Mix,Time, Repeat 
The easiest way to understand basic delay is the classic example of a natural echo.  When you yell “Hello” into a large empty hallway or auditorium you will often here one or more “hello”s repeating back decreasing in volume.  This is roughly the same principle as delay.
When looking at a delay pedal we can assign the number of “hello”s to the Feedback, Regeneration or Repeats knob.  The length of time between “hello”s is equivalent to what the Time or Rate knob.
Nearly all delay pedals have a Mix or Level knob.  This adjusts the amount of the effected signal that is balanced with the original guitar signal.  In other words, the volume of the repeats.  
Many of today’s modern delay units have an array of additional controls but these three are the most fundamental.
Tap Tempo
Tap Tempo to delay was like DVR/Tivo to Television.  “Wow, you I can actually control this thing now?”  By tapping a button a player can sync up time with other instruments and then select a note division to control the rate.  Finally reliable, predictable delay times!  That is not to say that there’s not some Mojo in taking your chances with a vintage Echoplex, but good luck trying to lock tight repeats with the drummer off the cuff.

Echo through the ages

Vintage Echoplex

In the 50’s and 60’s delay effects were achieved by many analog means.  One early DIY method was to place a mic directly in front of a speaker and one or more mics at various distances and directions in a large hall or room.  The mics would be reached indifferent times with a different emphasis of frequencies and when mixed would create a dynamic echo effect. 

Binson Echorec

Roland Space Echo

Drum n’ Tape
The first delay devices used magnetic tape that recorded a section of music and then played back at the desired time.  The Echoplex came in a huge case and had knobs to control delay volume and repeats and a slider that manually moved the repeat play-head back and forth to select delay time.  The feedback could be cranked so that the unit would self oscillate and then be “played” on it's own.
The Roland space echo used multi-playback heads to achieve what we now call multi-tap delay.  The Space Echo was a very radical design.  Instead of a nice neat reel of tape, Roland used a large loop of tape that would loosely fit amongst various play heads.  Tape arms would move the heads and tape in various directions for powerful, yet unpredictable, sounds.  This unit could also self oscillate and,  given it’s many controls, create a wide range of sounds on it’s own.
A favorite of Dave Gilmour was the Binson Echorec.  It used a spinning magnetic drum with several playback heads and an erase head surrounding it.  This multi-head delay unit was produced in several versions.  Some of these unit's heads could be selected to either play or feedback!  There were also stereo units that had two separate drums with multiple, multi-function heads on each!  Insanity!

Bucket Brigade
By the beginning of the 70’s solid state technology started making all electronics small, more efficient and affordable as was the case for delay pedals.  These devices had shorter delay times but were capable of a voice all there own.  The Electro-Harmonics Deluxe Memory Man is the most classic of the genre and is still very popular today.  The Memory Man uses the classic bucket brigade circuit however the other key to this delays unique voice was it’s modulation section which added a chorus/vibrato effects to the repeats only.


Digital vs. Analog
In the 80’s digital delay started gaining popularity for it’s reliability and programmability.  These delays featured “perfect”, mirror-Image repeats with crisp clarity.  Of course, many fickle guitarists preferred the warm, degraded delays of the analog models.  I feel that both are capable of things the other is not.  Why limit yourself? Today digital recreations of analog delays continue to get more convincing but, of course,  some players still swear by the originals.  Reproductions of tape delays are still made today by boutique companies but they don’t come cheap.  But if you need to have it...
Electro-Harmonics just released the Deluxe Memory Man with Tap Tempo providing analog warmth with the precision of timed delay.  This hybrid concept of digital control over analog components is something that is rapidly growing in gear market.  I think that this is a step in the right direction. Everybody wins.

Deluxe Memory Man with Tap Tempo

Delay Effects
I would classify delay effects into three main families:  Thickening, Rhythmic and Sound-scapes.
There are endless ways to use delay but I feel that they all fit into one of these three categories:

Thickening delays:

Fattening Delay
To simply make your sound bigger.  Great for solo’s.  It covers a lot of slips yet still has definition.
-300 to 700 ms
-3 or 4 repeats and a mix level of about 25%.
-Mix 20-30%

Slapback Delay
A classic echo effect often used in 50’s music and country.  A great supportive tone.
-40-250 ms
-0 to 1 repeat
-25-40 mix

A digital model of the Roland Space Echo

Rythmic Delays:
Delay is a great tool to create complex rhythms.  
The Edge
The Edge’s delays are very complex but here is a simple approximation of his trademark rhythmic delay
-Tap Tempo to dotted 8th notes
-3 or 4 repeats
-50-70% mix

Dave Gilmour

Robert Fripp

Sounds-capes:
The complexities of soundscapes are best left to experimentation rather than a tutorial.  Listen to Robert Fripp and Dave Gilmour to see what can be expressed with the more extreme uses of this kaleidoscopic family of effects.  Characteristic setting often include:
-Long delay times of 1 second or longer.
-Numerous repeats.
-Full feedback to self-oscillate.
-Modulated repeats.
-Multi-tap patterns
-Reverse delay (when the repeats are played back in reverse next to the dry signal)
-Ping Pong (different delay settings panned right and left.)

Delay is an amazing tool but just like any other effect, you need to tinker with it in order to make it work for you.  I recommend you holing yourself up in a room, turn down the lights, calm your mind and start twisting knobs.

-Jay Bois

Effected: Modulation

Whether it’s the watery, chiming open chords that start off The Dark Side of the Moon, that fat space ship landing tone of Unchained or those slick and powerful clean tones of Andy Summers on Police albums, Modulations are some of the most colorful effects in a modern guitarists arsenal.

Get to know LFOs

Although modulation effects are one of the most varied family of effects, they are all rooted in one thing.  They all use an LFO.  A Low Frequency Oscillator.  This is something that a synthesiser player is more readily familiar with than a guitarist but should be of interest to all players looking to get their tone to where they want it.
The sine wave an LFO emits is barely audible.  It’s use in many of these effects is to create a pulsing rhythm to effect a parameter like volume or pitch rather than produce it’s own sound..

Vibrato
Simply put, Vibrato is a rhythmic variation in pitch.  When you shake your guitar string you are really creating a rhythmic pulse of pitch change.  In an electronic effect, this is achieved by the LFOrhythmically making slight pitch changes to the guitar signal.

Vintage Uni-vibe vibrato

Tremolo
Tremolo takes the original signal and has the LFO create a rhythmic volume change.  These changes can be smooth like the wobbly chords in Money to far more aggressive, choppy tones.

EH Pulsar Stereo Tremolo

Flanging
The term Flanging came about due to the way this effect was first created in the studio.  The sound engineer would apply pressure to the flange or edge of a tape reel causing a slight delay.
In modern effect processor this is done by first splitting the signal into two.  One of the twin signals uses the LFO wave to rhythmically change delay times.  This is then added to the original signal.  During the delay changes, the signal go in and out of phase creating a wide range of harmonic effects.  
Depth controls adjust the mix of the two signals and rate adjusts the speed of the delay. 

Boss Flanger

Eddie Van Halen signature Phase 90

Phasing
Also called Phase Shifting, split the signal in two like flanging.  One signal is sent into an all pass filter, which inverts the phase of certain frequencies,  then through the LFO which rhythmically effects which frequencies are effected.  Then the whole mess is run parallel with the original signal.  Once again, how the two signals relate one another is the essence of the effect.
Depth is an adjustment of how far the frequencies get swept.  Speed controls the rate of the notches being swept. 

Chorus
Chorus is a very popular effect and for good reason.  It’s a tone thickener.  It mimics what truely happens when two sounds play at the same time.  It’s capable of really supporting your sound or create ambiant, dreamlike tones.  It’s the slight pitch modulations between the voices is what we hear as the chorus effect.  It is created similarly to Flanging but with a longer delay time and modulated pitch.  It starts with, again,  splitting the signal into 2 or more clones, treating all clones but one signal with an LFO rythmically changing pitch slightly, then change applying a delay of 2-30ms before mixing with the dry original tone.

MXR Chorus

Ring Modulation
Ring modulation is by far one of the strangest kinds of effects.  Famously used in space and horror soundtracks as well as all over early black sabbath albums, this effect has spent a long time on the fringe of popularity.  It uses an oscillator with an audible tone.  The oscillator gets multiplied with the guitar signal creating a third, unified  signal with a very complex harmonic structure.

EH Ring Thing is one of the most useful Ring Modulators

If you currently don’t own any modulation effects I highly recommend getting a multi-effects unit like the M9 by Line6.  It’s best to experiment and get to know these effects before you go out and drop some dough on an effect that isn't you. 

Line6 M9.  A one-stop effect shop.