A Brief History of Effects Pedals, Part 1

RE: A Brief History of Effects Pedals, Part 1

D_Hersey — Sat, 06 Feb 2016 05:16:26 GMT

Santana and McLaughlin, IIRC were early adopters of MESA Boogie amps, which had a relatively controllable overdrive. Jimi and The Beatles had military RADAR engineers assigned to them. Tourism was one of the few things the Brits had to sell after the war.

The Fabs had separate eq for their echo. They were early adopters of this and also bucket-brigade delay lines.

RE: A Brief History of Effects Pedals, Part 1

Former Member — Sat, 06 Feb 2016 02:37:18 GMT

Interesting article with important mistakes. The piece about Dave Davies' insertion of one amp between his guitar and another amp isn't illustrated by the illustration. The illustration ties together the INPUT of one amp to the other, Davies was supposed to have wired the OUTPUT of the first amp to the second--which would have overdriven that input as reported. For an article that uses this point so prominently, I am surprised the photo is incorrect. In fact, the term "Daisy Chain" may be the wrong one. Simply tying the inputs of two amplifiers together--the photo is from Telecaster forum, indicating how to play through two amps at once, a very common practice--is not novel.

Also, the photo of the vintage amp that "used electrolytic capacitors and glass rectifier tubes, and solved the volume issue for many musicians." is a fine example of an amp from that era, but the electrolytic cap is a new one. The familiar "can electrolytic" should be shown in the photo if a period-correct illustration is called for.

RE: A Brief History of Effects Pedals, Part 1

SmilinVamp — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 22:52:32 GMT

Very cool article! Have a look at the UniVibe.... I'd love to read about it. I tried making one once but could not find the "authentic" varistors... (Univibe was used by Jimi a lot)

The Wiki on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uni-Vibe

RE: A Brief History of Effects Pedals, Part 1

Former Member — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 22:25:44 GMT

Yes, keep this history about guitar effects going. It was pretty cool when a few years back I met an elderly English gentleman living in Canada who played bass and keyboards in skiffle bands as far back as the early 60's in the U.K. He was asked by some studio chums if he would like to play bass to help out this American chap who was in London and was trying to get some musicians to back him. He said he was fine thank you, but maybe they should give Noel a call. There goes history.

For my personal interest in this subject, I used to build effects from magazine articlees (Popular Electronics, Radio Electronics) with mixed results and I built a Heathkit guitar amp kit with a spring reverb box and a tremolo circuit using a LDR (Light Dependent Resistor) driven by an oscillator that modulated the light source of the LDR. Fun times.

RE: A Brief History of Effects Pedals, Part 1

jonivanart — Wed, 03 Feb 2016 00:38:10 GMT

Great article! maybe we should let the winner hook my guitar up to it??

[View:/resized-image/__size/620x827/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-f1be8ff9-4762-4a57-a66a-358f3c308468/4011.contentimage_5F00_180270.jpg:620:827]

:-)

It does sound like a great challenge. Too bad I don't have enough knowledge on DSP's or the time to put into it.

RE: A Brief History of Effects Pedals, Part 1

D_Hersey — Fri, 29 Jan 2016 03:49:45 GMT

another classic method was to slit the speaker with a razor blade

RE: A Brief History of Effects Pedals, Part 1

ravi_butani — Sun, 13 Dec 2015 10:49:34 GMT

Excellent Article

RE: A Brief History of Effects Pedals, Part 1

Anonymous-237891 — Thu, 10 Dec 2015 14:20:59 GMT

Great article thank you !!

RE: A Brief History of Effects Pedals, Part 1

scitechindian — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 17:10:32 GMT

awesome ! post very informative

RE: A Brief History of Effects Pedals, Part 1

D_Hersey — Tue, 24 Nov 2015 15:51:46 GMT

Let me ask another question: I am just starting out in guitar, music in general, I want stomp boxes, but I want them to be DSP-based. How would I set that up?

RE: A Brief History of Effects Pedals, Part 1

D_Hersey — Tue, 24 Nov 2015 14:36:33 GMT

Wasn't the etiology of the electric guitar as an effect for cowboy music?

RE: A Brief History of Effects Pedals, Part 1

Jan Cumps — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 20:00:20 GMT

Here's my brief history [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-f1be8ff9-4762-4a57-a66a-358f3c308468/2146.contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16]

[View:/resized-image/__size/620x320/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-f1be8ff9-4762-4a57-a66a-358f3c308468/3716.contentimage_5F00_180268.jpg:620:320]

RE: A Brief History of Effects Pedals, Part 1

DAB — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 19:52:00 GMT

Yes it is fascinating to see how small changes in technology had such a big impact on music.

I have greatly enjoyed the last sixty years as music has progress, regressed and continually changes.

DAB

RE: A Brief History of Effects Pedals, Part 1

D_Hersey — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 19:07:08 GMT

Talk some about spring reverbs, please.

RE: A Brief History of Effects Pedals, Part 1

balearicdynamics — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 18:13:29 GMT

Great article !