Effects Pedals

They say write about things you know love, or things you know about, so here’s one about effects pedals.

I have a bit of a reputation for being a ‘collector’ of effects pedals, and not without reason. My website (which is up-to-date as I write this) lists 30 of which I normally gig with 16 – two of which are loopers. That’s a lot by most people’s standards I suppose though I’m sure there are plenty of people with more. They are heavy, and expensive, and I need to keep checking the cables (power and signal) to make sure they are working properly and sounding right, and that the control knobs haven’t mysteriously changed position in transit or while the cats were asleep on them – this does happen.

Sometimes I look enviously at the multi-effects units that people make and wonder if one of those might be easier. All the presets digitally stored so they never get lost or accidentally changed. Hundreds of different effects all on one easily portable box. It sounds ideal really.

No, not really. I’d never swap my motley collection for one of those, not really.

Those pedals are the instruments of my orchestra. They all have their own characteristic sounds that I know and (mostly) love. I know, for instance, that when I press the footswitch on the MXR delay pedal that it will give me a different sound than the RE-20 delay, and I know what that difference is and why I should use it in any particular context. The 16 pedals on those boards are the ones that I have chosen out of the larger collection I have to suit the sounds I want for most purposes. I know the sounds they produce, intimately, they are textures I know and can trust. I know the sounds they make in combination and I know in what order they should go to produce the sounds I want. I also know, when a sound isn’t quite right, what knob on which pedal has been moved and where it needs to go back to to restore normality and how far I can twist it to get one-off effects for special colour.

I also like the array of lights that blink and display the state of the sounds as I play, and the dance I do while playing is almost as much a part of the performance as the notes. I often do ‘footpedal practice’ to make sure that my feet are as trained as my fingers to get the music coming out right. In fact I was surprised, when recruiting another violinist to play a piece with pedals that she couldn’t really cope with it at all. I suppose I was like that once.

I’m sure the multi-FX units are useful for certain types of people but I’ve decided that I like the ones I have – to change to one of those would be like sacking a factory of crasftspeople and replacing them with a robot. Maybe more efficient but with the loss of the soul and individuality that the people bring. Buying all my sounds from one manufacturer can make the sound homogeneous. Even though these multi-FX units emulate all sorts of different pedals from different companies, they never quite capture the essence of the real thing. Yes, I know the RE-20 is a digital emulation of a tape-echo, but it works extraordinarily well, and is made by the same company that made the original.

And, to be honest, I do like the looks of amazment, awe, suprise or incredulity as I spread my pedals out on stage, covering a large proportion of it in the process, and the “she’s got more pedals than <xxx>” jokes that often follow 🙂

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