Five Ways to Challenge Your Playing with Pedals
Michael Whiteside
If writing for a math rock blog while playing in three bands has taught me anything, it’s that the sound of human expression has light years to go before it is fully explored. It’s no exaggeration to say that nearly every day, I’m inspired by songs, riffs, and guitar sounds I could never dream of.
That being said, the inspiration doesn't always translate to the fretboard overnight. Our playing doesn’t automatically improve when we hear a great solo or crazy new technique.
But the landscape on which we base our creativity does change when we hear something new, giving us room to work out issues that may have been hiding in plain sight. When you’re stuck in a rut and stuck at home, here are five ways that effects pedals can help take even your most practiced ideas to the next level.
Fuzz
At first, fuzz might seem like an all-too-easy pairing when it comes to enhancing a musical idea. But this dismissal may be caused by a half century’s worth of golden fried guitar tone buzzing through your memory whenever you so much as hear the word.
Obviously, a little casual fuzz can beef up your single-coils, but the actual sonic destruction you can get out of riffing through a modern monstrosity like EarthQuaker’s Data Corrupter is nothing short of revelatory. This quarantine season, why not fire off some old riffs through the hot and hairy gates of hell and watch them emerge as something else entirely? You just might end up with something new.
If your song is already a hit unplugged, can you imagine what it’ll sound like when it morphs into an arena-sized meat grinder? It’s time to find out. Just warn your pets and neighbors first.
Pro Tip: For a more “musical” mangling, the Hoof Reaper offers an excellent middle ground between modern velcro-ripping ecstasy and sputtering old school charm that really lends itself to pick attack. But it can also be used to kickstart an industrial dance-off if you place a drum sample or synth in front of it!
Pitch
Adding an additional pitch (aka harmony) to your guitar tone can be utterly disorienting at first. Until you start working with intervals about a minor third away from your signal, the effect can make even the most basic ideas sound accidental at best.
But the beast can be tamed. It can take loads of time and willpower to successfully pair the songwriting process with technology, but with careful exploration, pitch pedals can change your song entirely. Try starting with power chords or single notes before tackling any familiar progressions: the results are often the concepts of major, minor and everything in between shapeshifting before one’s very eyes...er, ears.
And if we’re talking stacked fifths here, this can turn a punk song prog in zero time. The Rainbow Machine, arguably one of EarthQuaker’s most mysterious and popular efforts, continues to inspire players and pedal builders alike to rethink the way we look at harmony.
Pro Tip: Like the Rainbow Machine, many desirable pitch pedals include a delay time feature, which can result in a distinct call and response effect. This makes playing with melody far easier for some, and far more difficult for others. Pick your poison!
Delay
It’s safe to say that most people who dip their toes into the world of delay and echo find it immediately useful for practicing scales. Adjust the tempo to twice that (or half) the phrase you’re playing, and you’ll notice every mistake you make - and every improvement, adding value to your practice time.
An often overlooked feature included in some of these pedals is reverse delay. We can argue all day about which ones have the best tone or attack, but it’s a safe bet that the ones on the short list would all share one feature: 100% wetness.
Wetness, of course, refers to the ability to produce the full effect without producing the original signal. So in this case, all you’d be hearing is your phrase reversed through the amp.
You’d be surprised how many new parts you come up with after hearing your original idea backwards, or better yet, playing your original part backwards through the reverse, resulting in a haunting same-but-not-really rendition of your initial idea.
EarthQuaker’s Avalanche Run is a fun place to start, not only because it allows you to combine this concept with equally wet reverb, but you can also achieve robotic ring-mod tones by shortening its delay time in reverse.
Pro Tip: If you like the idea of going full wet but want to stay on the safe side, going 90% wet is always an option. Conversely, if you want to take things a step further and possibly travel time, try going full wet in stereo!
Reverb
Reverb is all about space and dimension. These qualities can be easily overlooked from any musician's comfort zone, because when one establishes their own voice, they tend to use it with an established dynamic range. We also tend to write and practice in the same place, so moving into different acoustic environments doesn’t always translate naturally.
While an ‘always-on’ verb works for a variety of songwriting contexts, the additional obstacle many face is deciding how much space each separate part needs.
When I first picked up an Afterneath, EarthQuaker’s Otherworldly Reverberator, I was told by bandmates in every project that I was either using it too little or too much. But I was in love with the subtle yet highly textured sounds I could get with high drag times. I eventually found it to be a secret weapon when applying it to the very last note of one phrase before starting the next, which should actually work with just about any unit out there.
Pro Tip: The more verb the merrier, but you don’t want to overdo it. Like many larger amplifiers, my Deville came equipped with a spring reverb, so the Afterneath allowed me to move songs between multiple dimensions, and have a hell of a lot of fun figuring out how to do so. However, this level of exact science should be conducted in the bedroom or practice space, so audiences and bandmates might be spared the endless processions of your spatial conjurations. Just store them as loops for your solo project!
Modulation
Alterations like flange or phase are great for enhancing scene changes or builds within a song. However, modulation can also be intimidating because it doesn’t just take up space: it can stretch, pull, and compress space as well. The visceral nature of these effects have impacted entire genres like psychedelic music and EDM.
But if you don’t want to pigeonhole yourself or change the vibe of the song altogether, you don’t have to engage it the whole time. It can still be a fun and attention-grabbing way to refresh a riff that repeats itself or distinguish multiple guitar parts.
I like to apply phase to shorter transitions, where I can time the LFO to one cycle. The effect I’m going for is a singular sweep through my frequencies that pops like a bubble the moment the next phrase begins. In the song “Endearing Endeavors” by my band Childspeak, you can hear me pull this off with an EarthQuaker Grand Orbiter phaser on the second verse.
Pro Tip: Modulation actually has two popular meanings in music. The first has to do with everything we mention above, altering the timbre or texture of a sound. The second refers to altering pitch, where we move a phrase to a different key. With some quick thinking, combining the two can lead to some extraordinary results.
I hope these tips inspire you to stay creative, and to remember that even in isolation, your art can reach thousands. It’s time to dust off your pedalboard, tune up your guitar, and write your next masterpiece.
Michael Whiteside is the Deputy Editor for math rock website Fecking Bahamas and plays guitar for the bands Childspeak and Muscle Beach Petting Zoo. When he's not perfecting nachos at home, he plays drums on the side, and photographs cats with his partner in Eugene. He is currently finishing up his first work of fiction.
