Effects and Pedals

Effects units are electronic devices that alter how a musical instrument or other audio source sounds. Some effects subtly "color" a sound, while others transform it dramatically. Effects are used during live performances or in the studio, typically with electric guitar, keyboard and bass. While most frequently used with electric or electronic instruments, effects can also be used with acoustic instruments, drums and vocals. Examples of common effects units include wah-wah pedals, fuzzboxes and reverb units.

Effects are housed in amplifiers, table top units, "stompboxes" and "rackmounts", or they are built into the instruments themselves (e.g., electronix organs often have reverb effects built in). A stompbox (or "pedal") is a small metal or plastic box placed on the floor in front of the musician and connected to his or her instrument. The box is typically controlled by one or more foot-pedal on-off switches and contains only one or two effects. A rackmount is mounted on a standard 19-inch equipment rack and usually contains several different types of effects.

While there is currently no firm consensus on how to categorize effects, the following offers one approach, using seven common classifications:distortion, dynamics, filter, modulation, pitch/frequency, time-based and feedback/sustain. Rock guitarists derive their signature sound or "tone" from their choice of instrument, pickups, effects units, and guitar amp.

Amplification

A guitar amplifier (or guitar amp) is an electric amplifier designed to amplify the electrical signal of an electric or acoustic guitar so that it will produce sound through a loudspeaker. Most guitar amplifiers can also modify the instrument's tone by emphasizing or de-emphasizing certain frequencies and adding electronic effects. Vibrations of the strings are "picked up" by a suitable microphone. For electric guitars, strings are all made of metal, and the pick up works by electro-magnetic induction. Acoustic guitars have a normal microphone, designed to convert acoustic vibrations into an electrical signal, but usually they do so from direct contact with the strings (replacing the guitar's bridge) or with the guitar's body, rather than having a membrane like general-purpose microphones.

Fender Vs Gibson

Gibson

Gibson Guitar Corp. is an American maker of guitars and other instruments, now based in Nashville, Tennessee. Orville Gibson founded the company in 1902 as as "The Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co., Ltd." in Kalamazoo, Michigan to make mandolin-family instruments. Gibson invented archtop guitars by constructing the same type of carved, arched tops used on violins. By the 1930s, the company was also making flattop acoustic guitars, as well as one of the first commercially available hollow-body electric guitars, used and popularized by Charlie Christian. It was bought by Chicago Musical Instruments in 1944, which was then acquired by the E.C.L. conglomerate that changed its name to Norlin Inc. This was seen as the beginning of an era of mismanagement.

Gibson sells guitars under a variety of brand names and built one of the world's most iconic guitars, the Gibson Les Paul. Many Gibson instruments are among the most collectible guitars. Gibson was at the forefront of innovation in acoustic guitars, especially in the big band era of the 1930s; the Gibson Super 400 was widely imitated. In the early 1950s, Gibson introduced its first solid-body electric guitar and in 1952 began producing its most popular guitar to date—the Les Paul, designed by Ted McCarty and Les Paul.

Fender

Fender Musical Instruments Corporation (FMIC), commonly referred to simply as Fender, is a US manufacturer of stringed instruments and amplifiers, such as solid-body electric guitars, including the Stratocaster and the Telecaster. It is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona. The company, previously named the Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company, was founded in Fullerton, California, by Clarence Leonidas "Leo" Fender in 1946. Leo Fender also designed one of the first commercially successful solid-body electric basses, the Precision Bass (P-Bass), which has become known in rock, jazz, country, Motown, funk, and other types of music. Fender's Precision and Jazz Bass models are now widely considered to be the standard to which most other electric bass guitars are measured.

The company is a privately held corporation, with the controlling majority of its stock owned by a group of its own company officers and managers. Larry Thomas is Chief Executive Officer and James Broenen is Chief Financial Officer. The company filed for an Initial public offering in March 2012. In addition to its Scottsdale headquarters, Fender has manufacturing facilities in Corona, California (US) and Baja California (Mexico).

Birth Of The Electric Guitar

The Electric Guitar

An electric guitar is a guitar that uses a pickup to convert the vibration of its strings into electrical impulses. The most common guitar pickup uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker. Since the output of an electric guitar is an electric signal, the signal may easily be altered using electronic circuits to add "color" to the sound. Often the signal is modified using effects such as reverb and distortion.

Invented in 1931, the electric guitar became a necessity as jazz musicians sought to amplify their sound in the big band format. During the 1950s and 1960s, the electric guitar became the most important instrument in pop music. It has evolved into a stringed musical instrument that is capable of a multitude of sounds and styles. It served as a major component in the development of rock and roll and many other genres of music.