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Effects pedal is a standard way of adding guitar effects on a guitar signal, which is usually produced by guitar pickups. Pedals are packed electronic circuits connected together with a 1/4" TS jacks, usually powered with 9V DC voltage; together (sometimes with amplifier as well) they form a pedalboard. Effects pedal is a standard term for all guitars effects even though some guitar effects don't utilize any pedal control.
Construction[]
Effects pedals are basically small plastic, metal or wooden boxes with input and output 1/4" TS jacks. They usually have control and indicator elements for user interaction to setup parameters. Effects pedals like guitar tuner, expression pedal or MIDI switch may have only one jack.
Controls[]
- Footswitch (momentary/latched)
- Pedal
- Rocker
- Rotary knob
- Slide switch
- Electronic jumper
- Slider knob
Indicators[]
- LED or LED array
- Display
- Gauge
- Sound
Types[]
Simple effects pedal[]
Boss DS-2 Turbo Distortion Effects pedal
Simple effects pedals are single-purpose effects and have both in and out jack. Usually these effects are analog-based. These fall into certain fixed categories like reverb, hall, chorus, flanger, distortion, overdrive etc. These are historically the first effects made for guitarists. Typically these effects can be turned off with a footswitch, bypassing the effect.
True bypass[]
True bypass is a term describing pedals where turning the effect off causes the inner circuitry of the pedal to disconnect completely. Such pedal in off state is really just a wire from the input to the output. This is important so that the circuitry does not affect the signal in any way when the effect is turned off. Side effect of this feature is switching noise. Effects which are not true bypass use buffers.
Looper[]
Boss RC-50 Looper
Looper is a simple pedal or an advanced workstation for looping.
Multieffects pedal[]
Effects pedals comprising several effects domains are called multieffects. They are used conveniently for stage performing where the musician can profit a lot of functionality in a small package and use additional functions. Certain type of multieffects pedals are focused on cheap all-in-one solution for beginners.
Additional features:
- Sound banks
- Switchable pre loops
- Effect loops
- Built-in amplifier
- Phones/line output
- Monitor input
- Amp simulation
- Bluetooth and USB connectivity, phone apps
- MIDI controller
