Question Home

Position:Home>Performing Arts> What are common effects pedals used with Acoustic Guitar?


Question:I play a Taylor
I play Praise and Worship and Jazz and Blues


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I play a Taylor
I play Praise and Worship and Jazz and Blues

stereo chorus and digital delay.

If your amp or the mixing board has reverb, that's usually all you need. If your guitar is "out front" for solos or backing up a singer then a chorus pedal is popular to fatten up the sound. Too many people use it all the time though, and with other instruments in the mix, it can muddy up the guitar sound. It's really good to vary the amount of reverb and/or chorus - different amounts for different songs or sections of songs.

Chorus
Flanger
WahWah

If you had no other pedal, I'd go with a nice lush chorus.. the first that comes to mind is a Boss CE-1. Stereo is def best, if you can hook it up.

After that, some form of light overdrive (Tubescreamer, for instance), delay, compression (keep your sound level for backing rhythm or keeping a consistent signal for soloing), and an EQ pedal at some point for either clean solo boosting or tone tweaking (cut bass, boost treble, etc).

It's very important to have a tone that sits well in the mix - if you're playing worship, for instance, you don't want a crazy tone, you want "nice and sedated" (kind've like your congregation... snark!)... you shouldn't be afraid to really cut back on your effects and cut huge chunks of your eq in order to make way for other instruments and especially the all-important vocals. Clarity and proper sitting in the mix are far more important than sounding cool.


Not as common for acoustics:

I love the sound of a phaser, so I would want one of those. A wah is a great pedal for soloing. You could even go for a pitchshifter/harmonizer pedal or a Digitech Whammy pedal thingy, to add an octave or whatever kind've harmony above your signal. These aren't "natural" sounds, but they can sound cool if used sparingly or subtly. In the styles you've listed, "sparing" and "subtlety" and good words to use when thinking about your effects.

I just picked up a Boss GT-3, and while big portions of it are fuzzy distortions or sfx i won't use, it has a few good clean "sparkle" sounds that I really like... this is pretty common with multifx pedals. Check out used multifx pedals, many of their distortions suck (Line 6, anyone?) but their cleans can be pretty cool. And the older ones get cheaper with every new "whizz-bang" model that comes out. =)


Saul

An Acoustic guitar not does need any pedals.