This effect, known as “clipping,” cuts off the audible waveform at the height of the amplifier’s limits (voltage, current, and thermal), thereby distorting the signal. Perhaps the most famous of these sounds-or, at least, the most formative-is that of Dave Davies, the lead guitarist for The Kinks, who got bored of his Elpico amplifier in 1964 and decided to pierce its speaker cone with a razor blade. The history of guitar-signal modification is one of happy accidents. These small, intermediary devices further manipulate the guitar signal to produce a multitude of effects. Depending on the sound that a guitarist is seeking, he or she may place guitar effect pedals, or stompboxes, in between the pick-ups and the amplifiers. The current’s signal is then transmitted through a wire lead, after which it’s amplified by either a vacuum tube or solid-state amplifier, and then reshaped into audible sound by a loudspeaker. The guitarist picks a string with a plastic plectrum, which produces vibrations that are picked up by coiled magnets directly positioned behind the strings, inducing an alternating current (hence the name “pick-ups”). Any “unmistakable” guitar sound isn’t just the product of a gifted musician, nor is it just the result of cultural context it’s contingent on the combined work of transistors, speakers, magnets, signals, wires, and diodes.Ĭonsider how many transformations take place during the production of sound from an electric guitar. In fact, the history of guitar-signal modification is one of happy accidents. By the end of the 1970s, it had become impossible to imagine how R&B, blues, and rock could have existed without these fortuitous mistakes.
Guitar shed sound effec professional#
Before professional studio production enabled granular tweaks in sound, standalone guitar effects emerged from deliberately converting hardware faults-often caused by the limitations of amplifiers-into positive features.
Music has often thrived on transforming faults into influential sound effects. The electric-guitar-effects industry is no different. There’s an old joke in the technology industry: If a product has a problem, simply sell it as a feature.
0 kommentar(er)
