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Equipment and guitars etc.

Add ons and effects etc.

This is generally where it all starts to go arse about face in my experience and opinion and the reason is simply because its so easy and tempting to loose the plot completely!

I must admit to being as guilty as anyone for ‘ processing’ the guitar of the face of the planet but at the end of the day, its horses for courses, so, what have I genuinely found ‘sound enhancing’ out of the mountains of junk I’ve sonically waded through over the years? Interested? No? Okay here we go!

Echo Devices

Probably the most used and useful bit of kit for the electric guitarist to enhance the ‘atmosphere’ of your performance, not withstanding the reverb unit which, in it’s spring version, livens up speaker cones, is the tape echo.

Sorry, , before I continue, can I get a bit tetchy tetchy and whingey whingey?!

Can someone actually play? Can someone tune a guitar properly? Can a guitar be tuned accurately? Is an amplifier capable of producing good tone?

If the answer is no to any of the above, then, in my’ ever so umbled opinion’, no gadget, so far, has been invented that will rectify or disguise the shortfall and I sincerely believe that the manufactures of gizmos have been misleading ( and getting v e r y rich in the process), would’ be musicians into believing that without “ TURBODIGFX” Mk 1111 failure is guaranteed! B*l*o*ks!!

Back to the plot. Echo units. I like tape echo and bitterly regret selling my old Dynacord units to go Digital some years ago. They wow and flutter wobble and fart. Fantastic!

I’ve ended up at the moment with Digitech and quite frankly am pissed of with myself for being duped into believing that some non-musical technofreak’s idea of echo was more valid than my own! It doesn’t sound as good, ---- end of story.

Great tape echos> Dynacord. Watkins, Melos, Echoplex, Binson(though not tape)

Good tape echos> Roland RE series(201, 301 501).

Reverb Devices

Now I’m going to totally contradict myself and go all techno. Digital reverb is probably my favourite and most used effect for creating space and positioning in a stereo gtr or, more concisely in my case, gtr synth sound stage. What am I on about? Digital reverb is an “ illusion” and not a “sound” like echo is and, apart from the Grand Canyon, digital wins hands down in creating it. Strictly for studios in the past (for financial reasons) , anybody can now paint their own musical 3D pictures in live or studio situations, given that you may wish to do that of course! I love it! Alesis are best for the bucks and Lexicon are the best, period.

Effects and Simulators

Back in the early 70s I used to lug around a Leslie 147 rotary speaker cabinet to gigs as this was the only way at the time to achieve live flanging and phasing . It was a fantastic sound(and still is incidentally), but what a pain! The advent of the analogue phaser and then flanger was, as you will imagine,was a huge to relief our roadies!

Spectacular in their, sounds, names and ability to go wrong were the Electro Harmonix range of effects. Big Muff, Electric Mistress, Memory Man, etc.

It was though, the Japanese company Roland who , with their sister company Boss, tied it all up with an affordable and reliable range of Effects Pedals that are still going strong today as far as I know. I've still got mine, though they rarely see the light of day now.

Today we can. morph and wammy and arpaggiate the guitar into sonic oblivion if we so choose, but do we?

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