When setting up your guitar pedal board, you are more than likely to spend hours and hours in the shop trying to decide which pedals you need in order to pull an awesome sound with your guitar/amp combination.
As tempting as it is to buy every pedal in the shop, you will most likely only be able to afford a few pedals when starting out.
So to help, here is a list of the top 3 pedals every guitarist needs.
- Pedal Heaven!
1. Tuner
A tuner is the most important pedal in my opinion. If you aren’t playing in tune, than it’s going to sound bad full stop.
One of my favourite tuners is the Korg PitchBlack Tuner. It’s a really simple tuner that is really easy to see when you look down at your board. There is nothing worse than no being able to read the tuner when it’s dark on stage.
2. Overdrive Pedal
I once heard a guitarist say, “A good overdrive pedal is like a favorite pair of old jeans.” This is true in so many ways. A good overdrive pedal should be a staple part of the guitarists tone.
Classic examples of this pedal include the Ibanez Tube Screamer and the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff. A few more modern effects pedals incorporate valves, but usually these still run at voltages that are too low for the valve, resulting in a “starved plate” configuration that generates harsh and buzzy distortion. Distortion pedals usually also provide signal gain, which can be used to drive the input stage of the pre-amplifier harder, resulting in further distortion and, in some cases, higher volume.
3. Delay Pedal
A delay takes a sound and repeats it back without altering its tone or pitch, like an echo. You can alter the time between each repetition, measured in thousandths of a second, or milliseconds. Available in Analogue or Digital.
The most obvious example is The Edge of U2 , whose classic guitar parts couldnt have been written without a delay pedal.
In summary, there is no right or wrong when choosing guitar pedals. One of my favourite aspects of the music industry, is that someone is always traying something new and breaking the ‘traditional’ rules. That being said, with these 3 pedals you should be able to pull most good sounds with the right amp/guitar combination.
Feel free to let me know what you think the top 3 pedals should be.
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12 Responses
Thanks for the advice. Now I know what I should do when I need pedals. Will be watching out for more posts in the future!
No problems Sarah.. Thanks for the feedback!
Danny, this is some nice stuff. As I think about only three pedals and while I like your ideas, I offer a different take for the sake of conversation. I use a Sabine AX3000, so can forego the tuner pedal. In its place, I’ll go with a wah for maximum expression. I value overdrive pedals, but, with the 3-pedal limit, I’ll count on my amp to get dirty. Instead, I’ll add a compressor so notes sing longer. My 3rd will be a looper, so I can practice alone with “backing tracks” as well as perform as something of an ensemble, being able to echo, double, harmonize, etc. If this were for “singer / songwriter” instead of “guitarist”, I wonder about a harmonizing pedal that thinks diatonically for vocals, whatever, based on what the rhythm guitar is playing.
Thanks for the feedback Mike..
Interesting comment you made about the compressor pedal. I must confess I’ve never actually used one of these on my pedal board. But you’ve got me interested.. Any brands that you recommend?
Danny, I won’t pretend to be a compressor expert; I’ve not tinkered much there. A friend who’s a pro and whose musical style requires careful attention to tone (and has a sweet tone at that) swears by Keeley … who am I to argue with him?!?
Danny you have chosen your 3 wisely, and I would choose these also. In particular it would be:
1.Danelectro CTO-1 Transparent Overdrive – the longer I use it the more I like it. It makes me a little sad that I spent so much on a Hotcake only to find the cheap Dano was better and about 1/4 of the price.
2.
2. When it comes to delay I would choose my DD-5. Although I would love to choose my DD-2 as the analog tone is so much better, in a live situation, the tap-tempo is invaluable.
3. Tuner = pitch black. Agreed.
Nice one Joe.. I would love to try the Danelectro pedal out one day, sounds almost too good to be true
My critical 3 would be Tuner, Overdrive, Compressor (followed closely by Volume, Tremolo, Chorus and lastly Boutique distortion / fuzz, delay, reverb). Of course, this depends on your style, preference, sound, and other gear (single coils vs humbuckers, tube amp vs solid state, etc).
For the noobs out there, you don’t need all of this – if you learn about your amp, you don’t need almost any of this (except tuner, that’s mandatory).
Tuner, Compressor, Overdrive
Then, volume, delay, tremolo.
Just thought i’d point out that the EH Big Muff is not an overdrive, it’s a fuzz pedal.
Overdrive pedals induce soft clipping into the signal
Fuzz pedals induce hard clipping into the signal
Distortion pedals can use both but are mainly hard clipping
It is worth pointing out that the original ‘Muff’ circuit (that is, muff and not big muff) was an overdrive pedal and not a fuzz.
Same goes for the new EH Double Muff, it is two overdrive circuits stacked and not two fuzzes
Hope that helps
Also, overdrive, distortion and fuzz pedals all offer signal gain
why distortion pedals create more distortion isn’t because it drives the input of the amplifier harder, but because it induces alot of hard clipping into the signal even at unity gain.
Boosters and overdrives (atleast older types) generally have more signal gain on tap than distortion pedals, because distortion pedals are mainly designed to create distortion at lowers volumes into a clean amplifier
Other than those two things I enjoyed the article