Cheap Effects Pedals
It is important when you begin learning to play the guitar to become familiar with the natural sound it produces. This will help you develop your ear, your technique and allow you to get a really good appreciation for the way the instrument was intended to sound and indeed its limitations.
As you become a more confident and experienced musician however, it is only natural to want to explore new possibilities and capabilities of your instrument. You might start developing ideas or sounds that you can’t quite reproduces on the guitar in its natural sounding state. t is at this stage that you might want to explore the world of guitar effects, guitar FX or stomp boxes as they are sometimes known.
There are many different types of guitar effect and we will go into them in more detail in another post but here we are going ot take a look at some of the more cost effective, affordable guitar FX pedals that you might want to experiment with.
Guitar FX pedals, especially hand-made, boutique and vintage models can be very expensive indeed and often run in to several hundred hundred dollars on terms of price range. These are all great introductory devices however and each should set you back no more than around $30.
Danelectro D-1 Fab Distortion Effects Pedal
First up is this Danelectro D-1 Distortion pedal. If you know anything about guitars at all then you will no doubt be familiar with distortion and the way it sounds.
If you don’t know much about the guitar, then distortion is the heavy, crunchy sound that you normally associate with rock and punk music. Imagine the sound you would get if you picked up an electric guitar that was plugged into an amplifier and struck a chord loud enough to rattle all the windows on your street. That’s distortion!
This pedal is fantastic because, like all of the products in the Danelectro range
It looks great and features 3 knobs, one for adjusting the amount of distortion, one for adjusting the tone, and one for adjusting the output level or volume. With this combination you should be able to get some pretty good sounds ranging between metal (think Metallica) to punk (think Ramones) to pop rock (think Blink 182, Greenday)
Like most pedals it will run off a 9V battery or a power supply.
Behringer UM300 Heavy Metal Distortion Pedal
Another great pedal for its modest price. Don’t be fooled by the slightly feminine colour, this pedal can get well and truly gnarly!
The thing we love about the Danelectro D-6 Fab Flange Effects Pedal is that it features more EQ or tone controls than mmost pedals, even ones far more expensive. Whereas a lot of FX pedals will tend to have only one knob for controlling the tone, this one has several for adjusting the three most common ‘bands’ of EQ which are lows, mids and highs. What this means is that you have a far greater variation of EQ combinations which will allow you to manipulate the effect in order to come up with the sound you want.
Danelectro D-6 Fab Flange Effects Pedal
Flange is easily one of my favourite guitar effects. If you are unfamiliar with this type of effect, think of the noise that a jet makes when passing over your head. That swooshing, washy sound? That’s flange!
It basically occurs when the same sound is mixed with itself but for whatever reason they are slightly altered.
This effect can be recreated very well in pedal like this and it is a very fun effect to use.
What’s great about this effect and pedal is that you can control the rate and sweep of the flange. So you can opt for a gentle flange that kind of drifts in and out or you can go for a full on flange which is quite intense and stands out.
All of our favourite bands have used flange on at least one of their records, from Guns N Roses to U2. Why not try it out yourself and see what you can come up with?
Behringer UC200 Guitar Chorus Effect Pedal
Chorus is another of those less common and effects that when used creatively can create some truly stunning results.
What chorus does is reproduces the same note that is played and alters it enough so that you know there is more than one note being played, but not so much that it sounds like a completely different note.
A little bit like if you recorded yourself talking, and then played the recording back whilst saying exactly the same thing.
What this allows you to do is play a guitar line whilst sounding like two guitars are playing the same thing. because of this it’s a great effect for allowing you to build up a bigger sound picture and fill out a space within a composition.
This pedal features Level, Tone, Rate and Depth controls for excellent sound shaping possibilities.
Danelectro D-7 Fab Fuzz
Fuzz is an effect that is similar to distortions but is far less severe.
It sounds pretty much like teh name suggests too. It was a very popular effect in the 60s, before high gain amplifiers and distortion came about and was used by al of the great artists of that era including Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix.
Where distortion or overdrive creates too much of an intense effect then fuzz comes into play. You can use it to create some really sounding lead lines that give you just enough bite without ever going over the top.
This pedal is therefore a good choice if you’re playing more melodic music.
Behringer CS400 Compressor Sustainer Ultimate Dynamics Effects Pedal
Have you ever wanted to know how you can get your guitar to hold those really long notes without having to turn you guitar up to ridiculous volume? Well then you need a compressor/sustainer.
First of all, a compressor is a great FX pedal to have because it is designed to make all of the notes you play the same volume. That is, it will make the loud notes quitter and the quitter notes louder so that no note is ever quitter or louder than another.
The sustain element of this FX pedal will allow you to get those longer notes out of your guitar although you will probably need to use a distortion type effect in addition just to drive the signal a little bit and give the sustainer something to hold.
With controls for adjusting the levels of compression and amount of sustain this is another versatile guitar FX pedal.
