Guitar Tricks presents What Are Modulating Guitar Pedals?

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What Are Modulating Guitar Pedals?

By Shawn Leonhardt for Guitar Tricks and 30 Day Singer

What is Modulation

Modulation is simply changing or moving the original guitar signal. Most electric guitars have control built into them. The cheaper guitars mostly just allow tone and volume
control, while the pricier ones have more knobs. But even then you are limited on how much you can change the guitar sound. And that is where guitar pedals come into play. We use more electrical parts to alter that tone coming out of our guitar. Originally the effects below were often used one at a time, but now they blend more control of the signal into modern guitar modulation pedals.

The Most Common Modulation Pedals

Tremolo

Most modulation changes the pitch, but tremolo changes the volume. You do not actually need a pedal to achieve this effect. If you turn on the radio or any music and rapidly turn the volume knob up and down, you have just created tremolo. You are essentially making the audio tremble. The first tremolo pedal was built as far back as the late 40’s!

This effect has been a musical technique long before amplification for keys, drums, winds, and string players. It is like techniques such as vibrato where the pitch is changed. And it’s not uncommon for the terms vibrato and tremolo to be used interchangeably even though they are different. Tremolo sounds great when playing guitar chords or single note lines and solos.

Songs that tremolo pedals are used in: “Midnight Special” by CCR, “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” Green Day, “Creep” Radiohead, “American Woman” Guess Who, “Rooster” Alice in Chains

Vibrato

It is common to see the words ‘vibrato’ and ‘tremolo’ used in the wrong manner, just remember that vibrato alters pitch. (The tremolo arm on an electric guitar changes the pitch more than the volume). A vibrato pedal is created by mixing your guitar signal with another created sound wave in the pedal. These two signals are then mixed depending on how fast you want the vibrato to be. You can make it sound like a human singing or with way more of a warble. Using vibrato on single notes has the best effect, like a solo melody or guitar scales.

Some great songs that include vibrato are “Peaches” The Presidents of the USA, “Selfless” The Strokes, “Subterranean Homesick Alien” Radiohead, and “Ode to Viceroy” Mac DeMarco.

Rotary

Around the same time the tremolo pedal was invented engineers were also creating the rotary effect most known from the Hammond Organ with its Leslie speaker. These were called rotary because they literally have a treble speaker that rotates giving the sound a Doppler effect. This is the effect you hear when an emergency vehicle is passing, that wavy siren sound.

These original Leslie speakers are very bulky and expensive so that rotary effect has since been condensed into smaller guitar pedals. The rotary sound is like vibrato and tremolo, but if you pay close attention there tends to be more vibration in the sound of the rotary, and the direction seems to change.

Songs that use rotary pedals include “Cold Shot” Stevie Ray Vaughan, “Good Times, Bad Times” Led Zeppelin, “Badge” Cream, “Black Hole Sun” Soundgarden, and some bands just use original Leslie speakers if they can afford it!

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Phaser

After the tremolo and rotary effects the next big unit to hit the market was the Uni-Vibe in the 60’s. While it seemed to be an attempt at a rotary type of sound it was more of a phase shifter and ushered in a whole new era of guitar pedals. It was a mixture of everything to come and Jimi Hendrix was one of the most popular Uni-Vibe players. Phasers split your guitar signal into two parts, one clean and the other phase shifted.

You can adjust the signals to decide how you want the mixed signals to sound. It can cause a light or strong rippling or whooshing effect depending on how it is dialed in.

Songs that use phase effects are “London Calling” by The Clash, “Hole in My Life” The Police, “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)” by Rupert Holmes, “Ain’t Talkin About Love” Van Halen, “Blinded By the Light” the Manfred Mann version, and “Strange Magic” by ELO.

Flanger

Modulation exploded in the 70’s and the flanger pedal was by far the most popular. Once again two signals are mixed, but in this case one is very slightly delayed. That delayed signal then feeds back into the first two, creating a strange and layered feedback. If dialed in right you can create chorus and delay like effects with the flanger.

The best way to understand the flanger is to listen to some of the most popular songs, it is a pedal that can be quite versatile, yet it always has that multi-textured sound. Some songs include “Keep Yourself Alive” Queen, “Flying High Again” Black Sabbath, “Barracuda” Heart, “Breakout” Foo Fighters, “Good Help” Death Cab for Cutie, and “Message in a Bottle” by The Police.

Chorus

This is probably the most popular modulation pedal, one of the first bought by many players. Just like the other pedals it is created by mixing signals, a clean guitar tone with a slightly pitch shifted signal. This creates the imperfection in the sound that would exist in real life with more than one player, making it a chorus.

Chorus is such a common effect especially in the 80’s. It may even be in use without you realizing, depending on the settings. Songs like “Purple Rain” Prince, “Come As You Are” Nirvana, “Sanitarium” Metallica, “Sultans of Swing” Dire Straits, and “Go With the Flow” Queens of the Stone Age. And so many more, the chorus pedal is used by some of these bands mentioned in every song they wrote!

Ring Modulator

Ring modulators do more than just mix dry and carrier wave signals. They take specific frequencies created by an internal oscillator to build more inharmonic sounds; they simply have a lot more going on inside the pedal. There is phase, time, and frequency shifting among many other signal changes. They are the least common in modulating pedals, but they still have plenty of great examples, as they make some weird sounds!

Famous songs that use the ring modulator are “The Hollow” A Perfect Circle, “Glass” Incubus, “Eriatarka” Mars Volta, “Cheap Sunglasses” ZZ Top, “Goodbye Porkpie Hat” Jeff Beck, and “Paranoid” Black Sabbath.

As far as the setup of these pedals? Well that can all depend on the sound you want. The best way to learn is to pick a song you like that uses these pedals and copy their setup. After a time of emulating others you will get a better idea of how they can be used. Because there is rarely a right or wrong way, it’s all about the final sound.

The Future of Modulation Pedals

There are two major routes that guitar pedals seem to be taking. The first is that modern pedals are being built with multiple effects in mind. Many companies want to be able to offer as many signal alterations as possible. So it is common to find larger pedals that can do more than just chorus or phaser.

And secondly, digital emulations are replacing analog physical guitar pedals. Which is great news for some because guitar pedals are not cheap! One of the best ways to learn how to use a pedal is to practice with it, now with cheaper digital guitar pedals it is easier to practice with different effects and orders.

Whether you have the money for analog or digital, it is wise to get started experimenting right away with modulating guitar pedals. Even if you are just starting out with the electric guitar learning online guitar lessons, getting familiar with guitar pedals will help you develop your sound. Guitarists in the past discovered all these great sounds through trial and error and that is still the best way to learn. Just twist and turn knobs until you find a great tone, if it is analog just don’t forget any awesome settings!

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