The Dirt on Distortion: A Simple Guide to Getting Dirty
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What to do now after you’re bored with your plain old set up of guitar and amp? Even the gain on your amp seems not to do what you want. Frustration is sinking in!
Rock would be very two dimensional without the dirt and mud distortion pedals can sling about. Pedals in general, have created whole genres of Rock and Roll, never mind the sub-genres. Psychedelic wouldn’t exist. Garage Rock would not exist. Metal and noise rock are completely dependent. In a weird sense, rock history has been the story of manipulating distorted textures.
A guitarist’s amp can only do so much, even with the gain turned up all the way. A distortion pedal can allow you have all the control you want that turning up an amp’s gain all the way would not do or allow you to make the most obscene out of control racket.
Distortion makes guitars bleed creating texture and character. One can create rough and tumble rhythm or play searing guitar solos. One can even take the pedal and make extremely abstract music out of the confines of structure! When one turns a distortion pedals’ settings all the way one doesn’t even have to touch the guitar. These most commonly used pedals can be used to create a song’s details. Distortion can create mood like My Bloody Valentine. Distortion can unleash feral attitude that can wreck total abandon like Iggy and the Stooges!
Basic Dirt: Basic Concepts
Innovations always seem to be due to someone screwing up. The first distortion came from busted speakers. Link Wray and the Kinks stuck screw drivers in their amps on purpose to even get this effect. They also popularized this because of their success. A distortion pedal is usually a box that messes with the electric guitar signal. Different pedals do this in different ways. The distortion pedal(s) you choose depends solely on the style you want (or the one you want to invent)! Distortion pedals have their origin as an attempt to recreate tube amp sounds without tube amp damage.
Overdrive/ Big Crunch
This type of pedals owe allegiance to replicating specified high gain Marshall amp sounds to the extreme past tonal breakdown. Basically, these pedals are glorified nuclear concentrated Marshall Amp gain. Most of these use solid state circuitry though some utilize some tube amp concepts. These pedals are good for muddy messy rhythm. The typical overdrive crunch pedal could be The Pro Co Rat. Everyone from James Hetfield to Thom Yorke has seemed to use this.
Fuzzed Out!
Fuzz distortion may be the most thought of pedal, though not the most common. One only has to think of the 1960’s to know what this distortion sounds like. Fuzz uses vacuum tubes. The unique sound comes from circuits filtering (called clipping) a sine wave to a square wave.
Fuzz replicates overdriven tube amps with holes poked in the speakers like Link Wray or the Kinks used. Over the years, simple models have been tweaked to have even more distortion and weird oscillation effects. Fuzz will really make your guitar sound like its literally spitting fire! A fuzz pedal can be noisy or very self contained.
The Weight of Metal: Hi Gain
To achieve the basic heavy metal sound, hi gain is the way to go. These pedals create sounds that are harmonically rich, thick, extra sustain yet also retaining somewhat of a clean sound. Often what these pedals sonically offer cannot be found anywhere else like an amp’s natural sound. In other words, these pedals are highly distinct. Metal, especially modern metal, would not exist! This pedal has monumental effects when paired with an overdrive/crunch pedal.
Power Control Power
Power Attenuator and Power- Tube pedals are probably the least discussed distortion type pedals. These pedals are somewhat more specialized as they deal with volume. Both allow tube distortion independent from volume control and volume listening. The advantage here is attention to detail.
Who’s Selling?
The player has a lot of brands to choose from in the land of sonic perfection. Boss and Dan Electro make a large selection of various pedals. The company DigiTech even has gone as far as producing distortion pedals specialized towards specific rock genres. One can choose from death metal, grunge and even a blues pedal. These options should not limit you. One can even purchase build your own distortion pedal kits.
Getting Dirty
Armed with this basic information, you should know how to get that dirty damage you want. Now, go throw some dirt on your guitar!
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