'Voices Within The Music': A Brief History Of Guitar Effects
Musicians, it seems, have always wanted to alter the sounds of their instruments. Over the course of centuries, strings have been added to guitars for a fuller sound. The composition of those strings has changed from animal gut to steel to plastic, each with their own unique sounds. Drummers have tried different shaped pots and kettles for the bodies of their instruments to get different timbres.
But with the advent of electronics, the possibilities for tweaking the sound of one instrument exploded. And perhaps nobody has done more tweaking than electric guitarists.
Sitting in his Bethel, Conn., workshop, pedal maker Mike Piera plugs in a vintage electric guitar and demonstrates what a fuzz box can do by playing part of Cream's "Sunshine Of Your Love."
"Without the pedal, you just kinda get a dead sound," Piera says. "Pretty boring."
The box makes the guitar sound fuzzy by distorting its sound. This is something musicians have been intentionally trying to do since the earliest days of amplification. Many credit the first deliberately distorted electric guitar to Johnny Burnette's Rock 'n Roll Trio in 1956.
Two years later, Link Wray claimed he'd stabbed a hole in the speaker of his amp when he challenged listeners to a "Rumble."
Others said they got the sound by dislodging a tube in their amps. Then, in 1962, a Nashville engineer named Glen Snoddy invented the box that came to be called the Maestro Fuzz-Tone, marketed by Gibson.
An ad for the Fuzz-Tone proclaims: "It's mellow. It's raucous. It's tender. It's raw. It's the Maestro Fuzz-Tone. You have to hear this completely different sound effect for the guitar to believe it!"
The concept was simple: plug your guitar into one, tap it with your foot, and presto, your sound goes from squeaky clean to downright dirty. Guitarist and historian Tom Wheeler says Keith Richards was after something very specific when he took the Fuzz-Tone to the top of the charts with The Rolling Stones.
"If you're Keith Richards and you're doing 'Satisfaction,' you could play that line on a clean guitar, but it just would not have that in-your-face, gnarly, dark quality that has so much attitude to it," he says.
Fuzz soon became central to the sound of many of the era's greats. It's still hot with today's guitarists, including Nels Cline of Wilco.
"I started dabbling with an electric guitar at age 11 or 12, and the first thing I wanted to do was play with fuzz," Cline says.
Why? "To get away from the inherent sound of the guitar," Cline says. "To transform it, but also go back to it when I wanted to just by pushing down on a button on the floor."
To meet the growing demand for sonic manipulation, engineers started coming up with new effects, such as the wah-wah and the talk box. For guitarists like Cline, the explosion allowed for greater experimentation.
"I started thinking about effects pedals as being like a palette with different colors — using delay, volume pedal, sometimes distortion but not a lot, just to sound like many different guitarists and many different kinds of voices within the music," Cline says.
Today, stores like New York's Ludlow Guitars carry an ever-changing selection of effects pedals. Ludlow sells nearly a thousand varieties, which account for about half its overall sales. Co-owner Kaan Howell explains the enduring appeal.
"It's all really based in tradition, I find," he says. "If you like rock 'n' roll, and you like The Ramones or you like Led Zeppelin, they don't play clean. If you want to emulate and do something along the same vein, you have to start trying out effects pedals."
At the same time, Howell says, effects pedals also allow guitarists to experiment.
"It's a real sort of alchemy lesson in trying to create a sound," Howell says. "What you like will be just a little different than what other people like. And so if you do take the time to try stuff, the sound you'll create will be just a little different than things that are out there."
9(MDE1MTIxMDg0MDE0MDQ3NTY3MzkzMzY1NA001))
Transcript
ARUN RATH, HOST:
A musical instrument is really a work in progress. Instruments evolve. On a stringed instrument, you might add or remove strings or frets. The strings themselves have evolved, going from animal gut through coiled metal and plastic. But electronic processing made it easy to change your sound, putting that kind of tinkering in the hands of everyone. It might have something to do with the kind of music that was in ascendance when electronic processing hit the scene, but it seems like guitar players have had the most fun with it. Allyson McCabe has the story of one of the earliest toys - the fuzz box.
ALLYSON MCCABE, BYLINE: Sitting in his Bethel, Connecticut, workshop, pedal maker Mike Piera plugs in a vintage electric guitar and demonstrates what a fuzz box can do.
MIKE PIERA: (Playing guitar) Without the pedal, you just kind of (playing guitar) get a dead sound, and when you kick it on (playing guitar) - with it off (playing guitar) pretty boring.
MCCABE: The box makes the guitar sound fuzzy by basically distorting its sound. This is something musicians have been intentionally trying to do since the earliest days of amplification. Many credit the first deliberately distorted electric guitar to Johnny Burnette's Rock 'n Roll Trio in 1956.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TRAIN KEPT A ROLLIN'")
MCCABE: Two years later, Link Wray claimed to stab a hole in the speaker of his amp to challenge listeners to a rumble.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RUMBLE")
MCCABE: Others said they got the sound by dislodging a tube in their amps. Then in 1962, a Nashville engineer named Glen Snoddy invented the box that came to be called the Maestro Fuzz-Tone, marketed by Gibson.
(SOUNDBITE OF MAESTRO FUZZ-TONE AD)
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: It's mellow, it's ruckus, it's tender, it's raw. It's the Maestro Fuzz-Tone. You have to hear this completely different sound effect for the guitar to believe it. It opens a whole new world of music for you.
MCCABE: The concept was simple. Plug your guitar into one, tap it with your foot and presto, your sound goes from squeaky clean to downright dirty. Keith Richards took Fuzz to the top of the charts with the Rolling Stones.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SATISFACTION")
MCCABE: Guitar player and historian Tom Wheeler says Richards was after something very specific.
TOM WHEELER: I mean, if you're Keith Richards and you're doing "Satisfaction," you could play that line on a clean guitar, but it just would not have that in-your-face, gnarly, dark quality that has so much attitude to it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SATISFACTION")
THE ROLLING STONES: (Singing) Hey, hey, hey. That's what I say.
MCCABE: Fuzz soon became central to the sound of many of the era's greats. And it's still hot with today's top guitarists, including Nels Cline of Wilco.
NELS CLINE: I started dabbling with electric guitar at age 11 or 12. The first thing I wanted to do was play with fuzz.
MCCABE: But why?
CLINE: To get away from the inherent sound of the guitar. To transform it, which is easy to do with electric guitar, which I think makes it such an interesting instrument, so malleable. So I could get away from the sound of the guitar as we know it, but also go back to it when I wanted to just by pushing down on a button on the floor. (Playing guitar).
MCCABE: To meet the growing demand for sonic manipulation, engineers started coming up with new effects, like the wah-wah and the talk box. For guitarists like Cline, the explosion allowed for greater experimentation.
CLINE: I started thinking about effects pedals as being like a palette, you know, with different colors - using delay, volume pedal, sometimes distortion, but not a lot, just to sound like many different guitarists and many different kinds of voices within the music.
(GUITAR MUSIC)
MCCABE: Today, stores like New York's Ludlow Guitars carry an ever-changing selection of effects pedals. Ludlow sells nearly a thousand, which account for about half of its overall sales. Co-owner Kaan Howell explains the enduring appeal.
KAAN HOWELL: It's all really based in tradition, I find. And if you like rock 'n' roll and you like The Ramones or you like Led Zeppelin, they don't play clean. If you want to emulate or do something along the same vein, well, then you've to go and start trying out effects pedals.
MCCABE: At the same time, Howell explains that effects pedals also allow guitarists to experiment with tradition.
HOWELL: It's a real sort of an alchemy lesson in trying to create a sound.
MCCABE: And to find their own voices within the music. For NPR News, I'm Allyson McCabe.
(SOUNDBITE OF MAESTRO FUZZ-TONE AD)
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Now let's listen to some of the unbelievable effects that you can create with the Fuzz-Tone. First, let's use an electric bass. This is a sousaphone effect (playing sousaphone). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
300x250 Ad
300x250 Ad