10 TIPS FOR GUITAR MULTIEFFECTS

by Craig Anderton
Everyone's always looking for a better guitar sound in the studio, and while the current
infatuation with vintage effects has stolen a bit of the spotlight from guitar multieffects, don't
sell these digital processors short. When properly programmed, they can emulate a great
many "vintage" timbres, as well as create sounds that are etremely difficult to achieve with
analog technology.
As with many other aspects of audio, there is no one "secret" that gives the ultimate sound!
great sounds are often assembled, piece by piece. "ollowing are ten tips that are designed to
help you put together a better guitar sound using multieffects.
1. DON'T BELIEVE THE INPUT LEVEL METERS
#nintentional digital distortion can be nasty, so minimi$e any distortion other than what's
created intentionally within the multieffects. %he input level meters help you avoid input
overload, but they may not tell you about the output. "or eample, a highly resonant filter
sound &e.g.,wa' can increase the signal level internally so that even if the original signal
doesn't eceed the unit's input headroom, it can nonetheless eceed the available headroom
elsewhere &"ig. ('.
)ome multieffects meters can monitor the post*processed signal, but this isn't a given. +f the
distortion starts to "splatter" yet the meters don't indicate overload, try reducing the input level.
2. USE PROPER GAIN-STAGING
While we're on the sub,ect of distortion, if a patch uses many effects then there are several
level*altering parameters, and these should interact properly*,ust like gain*staging with a mier.
)uppose an e-uali$er follows distortion. %he distortion will probably include input and output
levels, and the filter will have level boost.cut controls for the selected fre-uency. As one
illustration of gain staging, suppose the output filter boosts the signal at a certain fre-uency by
/ d0. +f the signal coming into the filter already uses up the available headroom, asking it to
increase by / d0 means crunch time. 1educing the distortion output level so that the signal
hitting the filter is at least / d0 below the maimum available headroom lets the filter do its
work without distortion.
3. ADD RESONANT PEAKS FOR REALISM
)peakers, pickups, and guitar bodies have anything but a flat response. 2uch of the
characteristic difference between different devices is due to fre-uency response variations*
peaks and dips that form a particular "sonic signature." "or eample, + analy$ed some patches
3avid %orn programmed for a multieffects and found that he likes to add ( k4$ boosts. 5n the
other hand + often add a slight boost around 6.7 k4$ &possibly because + played a "ender %ele
for -uite some time and got used to that biting high end'. With (8*strings, + usually cut the low
end to get more of a 1ickenbacker sound. 9arametric E: is ideal for this type of processing.
4. CUT DELAY FEEDBACK LOOP HIGH FREQUENCIES
Each successive repeat with tape echo and analog delay units has progressively fewer high
fre-uencies, due to analog tape's limited bandwidth &"ig. 8'. +f your multieffects can reduce
high fre-uencies in the delay line's feedback path, the sound will resemble tape echo rather
than straight digital delay.
. A SOLUTION FOR THE TREMOLO-IMPAIRED
+f your pre*retro cra$e multieffects doesn't have a tremolo, check for a stereo autopanner
function. %his shuttles the signal between the left and right channels at a variable rate &and
sometimes with a choice of waveforms, such as s-uare to switch the sound back and forth, or
triangle for a smoother sweeping effect'.
%o use the autopanner for tremolo, simply monitor one channel and turn down the other one.
%he signal in the remaining channel will fade in and out cyclically, ,ust like a tremolo.
!. INSERT A HIGH-QUALITY PREAMP BEFORE THE MULTIEFFECTS
%rying to s-uee$e four $illion effects into something the average human can afford is no easy
task, so corners must be cut somewhere. )ometimes the input preamp will take the hit, which
may result in more noise than desired, or an input impedance low enough to "dull" your guitar's
sound. Adding a high -uality preamp onboard the guitar, or inline between the guitar and the
cord feeding the multieffects, can sometimes give a cleaner, brighter sound.
". CABINET SIMULATORS ARE COOL# BUT
2any multieffects have speaker simulators, which supposedly recreate the fre-uency
response of a typical guitar speaker in a cabinet. +f you're feeding the multieffects output
directly into a mier or 9A instead of a guitar amp and this effect is not active, the timbre will
often be ob,ectionably bu$$y. +nserting the speaker emulator in the signal chain should give a
more realistic sound. 4owever, if you go through a guitar amp and the emulator is on, the
sound will probably be much duller, and possibly have a thin low end as well*so bypass it.
$. USE A MIDI PEDAL FOR MORE E%PRESSION
A multieffects will generally let you assign at least one parameter per patch to a 2+3+
continuous controller number. "or eample, if you set echo feedback to receive continuous
controller message ;<, and set a 2+3+ pedal to transmit message ;<, then moving the pedal
will vary the amount of echo feedback. =ou can usually scale the response as well, so that
moving the pedal from full off to full on creates a change that's less than the maimum amount.
%his allows greater precision since the pedal covers a narrower range. )caling can sometimes
invert the "sense" of the pedal, so that pressing down creates less of an effect rather than
more.
&. MAKE SURE STEREO OUTPUTS DON'T CANCEL
)ome cheapo effects, and a large number of "vintage" effects, create stereo with time delay
effects by sending the processed signal to one channel, and an out*of*phase version of the
processed signal to the other channel. While this can sound pretty dramatic with near*field
monitoring, should the two outputs ever collapse to mono &e.g., playback over A2 radio', the
effect will cancel, leaving only the dry sound. %o test for this, plug the stereo outs into a two*
channel mono amp or mier &set the channel pans to center'. )tart with one channel at normal
listening volume, and the second channel down full. >radually turn up the second channel! if
the effect level decreases, then the processed outputs are out of phase. +f the effect level
increases, all is well.
10. PARALLELING MULTIEFFECTS 'ITH GUITAR AMPS
5ne way to enrich a sound is to double a multieffects with an amp, and mi the sounds
together. Although you could simply split the guitar through a =*cord and feed both, here's a
way that can work better.
%o supplement the multieffects sound with an amp sound, send the multieffects "loop send" &if
available' to the amp input. %his preserves the way the multieffects input stage alters your
guitar. +f you'd rather supplement the basic amp sound with a multieffects, feed the amp's loop
send to the multieffects signal input to preserve the amp's preamp characteristics.
Well, that covers the (; tips. 4ave fun strumming those wires*and remember that the magic
word for all guitar multieffects is e-uali$ation.
&?ote@ %his article is copyrighted by the author and used by permission. +t is epressly
forbidden to reproduce this article in any way without first obtaining the author's written
permission.'