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In part 1 I discovered that the Boss LS-2 let me mix the real sound of my acoustic with some effects without destroying the tone of the guitar. Now lets put some effects pedals on the board…

The Pedals

Over the course of building the board, I selected the following pedals as having the best sound for acoustic guitar of those I tried.

Delay: T-Rex Replica

This pedal is one of the most musical sounding delay pedals I have ever used – it’s got plenty of that good “old-timey” tape feel, but without the mechanical breakdowns! Smooth, silky and without any of that harsh digital-ness typical of modern delay pedals, it just sits in the sound creating depth and space without competing for attention.

Perfect for acoustic guitar!

Chorus: Tech 21 RotoChoir

OK, I lied. This isn’t really a chorus at all but in fact simulates a Leslie speaker cabinet or a Fender Vibratone. There is not a bad setting on this pedal – it does deep underwater psychedelia to slow undulating sweeps to subtle chorus-like shimmer without sounding unnatural or siren-like.

Crunch: Xotic Effects AC Booster (Custom Shop model)

A simple distortion pedal that works well with acoustic guitar has proved the most difficult effect to find, in practice almost all the pedals I tried had far too much distortion and destroyed the tone of the acoustic.

This pedal is typically used by electric guitarists to provide a signal boost for lead sounds, it’s great for Hendrix type blues tones or just turning it up to eleven. When applied to an acoustic guitar however, it manages to retain the original sound of the guitar whilst providing that extra weight and “crunch” I was looking for. It’s damn expensive for a simple distortion pedal, but the only one I found that retains the acoustic’s character.

Compression: MXR Dyna Comp

Two dials and an on/off switch. Not exactly the transparent compressor I was originally after, but this little pedal provides extra sustain without sucking the life out of the sound.

Tremolo/Vibrato: Marshal Vibratrem

Signal Path

A guitar effects chain would be typically connected in the following order (for an electric rig):

1. Filters (EQ, Wah)
2. Compression
3. Distortion/Overdrive
4. Modulation (Flange, Chorus etc…)
5. Volume/Volume effects (e.g. Tremolo)
6. Reverb/Delay
7. Amp/Amp Model

For my purposes, however this doesn’t make sense. I need two separate chains – one for space and one for punch.

In the next post we’ll see how to make it all work together.

Like many guitarists, I’ve acquired a few pedals over the years but when it comes to the acoustic, I’ve tended to steer clear from effects when playing live – typically, a little reverb and maybe some delay is about as far as I would venture.

Obviously this is because we don’t want to mess with the basic sound of what essentially is an acoustic instrument, right?

Well, I’ve recorded plenty of acoustic guitars and can tell you that in the studio I (and most other producers) use plenty of effects on acoustic guitars – it’s just that these are applied subtly and not in the “in your face” way typical of most guitar rigs. As we’re getting ready to take the Troubadours project (https://www.facebook.com/lastofthetroubadours) into the wild, I’ve been keen to replicate our studio sound live so started looking at what I could do (short of dragging my Logic rig to every pub we play in).

There are a couple of significant challenges to using effects with an acoustic guitar – not least of which is that most guitar effects are way too extreme. Our goal of playing acoustic songs was to show off the tone and sound, not to emulate a full-on electric band. The effects should enhance the sound of the acoustic guitar, not fundamentally change it.

In the studio, a common trick is to leave the pure acoustic sound untouched and to feed the signal into a “send” channel where the effect can be applied. This is then blended in with the original to create the full sound you hear on many recordings. In my studio, in addition to reverb and delay, I will typically use modulation effects (like chorus or flange), overdrive (just a little “crunch”, not metal style distortion), compression and EQ to get a great acoustic tone.

I’ve spent a couple of months playing around with pedals again, and with help from my friends at Guitar Mania I have designed a board that allows me to sound as good when playing live as I can when I record (as well as adding a couple of extra goodies to my sonic arsenal that I wouldn’t previously have thought of).

Boss LS-2

The first trick with using pedals designed for electric guitars with acoustic is to get the blend of effected and clean sound through the chain. My first thought was to use a mini mixer with the pedal board, but after a bit of head scratching it turns out that the Boss LS-2 Line Selector does exactly what we need and lets me switch the effects with my feet! I ended up with 2 of these on the board (to support 2 different effects chains mixed in with the clean sound) which weren’t the most exciting toys to get (it always seems disappointing to spend cash on something that doesn’t actually make any noise) but were definitely the most useful – I would recommend that any guitarist have one of these in their toolkit, they have a million creative uses beyond just switching between different amps.

The way I have the LS-2′s set is for the clean signal to be connected to the input, the effects to be fed from “Send A” in a loop back into “Return A”, and the “Send and Return B” jacks to be left disconnected. I then set the mode switch to the “A+B Mix” setting.

It turns out that if you leave a loop disconnected on the LS-2, then it is the same as if you have a cable going straight from the send to the return (e.g. it created a closed loop) – this means that on my LS-2 the “B” send and return contains only a clean signal and I can control the mix of dry (B channel) and effected (A channel) signal using the two level controls on the pedal. When then pedal is switched off, only the clean signal is passed. The pedals are also pretty well built and don’t seem to colour the sound, which is always a concern.

Pedal Power

Now we can control the blend of acoustic sound and effects, it’s time to have fun and play around with different pedals. I had some idea of the fundamental qualities I was after but with little idea of the current range of pedals available it was time to hit the guitar shop.

For the basics I was fairly clear that I wanted:

• A delay to help fill in the sound and help add sustain
• Some type of “crunch” to beef up riffs and lead lines
• A chorus to add a bit of depth