The Guitar Effect

In his never-ending search for the perfect sound, should a guitarist purchase analog or digital effects?

Ah, the question that’s been running around a guitar freak’s mind. Yeah, this shit has been done ad nauseam on different guitar forums and blogs. However, it is a question that does not present any clear-cut answers. Having played and screwed up gigs using either analog and digital, here’s my take on the topic at hand.

Beginner guitarists are highly recommended to try out multi-digital effects. Assuming that they have an idea of the sound they want but are not sure of which guitar effect to buy, guitarists will definitely learn a lot from using digital effects and browsing through its different tones and cabinets. The advantages of multi-effects are all too clear: the wide range of sounds contained in a pedal, relative inexpensiveness (compared to a complete set of analog pedals), and portability. Also, multi-effects enable beginners to use models of popular pedals and amp settings. For instance, multi-effects have the replicated sounds of a Metal Zone or a Tweed cabinet in their presets, thus allowing beginners of getting their hands on the particular sounds and how to use them.

Analog produces a more natural sound of your guitar. One of the things that keep guitarists from purchasing digital effects is how they rob guitarists of their natural tones. Multi-effects do not require guitarists to have the best guitar with pickups that have great sustain and boosted mids because the effects does the job for them. Good multi-effects now have the capability of making a crappy guitar sound like a dream. In essence, the effects eradicate the color and tone that a pickup provides, something that is not done by an analog effect. In fact, analogs amplifies the natural sound of the pickups, thus creating a warmer and fuller tone. Although multi-effects allow guitarists to play around with different sounds, analog lets them capture their own sound. This probably explains why advanced guitarists espouse the use of analog.

Using multi-effects and analog together proves to be a mixed bag. The only time that I can see myself using both at a gig or a live setting is when I have both compressor and equalizer pedals chained to a multi-effect. Both pedals allow the users to set their preferred tone before plugging it in their multi-effect. Aside from that, I’m not too keen on using both. I don’t promote the use of both distortion pedal and a multi-effect at the same time because it sounds too condensed. It’s a personal thing, I guess.

Still, the question begs to be answered: digital or analog? It all starts with getting your feet wet and trying out different guitar effects that you possibly can. Aside from the ones mentioned above, each pedal and effect have their own unique perks and kinks that you must hear for your consideration. Each guitar player has his own standards on what sounds good, so it’s really important that one develops his tastes for guitar sounds by trying out different effects. Also, the pursuit of the ideal sound for your guitar never ends, so don’t be surprised if you see yourself advocating analog and then shifting to digital in a blink of an eye. As they say, if you find contentment and have stopped improving on your guitar sound, then you should stop playing guitar.