Posts Tagged ‘pedal’

Phase Shifter Guitar

Saturday, July 10th, 2010

Phase Shifter Guitar

Audio Effects - Phase Shifting & Chorus

Audio effects! Is there anything they can't do? We're continuing on with this series, this article being part 4 in the series. I was thinking about the best way to abstractly describe the function and importance of audio effects and knowing your effects well. This is what I came up with. Your studio is basically your tool box, with all your effects and gear being tools in your tool box. Most people know their tools pretty well, but most are not masters. To hammer a nail, ideally you'd want to use a hammer. It would be the most efficient and easy way to do it. You could use a screwdriver or even a wrench to do the same job, but it may take more time and your end result might not be up to your standards. So, basically I'm trying to say, you need to master all of your tools before you can produce and edit music correctly. Well, that was a long winded explanation for a simple idea. Moving on.

Today we're going to be discussing phase shifting and chorus effects. Phase shifting is kind of cool, and I'm really excited to delve into how it works. Chorus is a basic effect, and may not elicit excitement in most of you. But like any effect, it's one of those that is used all over the place so often that you probably can't tell when it's used. Anyways, let's discuss how these effects work and why they work the way they do.

Phase Shifting
The first phase shifting effect units were pretty simple. Phasing was originally produced by copying the sound onto two analogue tape decks and mixing them together. One deck was run slightly faster than the other and the phasing effect was created by the rising and falling "wave interference" of the two signals. The term phasing more specifically refers to a swept comb-filtering effect where there is no linear harmonic relationship between the teeth of the comb. A flanger is a sub-type of phaser, with its effect usually being more precise, produced by the harmonic relationship of the comb filter being linear. Phasing effects in modern music are typically used in conjunction with electric guitar, and it is also used to "sweeten" the sound of electric keyboards. Also, a fun fact is that a phaser was used to create C-3PO's voice in the movie Star Wars because the phaser sound lends a synthetically generated feel to the human voice.

Chorus
When chorus is used, individual sounds with roughly the same timbre and nearly the same pitch converge and are perceived as one. When it is successful, all the sounds hold the same tune and it sounds as if they all came from the same source. The chorus effect is enhanced when the sounds originate from different moments in time and from different physical locations. To produce this effect artificially, a computer processor takes an audio signal and mixes it with one or more delayed, pitch-shifted copies of itself. This results in the production of a single sound that simulates the sound of several instruments or sounds.

Alright, this wraps up the 4th installment in my audio effects article series. I never knew how the chorus effect worked, and now that we discussed it, it seems like the name of the effect is exactly what it does. And phase shifting was sort of a carry-over from the article discussing flange. But since flange is basically a type of phase shifter, I think that it was very important that we discussed it in this article. Anyways, hope you all learned something in this article. Please stay tuned for my next installment in this continuing series.

About the Author

Jason Cole and DiskFaktory Mastering offer great professional mastering services and information regarding audio engineering and CD mastering in California. Get the professional cd mastering information you are seeking now by visiting http://diskfaktory-mastering.com/evaluation.htm

What order do my guitar effects go in?

My effects are...
Boss Super Chorus
Boss Compression sustainer
Boss Blues Driver
Boss Metal Core
Boss Flanger
Boss Phase Shifter
Rocktron Banshee Talkbox
Dunlop Crybaby Classic Wah

Please put it in this format..
Guitar
Effect
effect
amp
I also have an effetcs loop to use

In general, the "traditional" way of ordering effects is

first: tuners, compressors, buffers
second: distortion
third: modulation (chorus, phasers, flangers, etc)
fourth: time-based (delay)
fifth: wah and other filters (ie, talkbox, eq)

If you have an fx loop, that's a great place to put your modulation fx (chorus, flanger, etc), they'll be more obvious and have a better overall sound. EQ is also good in the fx loop for fine-tuning your sound.

If I was playing this signal chain live, I would put them in the following order:

Guitar
Compression
Metal Core OR Blues Driver
Chorus
Phaser OR Flanger
Talkbox OR Wah
Amp

And even this is too much for me. If I've ever learned one thing, it's to keep things as simple as humanly possible. I usually want four basic sounds - clean, effected clean, rhythm crunch, distorted lead - and I want the least possible to get me there. Honestly, I'd cut it down to this:

Guitar
Chorus
Phaser
Wah
Amp

I'd use the amp with a channel switch to go between clean and dirty, use the chorus and/or phaser for effected cleans (I'm a chorus whore, but I love the sound of a phaser, ideally I'd want both) and use the wah for a solo boost. I have a Dunlop 535Q, which has a solo boost built into it, so that's usually what I use when I want to solo, just kick 'er in while on dirty. I actually have a multifx (Boss GT-3) that I use for my cleans now, so I get a built-in tuner, I have an expression pedal to control parameters in real time (fade in more of an effect, change the depth, add echo, whatever), I can sync tap-tempo chorus and delay, etc. Good stuff. So that makes two pedals (multifx and wah) if I have an amp with decent distortion, three pedals if I don't (I use a Metal Zone for my distortion then).

Again, it's all about simplicity - what is the least I need for my sound? That means less to go wrong, fewer cables, fewer batteries or power adadpters, fewer pedals to stomp on, and the ability to concentrate more on having a good time and giving a good performance.

Your goals, and the sounds you may want to create, may differ from mine, and I'm okay with that - this is how I approach it.

Good luck!

Saul