Legend has i that John Lennon came up with the term for- another guitar processor,

the fianger As The Beatles pounded out their hits at Abbey Road, producer- and 'fifth
Beatie' George Martin was always looking for ways to facilitate his boys' sonic
explorations. One of Mal-tin's engineer-s, Ken Townsend, had discovered 'automatrc
double-tracking', using a second analogue tape machine to create a del yed version of
the original vocal and hen feeding it back into the miX. By varying the delay, a yvhooshing­
type sound could be produced Unsure how to explain this phenomenon to the non­
technical Lennon, Martin offered the explanation that you" ... take the original 1m ge and
split it through a double vibrocated sploshing flange with double negative feedback... "
And from that moment on Lennon would call for "Ken's flanger-", until the advent of solid­
state technology allowed companies such as NDA and lectro-Harmonix to create the
portable flanger pedal. Happy accidents indeed

Types of effect
Effects al-e often grouped into different categories depending upon how they are
electronically created.

Effects that alter the gain structure of an instrument ar-e commonly referred to as
dynamic effects. These would include variants of distol-tion, such as overdrive, fuzz and
various boost devices. A further sub-category includes compressors and limiters.

Effects th t rely on altering the time element of he ol-iginal signal ar-e often called time­
based effects. Often these are subdivided into modulation effects and forms of rev rb
and delay Modulation effects include the aforementioned flanger. phaser.tremolo, vibrato
and chorus, Reverb and delay effects also include echo,

FilteF-based effects manipulate a given set of frequencies either manually or- by dynamic
control and include wah-wah and envelope filters,

Dynamic effects
DISTORTION, FUZZ, AND OVERDRIVE Essen' ally these are three variations on a
theme. One of the earliest ways of achieVing an overdriven bass sound was simply to
push an amplifier until It distorted, The earlier valve amplifiers certainly produced a
sweet-sounding drive when used this way. as players such as Jack Bruce and Jack Casady
of Jefferson Airplane proved by pushing their heads into distortion, An effects revolution
was launched when the transistor allowed designers to recreate the overdrive effect at
bedmom levels. Models such as the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff, now reissued in both US
and Russian variations, wer-e originally aimed at guitarists but worked well on bass. Chris
Wolstenholme from Muse IS one fan In 1968, Lan-y Graham, bassist with Sly and the
Family Stone, recorded one of the ear-liest delibe te fuzz-bass parts on the band's hit
'Dance To The Music'. He used a Maestro Fuzz-Tone, Paul McCal"tney is also credited on
Rubber Soul as playi g fuzz bass, using a disto ion unit built by Abbey Road's finest
Chris Wolstenholme of Muse often
engineers.
plays his Pedulla Rapture through
an Electro·Harmonlx Big Muff
Most overdrive units contain thr-ee controls: gain. to alter the amount of distortion. tone, distortion pedal.

S SPE E S FECT & CA LE

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 to alte he anal characteristics of the sound, and outpu ,to dJust the final volume.
Some pedals. such as the Boss ODB-3, also have balance or mix con ral to allow
blending of the direct signal Ith the distorted signal.

COMPRESSORS AND LIMITERS A compressor controls the dynamics of your bass

by Iimrting the signal peaks according to settings adjusted by the user. E reme forms of
compression are knovvn as Iimi Ing. The ffect IS often misunderstood,
i"1ost play rs can understand what distortion pedal does, how echo IS gOing to
sou d, nd, maybe, what a chorus does. If anyone IS In doubt. it's a fairly SlmpJe procedure
to explain what e ch does by pi ylng a few unes where each pedal has been utilised If
)'OU want to heat- some nifty bass distortion, check out Flea's Intra on 'Around The
World'; for some haunting chorus, cheek oul Chris Novoselic's bassllne on irvana's
classic 'Come As You Are'. and fOI- bn of Ranger try H wkwlnd's 'Sil 'er Machine'.
But what does a compressor do) Actually. It'S qUite Simple in Its most basIC form. A
compressor controls the dynamiCS of your- bass gurtar output. Imagine yourself playing a
nice, smooth, Ingerstyle bassline. If your techniqlle is 100 per cent perfect (more of that
later) the you III be pi ymg at d certain volume level: let's call it level A. No ,Imagine
gOing into hard aggressive slap-b 55 groove. You're popping and riffing for all rt's worth,
You could. for a moment, Imagine you're Fie ,who does dopt JUst such playing s yle.
ThiS new playing aggression IS gOing to produce a different volume level tha we'll call
Ie el B. Level B is going to be much louder than level A. which can cause all sorts of
p,-oblems.
If you were playing lose 0 your amp ng's limits With the fingerstyle hne, then all that
slapping IS just going Lo ause dlstor Ion (of the nasty sort). If you dre in a studio
envlro ent, all the meters could end up going into the red, ruining a take \Ne could
reduce the 0 et-allievel so the slapping stays clean, but then we find all the subtleties of the
nngerstyle line are lost because it's nat loud enough.
The studio engineer could make sudden and drastiC level changes with the mixe( fader
for these dynamic alt tions, but wouldn't it be nice if there was machine that did thi
for yo I A compressol- does JUst that
No amount of compreSSion can make up for uneven Ie and nght hand techniques
or poorly exe u ed chops, but it c 1'1 give a helping hand for whe levels eed smoothing
out. FX manufact rer Guyatone points out how helpful the compressor can be: "Let's
face it - no matter how grea a player you are, it's Virtually impossible to hit every Single
note at the same volume. Today's advanced playing techniques make it even ore of a
chore a malmain a solid bo om that doesn'L drop in and out of he mix." QUIte.
The compressor pedal is diVided into Lwo sections. he oltage co trolled amplifier
(VCA), which o-eates the volume control, nd he detector (or side chain) that decides
when he volume should be controlled. Controls re commonly as follows:

Threshold ThiS sets the pOint at which the dynamiCS are controlled. hen Lh Input
sign- J IS below the threshold no change at all should take pi ceo When the sign I passes
thiS pOint. the dynamics are altered according to how the remaining parameters are set.
Blackbox. which builds the Oxygen compressor p dal, offers the follOWing useful ad ice:
"Too much Itmitin can cause the sign I Lo sound dull and lifeless, because It kills Sign I

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dynamics if overused." So 0 easy with that control. unless you are after a deliberate,
heavily squashed sound.

Ratio This control decides how hard the volume should be compressed when it passes
the threshold. It is measured as a ratio of altered signal to una ered, hence the control's
name. SI nals below the thl'eshold pOint have a ratio of I: I; ie, there IS no change
oetween input and output. Put 4dB of signal in and yo get 4dB out. If we turn the ratio
up to, say, 2: I , then for every 4dB we put In over the threshold only 2dB is gOing to be
allowed to I'each your amp or mlxel~ With a 10: I ratio setli g (we't'e cranking It up now)
for every IOdb tha goes in, only I dB can leave That's senously compressing youl' signal.

Attack time ThiS adjUsts the time between the signal passing the thl'eshold ilnd gain
reduction occurring. Do we 'attack' the signal q ickly. or slowly?

Release time This adjusts the Lime between the input signal dropping below the
threshold and the moment full gain is restored. If you hea und srrable 'p mping' or
'breathing' effects in the co pressed signal. turn he release knob clockwise to a hig
release-time setting.

Compressors are often grouped with effects called limiters, which 'limit' a signal from
passing a eel-rain point. Often the limiter will ha e . very high ratio capability so that no
signal passes at all. This would be use ul for controlling, for exampl ,any unwanted noise
through a sound system to prevent its self-destruction. Compressors are loved by
guitarists as well; theil' sustain and g-ain-enhancing capabilities re ideal for soloing.
Compl'essors for bass tend to fall into two e tegories: those t want pUl'e and clean
dynamic control at any price, and those that favour a smooth tube-like distortion similar
to that a vintage valve amp, which exhibits n tUI-al compression lhmugh its all-valve
construction. The fOl'mer is great for controlling the dynamics involved in slap-bass
playing, whilst the latter is great fOl' getting a grinding Billy Sheehan/Jack Bl'uce/Chns
Wolstenholme tone,
The Guyatone compressor mentioned above Iso allows bassists to search out some
growl along with dynamic limiting (or even in this case, boosting) cap bilities: "Hlghel'
threshold settings yield a warm, round, slightly gritty tone simililr to a hard-working tube
amp. With low threshold and high level settings, the BL-2 can also be used as an
uncompressed clean booster with up to 40dB of gain."

Modulation effects
CHORUS/FLANGER/PHASER/TREMOLO/REVERB/DELAY Modulation effects
pmduce some of the most stri 'ng sounds when applted to bass guital~ Chorus offers up
a lush, shlmmenng tone. as if two basses have been double tracked.
Boss has made a numbel' of classic chorus units including a bass specifiC unit. the
CEB-3. Nirvana's Chris Novosellc made the chorus pedal a must, after his bass part on
Nevermind's 'Come As You Are', which used an Electro-Harmonlx Small Clone unit.
Chorus contmls are often just t 0 in number: rate to adjust the speed of the chol'us
shimmer and depth to adjust the intensity of the effect

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