Cooper's Cornucopia of Kooky Stuff
The Truth About Pedals

Since I don't write many articles, I figure there's no truly wrong way to do this. However, if you feel uncomfortable or experience any dizziness, please stop reading.

Effects pedals have been plaguing guitarists for about thirty years now. They're relatively inexpensive, highly portable and can make ridiculous amounts of noise. I love them and hate them, for various reasons. However, when used properly they can produce some truly fantastic sounds, so that's why they're still around. Like cockroaches and Spam.

Rather than go through and explain the purpose of all these effects, I'm going to assume you know a little bit about delay, overdrive, distortion, etc.

COOL TRICK #1: Double Overdrive
Place two different (or identical, as for that matter) overdrive pedals in line between your guitar and amplifier. Make sure your amp is on its cleanest setting and set your EQs flat. With experimentation, you'll find that one pedal is the "main color" pedal, the one that produces the basis of your tone. The second overdrive acts almost like a compressor, rolling off highs and adding sustain. Typically the first pedal is for 75% overdrive, and the second gives you the rest. I use a Boss Blues Driver for my main tone and a Boss Dual Overdrive for the secondary element. To my ears this works great, but I've also gotten cool tones with an MXR Distortion and a TubeScreamer, a Dunlop Fuzzface and Boss OD-1 along with many other combinations.

Warning! If you try this, never turn both pedals all the way up. You'll go blind!

Warning #2! This does not work with distortion pedals. Distortion is a much more dramatic effect than overdrive, and it doesn't lend itself to "tone stacking." If you plug a Boss Metal Zone into another Metal Zone you'll get a ton of white noise at best, and a lot of uncomfortable squealing feedback, at worst. Or both.

The same goes for an overdriven amp. If you've got an old Marshall or Boogie with a nice dirty sound, but you want to boost it up, try this:

COOL TRICK #2: Slamming the Front End of Your Amp
Take your tube amp and dial up a nice overdrive or light distortion tone. Put an overdrive pedal between guitar and amp, and nail the output of the pedal. You will now use the gain (overdrive) level knob to control "volume." With some tweaking, you can make a nice blues-y tone jump out and bark, without tons of mushy, bad distortion.

Try these two ideas when you've got some time. I think you'll enjoy the results, and it may get you closer to "your" sound, rather than the sound the guys with all the computer chips want you to have.

Chris Cooper is the guitarist for Ishi, a Charlotte-based original band whose first full-length album Lost in a Bordertown is scheduled for release in early 2000. Cooper has played numerous styles of music for over eleven years with overseas tours to Guam, Greece and Turkey. He has also been a guitar tech and a guitar builder's apprentice at Craig's Guitar Shop and currently works in the shop at McFadyen Music in Charlotte.