Inspiring Effects Pedals That Help You Think Differently
Inspiring Effects Pedals That Help You Think Differently · Source: Eventide / Endorphin.es / Erica Synths
We explore some inspiring effects pedals that can help you to think differently about the sound creation process in any style of music under the sun.
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Creating sounds usually starts with an idea, but it always helps to have tools that inspire you throughout the process. With an exciting effects pedal or two, you can have a consistent source of inspiration and ideas for your music production and songwriting workflow. Of course, these pedals aren’t only for guitarists; you can use them on your favorite synths, drum machines, sampling grooveboxes, or as external processors for your DAW.
Because effects pedals are extensions of live instruments, you are exposed to a different approach to sound creation than the one presented by the plugin interface in your DAW. Even if you don’t end up using any of the sounds in your next song, the process of simply using hardware can act as a creative palette cleanser, providing the perfect conditions for that spark of inspiration you’ve been searching for.
Inspiring Effects Pedals: Eventide H90 Harmonizer
If you’re getting into more expansive effects pedals for the first time, it’s worth trying something that can create more than just one sound. The H90 Harmonizer is an immensely flexible multi-effects processor from Eventide, the godfather of effects algorithms, and its powerful engine lets you layer two of its 70 different effects at once.
These effects can be internally routed in series or in parallel, which allows you to let your reverbs and delays spill into each other to create lush soundscapes. Also, because it’s got an extra set of inputs and outputs, you can use the H90 as two separate processors, which really opens up the creative scope, as you can treat drums, synths, or vocals individually.
While the H90 is certainly one of the most expensive effects pedals, it does give you access to more unique effects than any other pedal. From using textured, granular effects like Stutter, Cosmic Web, and GrainMod for exploring ambient sounds, to building polyphonic pitched sequences with the Prism Shift algorithm, the H90 is bound to keep you busy for a while.
Inspiring Effects Pedals: Erica Synths Rezornator
The Rezornator from Erica Synths is a 5-voice digital resonator with a powerful analog input stage that gives you 24 dB of gain that can boost the sound cleanly or introduce a degree of saturation and overdrive before it reaches the versatile DSP engine. Developed with the DSP wizards at 112dB, the Rezornator has a range of ways it can be affected by the input signal, and it can produce some exciting results.
Before the signal reaches the 5-voice resonator, you can shape it with the low-pass filter and change the tonal range. Then, you can tune each of the five resonators, which are delay lines, to different notes in a chord. This can be done in real time by connecting a MIDI keyboard or sending MIDI from your DAW, which enables more expressive, performance-oriented control.
While there is plenty of tweaking you can do, the sonic results are very much influenced by the character of the input signal. So dry, atonal sound can suddenly have pitched harmonics, or a simple melodic line can become a textured chord progression. Cool features like preset morphing add some interesting creative potential, but the envelope follower is its greatest tool, as it allows the resonators to react dynamically to the input signal.
*Note that the Erica Synths Razornator is currently on sale at 27% OFF as part of the Thomann Cyber Deals event
Inspiring Effects Pedals: Endorphin.es Evil Pet
When you first look at the Evil Pet granular effects pedal, you can immediately tell that you won’t lose sight of it for a second, even amongst a forest of other pedals and cables. The Evil Pet can capture sound using four different methods, including its main stereo line inputs, a built-in mic, a microSD card, or its FM radio tuner.
There is a massive sample buffer that allows up to 10 minutes of audio capture, while the 8-voice granular engine creates grains of up to two seconds in length, with MIDI/MPE support and an additional 9th drone note. The granular controls include size, density, position, pitch, cloud, detune, and spread, and there is also a synth oscillator you can layer with the granular engine.
You can shape the sound globally with the envelope controls, a multimode filter, and three LFOs, which can also be switched to envelope followers. In addition, there is a saturation stage, with distortion, chorus, flanger, bit crushing and reduction, as well as a reverb with room, plate, reverse, and shimmer algorithms.
Inspiring Effects Pedals: Conclusion
If you’re sitting down with a new effects pedal for the first time, learning the entire scope of its capabilities can take a while. So instead of tweaking knobs and flipping through menus aimlessly, it really helps to have a simple but relatively defined goal in mind, like “I want to give this synth sound more space and character”, for example.
This way, you immediately have a directive when you are navigating the new interface, and if you need to RTFM at any stage, at least you’ll know what to look for. By repeating this process each time you have an idea to use the effects pedal, it becomes more intuitive each time, and the unexpected exploratory sonic discoveries are sure to follow.
More about Inspiring Effects Pedals:
- More articles in the Perfect Match series
- Thomann’s Guide to Effects Pedals*
- Read more about Effects on Gearnews
*Note: This article contains affiliate links that help us fund our site. Don’t worry: The price for you always remains the same! If you buy something through these links, we receive a small commission. Thank you for your support!
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