Creative Soundscapes: Using Effects Pedals with Acoustic and Classical Guitar

This article was originally published in Acoustic Guitar magazine, May/June 2021

The sound of a steel-string acoustic or classical guitar, played on the couch, strummed around a campfire, or performed in a concert hall, is perhaps unparalleled in beauty and harmonic richness, as most readers of this magazine can attest. Efforts to amplify acoustic and classical guitar for performance often focus on projecting a natural, uncolored sound. Nevertheless, creative breakthroughs and new approaches to your acoustic guitar playing can be found through experimentation with effects pedals, or stompboxes, that are often associated with electric guitar and bass.

Guitar pedals designed to help acoustic guitarists accurately project the natural sound of their guitar, such as the LR Baggs Align Series, the Fishman Aura, and a wide variety of others, are frequently reviewed in Acoustic Guitar and elsewhere. Here, we’ll explore creative ways to use stompboxes on acoustic guitar, to add texture to live-streaming performance, break out of a creative rut, perhaps, and inspire improvisation and songwriting.

1. Commence Clean

Begin with an acoustic or classical guitar that has a good quality pickup, which, although not absolutely necessary, will help you to run your guitar through effects pedals. A vast variety of different pickups are available, including under-saddle piezos, soundboard transducers, and soundhole pickups; LR Baggs Anthem , for example, combines a pickup and internal microphone. Some pickups may sound brittle or be prone to feedback if not conditioned by a preamp, compressor or DI box. If your guitar sound is not “clean” before feeding it into effects pedals, the results will be less then desirable.

2. Break the Rules

It’s easy to swap around a couple of pedals, but as your effects chain grows, your tone can get muddy or sound boomy without the right approach. Tuners are generally placed right after your instrument. Compressors are typically placed near the front of the chain, but often after effects like pitch, fuzz, distortion or overdrive, if using, to get full dynamic response from these effects. Modulation effects, which introduce instability and change over time, are often best placed later in the chain. Delay generally goes before reverb. Reverb is usually best at the end of the chain as it diffuses and dissolves the sound. Loopers, and experimental time effects like freeze, granular, and glitch, are flexible, placed last to record your instrument through the entire chain, or anywhere at all. These guidelines may be helpful in ordering your effects from instrument to output, but find the approach that works for you, your instrument, and your musical style. Tip: Try placing certain effects, such as delay and reverb, in your amp’s effect loop, after its preamp, while running other effects from instrument to amp.

Guitar pedalboard: (from top right): Peterson StroboStomp HD; Gurus Optivalve MKII; LR Baggs Align Series Equalizer; Keely Electronics Dark Side; Dawner Prince Boonar Delay; Electro-Harmonix Grand Canyon Delay/Looper; Hologram Electronics Microcosm; Walrus Audio Slö; Death By Audio Reverberation Machine. Guitar: Yamamoto OMY

 3. Tame Your Dynamics

Compressors control your tone’s dynamic range, making the quiet notes louder and the louder notes quieter, for a smoother listening experience and improved sustain. A good compressor may even sound like it’s not doing anything, until you turn it off and notice the difference. The Gurus Optivalve or Effectrode PC-2A are tube-based compressors that sound stunning with acoustic guitar. Tip: Overuse of a compressor can squash your instrument’s dynamics, while judicious use can help you play more dynamically and avoid sharp or harsh transients.

4. Freeze!

Freeze, essentially a very short loop, allows you to produce sustain, latch a chord beneath your playing, or stack layers of sounds for floating polyphony or ambient “pad” effects. Dedicated freeze or sustain pedals include the Electro-Harmonix Superego+ and Gamechanger Audio’s Plus Pedal, among others. Many reverb pedals, including the Walrus Audio Slö, Cusack Music Resound, and Chase Bliss Audio Dark World, offer the ability to produce sustain or latching, pad-like sounds, via a momentary footswitch. Tip: Pair freeze with modulation to create movement that provides harmonic interest and change in your frozen sound.

5. Make Modulation

Modulation is a family of a variety of effects, but what unites them is movement. Waveforms, and their shapes, such as triangle, sine, square, saw, and ramp, form the heart of modulation effects. Low frequency modulators (LFOs) create movement by adjusting parameters such as depth and rate. Tremolo is the modulation of volume (not to be confused with the classical guitar technique), while vibrato is pitch modulation; some pedals allow you to alternate or mix these two. Flanger can create psychedelic sounds, but can be subtle and naturally-sounding as well. Phaser is a bit more refined, producing pleasing and even dreamlike phase cancellation. Rotary and vibe are gateways to swirly modulation. Chorus, ubiquitous in the 80s, doubles your signal, and can make your six-string sound like a twelve-string guitar. Many reverb and delay pedals also include modulation effects to create movement. Tip: Use creative modulation such as detuning, random modulation, glitch, and more, to add momentary interest or provide the basis for loops.

Figure 1: Sample Effects Pedal Chain . There are no rules!

5. Definitely Delay

Delays—comprised of a recording buffer and feedback loop—produce copies or echoes of your playing that trail behind you and create ambiance. The late Scottish guitarist John Martyn pioneered the use of the Echoplex, a tape delay, to create massive soundscapes of his acoustic (and electric) guitar playing. The number of high-quality delays is vast, including the Dawner Prince Boonar, which emulates the classic Binson Echorec, a multi-head magnetic drum delay; Electro-Harmonix’s Grand Canyon delay and looper; and the Meris Polymoon. Tips: Moderate use of delay can make your acoustic guitar playing sound more expansive. Create momentary bits of chaos by experimenting with self-oscillation; cascade multiple delays to create blooming effects and flexible ambience.

5. Explore Altered Ambiance

Reverb simulates space, as if you’re playing in a large hall or cathedral. Use reverb—actually a cluster of small, diffuse delays—to balance your mix, make recordings sound more natural, and make your sound more epic. Altered ambience such as shimmer, glisten, and pitch modulation, can produce glittering, shifting undertones. The Death by Audio’s Reverberation Machine and Rooms, as well as others, can create abstract, fictional spaces to broaden your acoustic guitar palette. Tips: Use delay and reverb trails for graceful transitions. Stack reverbs, two or more reverb pedals in sequence, to create dreamy soundscapes, atmospheric harmony, and other complex sounds. Split stereo reverb with different effects to create asymmetrical reverb.

6. Get Loopy

Adding a looper to your effect chain—either as a standalone unit or as a part of a multi-effects unit—can help liven your practice sessions and performances. Widely associated with Ed Sheeran, loopers can turn a singer-songwriter into a band, provide inspiration for songwriting and arranging, and allow you to practice improvising solos over an indefatigable rhythm guitar part. Start with a small loop and layer overdubbed parts for added complexity. Many loopers, such as TC Electronic’s Ditto+ Looper, allow you to save your ideas for later, or even bring in backing tracks. Timing the start and end of loops can be tricky, but you’ll soon get the hang of it with practice. Tips: Record and loop a short riff at the end of a song, overdub a few additional chord voicings, and then solo on top of the loop; alter your tone between these layers with different modulations or other effects. Place multiple loopers in your pedalboard to capture different moments that can play against each other like different orbits of song and sound.

7. Bring it all together

Today has been called the golden age of effects pedals, and acoustic guitar players can take advantage of these effects as can other acoustic instruments such as ukulele, harp, violin, and endless others. While ultimately effects should be in service of the song, experimentation and happy accidents can lead to creative breakthroughs in performance, composition, and improvisation. You’ll soon learn that effects pedals can be instruments in themselves. Try adding new life and dimension to your acoustic guitar playing by adding effects such as freeze, delay, modulation ad reverb to songs such as “John Henry” (AG Jan-Feb 2021), “The Lord is My Shepherd” (AG Nov-Dec 2020), or Erik Satie’s “Gnossienne No. 1” (AG Nov 2013). Tips: It’s not necessary for all the pedals in your chain to work together if you don’t necessarily use them that way; think of your pedalboard as different pockets or minichains that work well together. For home recording, record a dry, direct guitar track and use a reamp box and your guitar pedals to add effects after capturing a solid take; some audio interfaces also offer reamp capabilities. Find the combination of pedals that works for you, that shapes your sound and fits your artistic vision.

Authors note: Just after writing this article, I received the Hologram Electronics Microcosm, and that is used in the video above. (I’d only had it for a week, so hadn’t had much opportunity to explore it yet.) More on this amazing pedal to come soon.