How does a distortion pedal work?

Answer 1

Accoustic Guitars work because when you pluck a string, it vibrates. All sound comes from vibrations, for example your voice box vibrates when you talk.So by plucking a string, you make the string vibrate, causing the sound. The hollow body of the guitar increases the volume of this sound. Electric guitars work by having metal strings and pickups. Pickups are magnets with wire wrapped around them. When the string above is struck, it vibrates, causing a change in the magnet's magnetic field (as the magnet is attracting the string). The moving magnetic field (changin according to the amplitude and frequency of the string vibrations) induces a current in the wire wrapped around it, which is the signal sent out from the guitar to the amplifier.
The guitaris a string instrument which is played by plucking the strings. The main parts of a guitar are the body, the fretboard, the headstock and the strings. Guitars are usually made from wood or plastic. Their strings are made of steel or nylon.

The guitar strings are plucked with the fingers and fingernails of the right hand (or left hand, for left handed players), or a small pick made of thin plastic. This type of pick is called a "plectrum" or guitar pick. The left hand holds the neck of the guitar while the fingers pluck the strings. Different finger positions on the fretboard make different notes.

There have been instruments like the guitar for at least 5,000 years. The guitar may have come from older instruments known as the Sitara from ancient India and Central Asia. The oldest known picture of a guitar-like instrument is a 3300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard.

So this is how a guitar is used or worked around the world..

Answer 2

An effects pedal, or stomp box, is an effects unit housed in a small metal chassis, used by musicians, usually Electric Guitar players as a guitar effects pedal, but sometimes players of other instruments including keyboards, violin, or cello. These devices alter the sound quality or timbre of the input signal, adding effects such as distortion, fuzz, overdrive, chorus, reverb, wah-wah, flanging, or phaser. They are called pedals or stomp boxes because they sit on the floor and have large on/off switches on top that are activated by foot. Some, such as wah-wah or volume pedals, are also manipulated while in operation by moving a large foot-activated potentiometer. Guitar effects pedals A guitar effects pedal is connected into a signal chain using two 2-conductor instrument cables with 1/4" jack plugs (or "phone plugs"). The Input jack is usually on the right side, and Output on the left; thus the signal path for a chain of pedals is usually right-to-left. Some effects pedals have stereo out via two mono out signals, and a few have stereo input jacks as well as stereo output jacks. Several pedals can be linked together in a chain. An effects chain can be placed between the guitar and the guitar amplifier's preamp section, within the guitar amplifier's effects loop, after a guitar amplifier's Direct Inject line-level tap jack, after a dummy load attached to the guitar amplifier's output jack, or at the mixing board to process the miked guitar-speaker signal. When a pedal is off or inactive, the signal coming in to the pedal is shunted onto a bypass, so that the "dry" or unaffected signal can go on to other effects down the chain, and thus any combination of effects on a chain can be created without having to reconnect boxes during a performance. True Bypass amounts to an isolated wire passing straight through the effects pedal, as opposed to buffered bypass, which can cause loss of treble, depending on the circuit. The instrument signal can be routed through the stomp boxes in any combination, but to shape and preserve the clarity of the basic distortion tone, it is most common to put wah and overdrive pedals at the start of the chain; pedals which alter the pitch or color of the tone in the middle; and boxes which modify the resonance, such as flanging, delay (echo) and reverb units at the end. EQ, auto-wah, phaser, and vibe effects fit naturally at any position without introducing intermodulation distortion, while the emphatically time-based effects can sound unnatural and chaotic if placed early in the chain. Effects pedals can be used together with other effects units and a guitar amplifier's built-in effects. Guitar amp footpedals Some guitar amplifiers have built-in effects such as Reverb and Tremolo and a switching pedal that turns the effects on or off. Channel switching between clean and distorted channels of a guitar amplifier's built-in preamp is also done with a switching pedal. Pedals other than guitar effects pedals The right pedal on this Yamaha Electone is the volume pedal, which incorporates toe switches that allow the performer to achieve various effects; the left pedal is purely an effects pedal that may be programed to achieve many different effects. Many other musical instruments, among them the piano, pipe organ, drums, and harp, also make use of pedals to achieve tonal, dynamic, or other effects. The piano's sustain pedal is one well-known example. Pipe organs have one or more expression pedals and sometimes a crescendo pedal, which the organist can use to achieve dynamic (or "expressive") changes. Strictly speaking, however, these are neither considered nor called effects pedals. One major exception appears on modern electronic organs and synthesizers, which usually include a volume pedal similar to that of a guitar (indeed, the electronic organ and not the guitar pioneered this pedal), and some advanced models also include an additional effects pedal that may be programmed to serve several of the functions described in the preceding section. Their operation of each is similar to those on guitars; the organist places an entire foot on the pedal and, while playing, gently pumps up and down with heel and toe pressure to achieve the desired effects. Because the organist is usually seated and thus has better balance than the guitarist, the pedals are designed to have a wider range of motion. The organist can thus bring about more pronounced changes than the guitarist with only slight changes in foot pressure, giving a greater level of control than the guitarist. Some pedals also have switches on the end that enable still other effects by "scrunching" the toes to the left or right on the pedal, either in isolation or while pumping the pedal up and down, leading to far more flexibility than most guitar pedals.

Answer 3

It gives it different sound effects, like giving it 'wah' sound or a heavy metal effect etc. There's hundreds of different effects. If you buying one, make sure you get one with effects you will play with, not ones you think are cool but you will ultimately get bored with. Unless you have money to burn

Answer 4

The strings are tightened with 120lbs of pressure across from the lowest to highest string in standard tuning to achieve the proper notes. So this will give them the correct vibration.

Now that our guitar is in tune and the strings are vibrating here's what happens on an electric guitar there's all kinds of electronics in it but most notably the pickups. They are like the ear to the guitar that is why they are right under the strings. When there is electricity flowing through the guitars wires the pickups "pick up" on the vibrations and send them outside the guitar and into an amplifier.

Answer 5

Distortion works by clipping the ends off the wave form or signal.

If a smooth sine wave is sent through a clipping distortion unit, the peaks of the sine wave are cut off and made flat; this create a more square looking wave form and square waveforms have a harsher timbre or quality to them.

Answer 6

Guitar pedals are small electrical devices that will alter your guitar's sound. Traditional Guitar pedals produce effects such as wah-wah, delay tremolo, chorus, flanger, distortion and fuzz .