Effects Unit - History

History

Studio effects and early stand alone units

The earliest sound effects were strictly studio productions. In the mid to late 1940s, recording engineers and experimental musicians such as Les Paul began manipulating reel-to-reel recording tape to create echo effects and unusual, futuristic sounds. Microphone placement ("miking") techniques were used in spaces with specially designed acoustic properties to simulate echo chambers.

In 1948 DeArmond released the Trem-Trol, the first commercially available stand-alone effects unit. This device produced a tremolo by passing an instrument's electrical signal through a water-based electrolytic fluid. Most stand-alone effects of the 1950s and early 60s such as the Gibson GA-VI vibrato unit and the Fender reverb box, were expensive and impractical, requiring bulky transformers and high voltages. The original stand-alone units were not especially in-demand as many effects came built into amplifiers. The first popular stand-alone was the 1958 Watkins Copicat, a relatively portable tape echo effect made famous by the British band, The Shadows.

Amplifiers

Amplifier built-ins were the first effects to be used regularly outside the studio by guitar players. From the late 1940s onward, the Gibson Guitar Corp. began including vibrato circuits in combo amplifiers. The 1950 Ray Butts EchoSonic amp was the first to feature the "slapback" echo sound, which quickly became popular with guitarists such as Chet Atkins, Carl Perkins, Scotty Moore, Luther Perkins, and Roy Orbison. By the 1950s, tremolo, vibrato and reverb were available as built-in effects on many guitar amplifiers. Both Premier and Gibson built tube-powered amps with spring reverb. Fender began manufacturing the tremolo amps Tremolux in 1955 and Vibrolux in 1956.

Distortion was not an effect originally intended by amplifier manufacturers, but could often easily be achieved by "overdriving" the power supply in early tube amplifiers. In the 1950s, guitarists such as Willie Johnson of Howlin' Wolf, Goree Carter, Joe Hill Louis, Ike Turner, Guitar Slim, Chuck Berry, Paul Burlison of Johnny Burnette & The Rock and Roll Trio and Link Wray deliberately increased gain beyond its intended levels to achieve "warm" distorted sounds. Pat Hare produced heavily distorted power chords for several 1954 recordings (including James Cotton's Cotton Crop Blues"), creating "a grittier, nastier, more ferocious electric guitar sound," accomplished by turning the volume knob on his amplifier "all the way to the right until the speaker was screaming." Wray's seminal 1958 recording "Rumble" inspired young musicians such as Pete Townshend of The Who, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, Dave Davies of The Kinks, and Neil Young to explore distortion. Davies would famously doctor the speakers of his amp by slitting them with a razor blade to achieve a grittier guitar sound on the 1964 song "You Really Got Me". In 1966, the British company Marshall Amplification began producing the Marshall 1963, a guitar amplifier capable of producing the distorted "crunch" that rock musicians were starting to covet.

Stompboxes

The electronic transistor finally made it possible to cram the aural creativity of the recording studio into small, highly portable stompbox units. Transistors replaced vacuum tubes, allowing for much more compact formats and greater stability. The first transistorized guitar effect was the 1962 Maestro Fuzz Tone pedal, which became a sensation after its use in the 1965 Rolling Stones hit "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction".

Warwick Electronics manufactured the first wah-wah pedal, The Clyde McCoy, in 1967 and that same year Roger Mayer issued the first octave effect, the Octavia. In 1968, Univox began marketing its Uni-Vibe pedal, an effect designed by noted audio engineer Fumio Mieda that mimicked the odd phase shift and chorus effects of the Leslie rotating speakers used in Hammond organs. The pedals soon became favorite effects of guitarists Jimi Hendrix and Robin Trower. Upon first hearing the Octavia, Hendrix allegedly rushed back to the studio and immediately used it to record the guitar solos on "Purple Haze" and "Fire" By the mid-1970s a variety of solid-state effects pedals including flangers, chorus pedals, ring modulators and phase shifters were available.

In the 1980s, digitized rackmount units began replacing stompboxes as the effects format of choice. Often musicians would record "dry", unaltered tracks in the studio and effects would be added in post-production. The success of Nirvana's 1991 album Nevermind helped to re-ignite interest in stompboxes. Throughout the 1990s, musicians committed to a "lo-fi" aesthic such as J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr., Stephen Malkmus of Pavement and Robert Pollard of Guided by Voices continued to use non-digital (analog) effects pedals.

Effects and effects units—stompboxes in particular—have been celebrated by pop and rock musicians in album titles, songs and band names. The Big Muff, a classic fuzzbox manufactured by Electro-Harmonix, is commemorated by the Depeche Mode song "Big Muff" and the Mudhoney EP Superfuzz Bigmuff. Nine Inch Nails, Pink Floyd, George Harrison, They Might Be Giants and Joy Division are among the many musicians who have referenced effects units in their music.