An effects unit or effects pedal is an electronic device that alters the sound of a musical instrument or other audio source through audio signal processing.
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand. A plectrum or individual finger picks may also be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant chamber on the instrument, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier.
The Clavinet is an electrically amplified clavichord invented by Ernst Zacharias and manufactured by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany, from 1964 to 1982. The instrument produces sounds with rubber pads, each matching one of the keys and responding to a keystroke by striking a given point on a tensioned string, and was designed to resemble the Renaissance-era clavichord.
A keytar is a kind of musical instrument similar to a synthesizer or MIDI controller that supported by a strap around the neck and shoulders, similar to the way a guitar is held. The word "keytar" a portmanteau of the words "keyboard" and "guitar".
The EBow, short for electronic bow or energy bow, is an electronic device used for playing string instruments, most often the electric guitar. It is manufactured by Heet Sound Products, of Los Angeles, California. It was invented by Greg Heet in 1969, introduced in 1976 and patented in 1978.
The Fender Jaguar is an electric guitar by Fender Musical Instruments characterized by an offset-waist body, a relatively unusual switching system with two separate circuits for lead and rhythm, and a short-scale 24" neck. Owing some roots to the Jazzmaster, it was introduced in 1962 as Fender's feature-laden top-of-the-line model, designed to lure players from Gibson. During its initial 13-year production run, the Jaguar did not sell as well as the less expensive Stratocaster and Telecaster, and achieved its most noticeable popularity in the surf music scene. After the Jaguar was taken out of production in 1975, vintage Jaguars became popular first with American punk rock players, and then more so during the alternative rock, shoegazing and indie rock movements of the 1980s and 1990s. Fender began making a version in Japan in the mid-1980s, and then introduced a USA-made reissue in 1999. Since then, Fender has made a variety of Jaguars in America, Mexico, Indonesia and China under both the Fender and Squier labels. Original vintage Jaguars sell for many times their original price.
The Fender Jazz Bass is the second model of electric bass created by Leo Fender. It is distinct from the Precision Bass in that its tone is brighter and richer in the midrange and treble with less emphasis on the fundamental frequency. The body shape is also different from the Precision Bass, in that the Precision Bass has a symmetrical lower bout on the body, designed after the Telecaster and Stratocaster lines of guitars, while the Jazz Bass has an offset lower bout, mimicking the design aesthetic of the Jaguar and Jazzmaster guitars.
A pickup is a transducer that captures or senses mechanical vibrations produced by musical instruments, particularly stringed instruments such as the electric guitar, and converts these to an electrical signal that is amplified using an instrument amplifier to produce musical sounds through a loudspeaker in a speaker enclosure. The signal from a pickup can also be recorded directly.
Paul Languedoc is an American audio engineer and luthier who is most closely associated with the rock band Phish.
Moogerfooger is the trademark for a series of analog effects pedals manufactured by Moog Music. There are currently eight different pedals produced; however, one of these models is designed for processing control voltages rather than audio signal. A sixth model, the Analog Delay, was released in a limited edition of 1000 units and has become a collector's item. Moog Music announced on August 28, 2018, that the Moogerfooger, CP-251, Minifooger, Voyager synthesizers, and some other product lines were being built using the remaining parts on hand and discontinued thereafter.
An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked, its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, resonating through the air in the body, and producing sound from the sound hole. The original, general term for this stringed instrument is guitar, and the retronym 'acoustic guitar' distinguishes it from an electric guitar, which relies on electronic amplification. Typically, a guitar's body is a sound box, of which the top side serves as a sound board that enhances the vibration sounds of the strings. In standard tuning the guitar's six strings are tuned (low to high) E2 A2 D3 G3 B3 E4.
A guitar synthesizer is any one of a number of musical instrument systems that allow a guitarist to access synthesizer capabilities.
The Rickenbacker 330 is part of Rickenbacker's 300 series of guitars. The 330 entered the Rickenbacker product line in 1958, though at the time the 300 series of guitars was known as the "Capri" series. It was designed by the German luthier Roger Rossmeisl. The guitar is associated by many players with the jangle-rock sounds of bands from the 1960s and 1980s. The instrument incorporates many features standard on Rickenbacker guitars, including a three-ply maple/walnut neck, a shallow headstock angle, and a thick rosewood fretboard finished with clear conversion varnish. The 330 also features a body with Rickenbacker's "crescent moon" double-cutaway shape with sharp, unbound edges, and an "R"-shaped trapeze tailpiece. One idiosyncrasy of the guitar is its dual truss rods, which allow for the correction of problematic and unwanted twists, as well as curvature, of the guitar's neck. The 330 is equipped with a monaural jack plate, lacking the Rick-O-Sound stereo functionality of other Rickenbacker models such as the Rickenbacker 360.
Playing a string harmonic is a string instrument technique that uses the nodes of natural harmonics of a musical string to isolate overtones. Playing string harmonics produces high pitched tones, often compared in timbre to a whistle or flute. Overtones can be isolated "by lightly touching the string with the finger instead of pressing it down" against the fingerboard. For some instruments this is a fundamental technique, such as the Chinese guqin, where it is known as fan yin, and the Vietnamese đàn bầu.
The Gibson RD series solid body electric guitars were launched in 1977. Distinguished by its active electronics, they were designed to appeal to those interested in synthesizers as well as guitars. An "unhappy marriage of traditional and modern design", the series was unsuccessful, though the concept of the RD was continued for a while in the Les Paul Artist series.
The Gibson Robot Guitar is a limited-edition self-tuning Gibson guitar, typically a Les Paul. The first run of limited edition Robot Guitars was exclusively made up of Les Paul bodies. Five different Gibson models were available ) with Robot Guitar features: The Robot Les Paul Studio, Robot SG, Robot Flying V, Robot X-plorer, and a Robot Les Paul Junior. Developed by Chris Adams, its most notable feature is that it uses an onboard computer to automatically tune itself. This is not the first guitar to be able to tune itself, but it is regarded as the most modern, unique, and non-invasive self-tuning model available, because it does not employ cams or cantilevers throughout the body of the guitar. The non-limited edition SG and Les Paul Studio are available in a variety of finishes. The Flying V and Explorer are only available in metallic red. The price can range from about $1,000-$3,000 or more for custom options. In the case of the "Original 1st Production" Robot guitar, the only finish available was Blue Silverburst nitrocellulose, a color which Gibson has stated will never be used on any other Gibson guitar. The original Robot guitar also featured headstock and neck binding which are not standard on any current Les Paul Robot as well as a chrome truss rod cover with "Robot Guitar" engraved. The production version featured 22-fret rosewood-bound or white-bound ebony fingerboard with figured acrylic trapezoid inlays, white-bound headstock with MOP Gibson logo and flowerpot inlay or unbound headstock with screened logo, three-per-side robotic Powerhead Locking tuners, tune-o-matic Powertune bridge, Powertune stop tailpiece, two chrome-covered humbucker pickups, four knobs, three-way pickup switch, Neutrik jack on side of guitar, chrome hardware.
The Korg PS-3300 is a polyphonic analog synthesizer, produced by Korg between 1977 and 1981.
The Parker Fly was a model of electric guitar built by Parker Guitars. It was designed by Ken Parker and Larry Fishman, and first produced in 1993. The Fly is unique among electric guitars in the way it uses composite materials. It is notable for its light weight and resonance. It was also one of the first electric guitars to combine traditional magnetic pickups with piezoelectric pickups, allowing the guitarist to access both acoustic and electric tones. Production ended in 2016 and the company has not released a new model of any kind since.
Jens Ritter Instruments is a manufacturer of high-end electric stringed instruments. It was founded by Jens Ritter in the mid-1990s and was known as Ritter Bass Guitars until 2010 when Jens expanded his line to include guitars. Jens produces 50 to 60 handmade instruments each year in his shop located in the small wine town of Deidesheim,Germany.
The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the Tele, is an electric guitar produced by Fender. Together with its sister model the Esquire, it is the world's first mass-produced, commercially successful solid-body electric guitar. Its simple yet effective design and revolutionary sound broke ground and set trends in electric guitar manufacturing and popular music.
