An effects unit, effects processor, 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 stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted and typically has six or twelve 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 guitar pick may also be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant hollow chamber on the guitar, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier.
The Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) was an American committee formed in 1985 with the stated goal of increasing parental control over the access of children to music deemed to have violent, drug-related, or sexual themes via labeling albums with Parental Advisory stickers. The committee was founded by four women known as the "Washington Wives"—a reference to their husbands' connections with government in the Washington, D.C. area. The women who founded the PMRC are Tipper Gore, wife of Senator and later Vice President Al Gore; Susan Baker, wife of Treasury Secretary James Baker; Pam Howar, wife of Washington realtor Raymond Howar; and Sally Nevius, wife of former Washington City Council Chairman John Nevius. The PMRC eventually grew to include 22 participants before shutting down in the mid-to-late 1990s.
Audioslave was an American rock supergroup formed in Glendale, California, in 2001. The four-piece band consisted of Soundgarden's lead singer and rhythm guitarist Chris Cornell with Rage Against the Machine members Tom Morello, Tim Commerford, and Brad Wilk (drums). Critics first described Audioslave as a combination of Soundgarden and Rage Against the Machine, but by the band's second album, Out of Exile, it was noted that they had established a separate identity. Their unique sound was created by blending 1970s hard rock and 1990s alternative rock, with musical influences that included 1960s funk, soul and R&B. As with Rage Against the Machine, the band prided themselves on the fact that all sounds on their albums were produced using only guitars, bass, drums, and vocals, with emphasis on Cornell's wide vocal range and Morello's unconventional guitar solos.
The Clavinet is an electric 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 vibrato system on a guitar is a mechanical device used to temporarily change the pitch of the strings. It adds vibrato to the sound by changing the tension of the strings, typically at the bridge or tailpiece of an electric guitar using a controlling lever, which is alternately referred to as a whammy bar, vibrato bar, or tremolo arm. The lever enables the player to quickly and temporarily vary the tension and sometimes length of the strings, changing the pitch to create a vibrato, portamento, or pitch bend effect. Instruments without a vibrato have other bridge and tailpiece systems.
"Killing in the Name" is a song by the American band Rage Against the Machine, and appears on their 1992 self-titled debut album. It features heavy drop-D guitar riffs. The lyrics protest police brutality, inspired by the beating of Rodney King and the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
"Bulls on Parade" is a song by American rock band Rage Against the Machine. It is the second song from their second studio album, Evil Empire (1996). It was released as the album's first single to modern rock radio on February 9, 1996.
"Mofo" is a song by Irish rock band U2. It is the third track on their 1997 album Pop, and was released as the album's final single on 8 December 1997. The song was partially written about lead vocalist Bono's mother, who died when he was 14 years old. Other songs which Bono wrote about his mother include "Lemon", "I Will Follow", "Iris " and "Tomorrow".
"Know Your Enemy" is a song by American rock band Rage Against the Machine. It features Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan on vocals during the bridge section, and Jane's Addiction drummer Stephen Perkins playing additional percussion. Allmusic describes the song as "immediately memorable" and "surprisingly straightforward" while music critic Joel McIver cited it as "a standout track" of the album. "Know Your Enemy" had received significant radio airplay by 1993, despite never being released as an official single.
The DigiTechWhammy is a pitch shifter pedal manufactured by DigiTech. It raises or lowers the pitch of an audio signal by up to two octaves, controlled with a treadle. The first model, released in 1989, was the first mass-market digital pitch shifter.
"Calm Like a Bomb" is a song by American rock band Rage Against the Machine from their third album The Battle of Los Angeles. Like their song "Tire Me" from the 1996 album Evil Empire, “Calm Like a Bomb” never had a music video or was released on any media formats. It did, however, receive enough radio airplay to become an album favorite.
"Wake Up" is a song by American rock band Rage Against the Machine. It is the seventh track from their self-titled debut album. While never released as a single, it remains a staple of their live shows and is usually played as the last song before the encore; the spoken word portion of the song, using a real memo from J. Edgar Hoover, is often replaced with a speech addressing contemporary issues, given by frontman Zack de la Rocha. It appears in the 1999 film The Matrix to punctuate the final scene, which has increased its exposure and cultural cachet.
"Show Me How to Live" is a song by the American rock supergroup Audioslave. It was released in June 2003 as the third single from their first album, Audioslave, released in 2003. It peaked at number 67 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, number 2 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks and number 4 in the Modern Rock Tracks.
"The Ghost of Tom Joad" is a folk rock song written by Bruce Springsteen. It is the title track to his eleventh studio album, released in 1995. The character Tom Joad, from John Steinbeck's classic 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath, is mentioned in the title and narrative.
Brian Gibson is an American musician, artist, and video game designer based in Providence, Rhode Island. Gibson is best known as the bassist for the band Lightning Bolt. In the summer of 2015 he co-founded the game development company Drool. At Drool, he created the art and music for the video game Thumper and co-designed the game alongside Marc Flury. Thumper was released with critical acclaim in October 2016. He was previously a lead artist working at video game company Harmonix since 2001, but quit in the summer of 2015.
"Original Fire" is a song by American hard rock band Audioslave. It was released in July 2006 as the first single from the album Revelations.
Dive bomb is a guitar technique in which the tremolo bar, or whammy bar is used to rapidly lower the pitch of a note, creating a sound considered to be similar to a bomb dropping. One of the most recognized pioneers of this technique is Jimi Hendrix. Other musicians who used this technique are Dave Murray, Herman Li, Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads, Brian May, Joe Satriani and Tom Scholz of Boston. Some guitarists, such as K.K. Downing, Glenn Tipton, Jeff Hanneman and Dimebag Darrell have used a variation of this technique in which a harmonic, most commonly a pinch harmonic, is used instead of a normal fretted or open note creating a sound arguably closer to that of a bomb due to the squealing sound created by the harmonic.
"Promenade" is the second single by rap rock supergroup Street Sweeper Social Club from their debut self-titled album. The version that was released as a single differs from that on the album, the original version on the album is 2:31 in length whereas the extended version is 3:40 in length. The extended version features a guitar solo by Tom Morello, the extended version is also on The Ghetto Blaster EP, but is listed as the 'Guitar Fury remix'.
Heavy metal bass is the use of the bass guitar in the rock music genres of heavy metal and hard rock. The bassist is part of the rhythm section in a heavy metal band, along with the drummer, rhythm guitarist and, in some bands, a keyboard player. The prominent role of the bass is key to the metal sound, and the interplay of bass and distorted electric guitar is a central element of metal. The bass guitar provides the low-end sound crucial to making the music "heavy". The bass plays a crucial role in heavy metal and a more important role than in traditional rock."
