 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(March 2012) |
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| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Consumer electronics |
| Founded | 1994 |
| Founder | Zachary Vex |
| Headquarters | Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States |
| Products | Effects pedals |
| Website | https://www.zvex.com |
Z.Vex Effects is an effects pedal company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Their name derives from the name of founder Zachary Vex.
The company's most famous product is the Fuzz Factory. All of their pedals (except the budget-line Vexter series) are hand painted at their factory in Minnesota. All Vexter subassemblies are made in Taiwan, but the final assembly is completed in the United States.
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The company also manufactures a Probe line of effects (the Fuzz Probe, Wah Probe and Tremolo Probe) that are modified versions of other pedals the company makes. What makes this series of pedals unique is the copper plate, which has an antenna underneath it that senses how close your foot (or something else) is to the pedal, giving you the ability to manipulate an aspect of the pedal's sound. From the company's website:
"The probe circuit generates a small (one or two inches high) 'bubble' of RF energy at about a million cycles per second above the copper plate. As your foot or hand (or any wet or metallic object, for that matter) approaches the copper plate, the RF field is disturbed and the circuit reacts by increasing the brightness of an LED, which drives a photoresistive cell and controls the circuit." [3]
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.
Wah-wah is an imitative word for the sound of altering the resonance of musical notes to extend expressiveness, sounding much like a human voice saying the syllable wah. The wah-wah effect is a spectral glide, a "modification of the vowel quality of a tone".
A wah-wah pedal, or simply wah pedal, is a type of electric guitar effects pedal that alters the tone and frequencies of the guitar signal to create a distinctive sound, mimicking the human voice saying the onomatopoeic name "wah-wah". The pedal sweeps the peak response of a frequency filter up and down in frequency to create the sound, a spectral glide, also known as "the wah effect". The wah-wah effect originated in the 1920s, with trumpet or trombone players finding they could produce an expressive crying tone by moving a mute in and out of the instrument's bell. This was later simulated with electronic circuitry for the electric guitar when the wah-wah pedal was invented. It is controlled by movement of the player's foot on a rocking pedal connected to a potentiometer. Wah-wah effects may be used as a fixed-filter to alter an instrument’s timbre ; they may be used when a guitarist is soloing; or, classically, they may be used to create a "wacka-wacka" funk-styled rhythm for rhythm guitar playing.
Boss is a manufacturer of effects pedals for electric guitar and bass guitar. It is a division of the Roland Corporation, a Japanese manufacturer that specializes in musical equipment and accessories. For many years Boss has manufactured a wide range of products related to effects processing for guitars, including "compact" and "twin" effects pedals, multi-effect pedals, electronic tuners and pedal boards. In more recent times, Boss expanded their product range by including digital studios, rhythm machines, samplers and other electronic music equipment. They also are now manufacturing solid-state amplifiers and speaker heads such as the Waza and the Katana. Both feature multi-effects units meant to emulate Boss' classic effects pedals.
Dunlop Manufacturing, Inc. is a manufacturer of musical accessories, especially effects units, based in Benicia, California, United States. Founded in 1965 by Jim Dunlop Sr., the company grew from a small home operation to a large manufacturer of music gear. Dunlop has acquired several well-known effects pedal brands, including Cry Baby, MXR and Way Huge.
Rowe Industries was a manufacturer of guitar pickups and other music-related devices, as well as electrical components utilized in the aerospace industry into the 1980s.
Morley Pedals is the name of a guitar effects pedal company, famous for manufacturing wah-wah pedals and other treadle type effects for guitar. Morley pedals use electro-optical circuitry rather than a potentiometer to control the effect. The foot treadle controls a shutter inside the pedal that in turn controls the amount of light reaching a photoresistor. The advantage to this system is that there are no potentiometers in the signal path to wear out and become "scratchy sounding" over time. Electro-optical circuitry is used throughout the classic Morley pedal line, which includes or has included volume pedals, delay pedals, chorus and phaser pedals, and many others.
Electro-Harmonix is a New York City-based company that makes electronic audio processors and sells rebranded vacuum tubes. The company was founded by Mike Matthews in 1968. It is best known for a series of guitar effects pedals introduced in the 1970s and 1990s. EHX also made a line of guitars in the 1970s.
A fuzz-wah pedal is a stomp box containing both a fuzzbox and wah-wah pedal in series, allowing the user to distort ("wah") and use "fuzz" sounds as aesthetic effects on electric guitar or bass. They were developed to combine the sounds of psychedelic bands of the late 1960s–'70s.
The Dunlop Cry Baby is a popular wah-wah pedal, manufactured by Dunlop Manufacturing, Inc. The name Cry Baby was from the original pedal from which it was copied, the Thomas Organ/Vox Cry Baby wah-wah, first manufactured in 1966. Thomas Organ/Vox failed to register the name as a trademark, leaving it open for Dunlop. More recently, Dunlop manufactured the Vox pedals under licence, although this is no longer the case.
The Z.Vex Fuzz Factory is a fuzz pedal made by the American inventor and musician Zachary Vex of the Z.Vex Effects company. The Fuzz Factory is based on, yet vastly expands the tonal palette of, classic fuzz-tone designs from the 1960s. Invented in the mid-1990s, the pedals are mostly handbuilt and painted in Minnesota, United States, with a budget line being manufactured in Taiwan.
The Fuzz Face is an effects pedal for electric guitar, used also by some electric bass players. It is designed to produce a distorted sound referred to as "fuzz", originally achieved through accident such as broken electrical components or damaged speakers.
Distortion and overdrive are forms of audio signal processing used to alter the sound of amplified electric musical instruments, usually by increasing their gain, producing a "fuzzy", "growling", or "gritty" tone. Distortion is most commonly used with the electric guitar, but may also be used with other electric instruments such as electric bass, electric piano, synthesizer and Hammond organ. Guitarists playing electric blues originally obtained an overdriven sound by turning up their vacuum tube-powered guitar amplifiers to high volumes, which caused the signal to distort. While overdriven tube amps are still used to obtain overdrive, especially in genres like blues and rockabilly, a number of other ways to produce distortion have been developed since the 1960s, such as distortion effect pedals. The growling tone of a distorted electric guitar is a key part of many genres, including blues and many rock music genres, notably hard rock, punk rock, hardcore punk, acid rock, and heavy metal music, while the use of distorted bass has been essential in a genre of hip hop music and alternative hip hop known as "SoundCloud rap".
Vex may refer to:
Maxon is the brand name used by the Nisshin Onpa company of Japan for its line of effects pedals designed for guitar and bass.
Tone Bender is the name of several fuzzboxes. Macari's Ltd, who also own the Sola Sound Brand, and who have built and sold the pedals since 1965 now own the Tone Bender trademark. Korg used to own Tone Bender trademarks in the 1990s.
Source Audio is a guitar effects pedal company based near Boston, Massachusetts. They produce modular effects pedals for electric guitar and bass, such as the Nemesis Delay, Ventris Dual Reverb, and Collider Delay+Reverb, as well as the C4 Synth, a modular rack synthesizer in pedal format, the Aftershock Bass Distortion, and the EQ2, a 10-band parametric equalizer with a plug-in style desktop interface. They are also the creators of the Hot Hand Wireless Effects Controller, a device worn around the finger that uses an accelerometer to send expression signal to an effect like an envelope filter. Source Audio mainly uses DSP to create their effects, and are known to program their own processor chips.
Keeley Electronics is an American manufacturer of effect units for electric guitars. The company, founded by Robert Keeley and operating from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, started with the Keeley Compressor pedal along with modifications for effects by Boss and Ibanez.
Fuzz bass is a style of playing the electric bass or modifying its signal that produces a buzzy, distorted, overdriven sound, as the name implies. Overdriving a bass signal significantly changes the timbre, adds higher overtones (harmonics), increases the sustain, and, if the gain is turned up high enough, creates a "breaking up" sound characterized by a growling, buzzy tone.
Vintage musical equipment is older music gear, including instruments, amplifiers and speakers, sound recording equipment and effects pedals, sought after, maintained and used by record producers, audio engineers and musicians who are interested in historical music genres. While any piece of equipment of sufficient age can be considered vintage, in the 2010s the term is typically applied to instruments and gear from the 1970s and earlier. Guitars, amps, pedals, electric keyboards, sound recording equipment from the 1950s to 1970s are particularly sought. Musical equipment from the 1940s and prior eras is often expensive, and sought out mainly by museums or collectors.