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I have thoroughly enjoyed using various pedals for playing music, and as others here, I’ve also rocked out with modular synths. But I have to say that pedals (a

I have thoroughly enjoyed using various pedals for playing music, and as others here, I’ve also rocked out with modular synths. But I have to say that pedals (and other musical equipment) can be very frustrating because their UIs are very obtuse. You can directly turn a knob to change the effect, but you often have no idea what exactly they’re changing. It turns out that chorus, flangers, and phasers are all variations on a short delay whose time is controlled by an LFO. So you can change the average length of the delay and you can also change the amplitude of the LFO. There’s often a parameter labeled either “depth” or “amount” and it’s not clear whether you’re changing delay time, LFO amplitude, both, or something else. Worse, some try to have descriptive names that may not make any sense. A friend’s guitar DSP unit had a parameter just called “balls” for the amount of distortion. Turning it up made it sound more like AC/DC. No idea what it was actually controlling. So yeah, direct feedback of physical UI is great, but if you don’t know what you’re controlling, it can be very frustrating to try and make it do something specific. [Edit] Also, those pedals that are just a switch I find much less satisfying to use and harder to hit right.

Slow_Hand 4y ago
Sometimes pedal UIs are obtuse because a single knob will control multiple parameters under the hood and there isn't a succinct way to describe it's effect that will fit on the pedal. In that case you'll need to read the manual. And then sometimes manufacturers give common parameters colorful names that illustrate the musical effect while not being 100% accurate. For example, a fuzz pedal I own has a "pinch" knob which functions like a gate, even though it's not technically a gate. Again, read the manual if it's not obvious. As for your example of a flanger or phaser, those tend to have a handful of common parameters that you'll encounter across all variations (delay time, feedback, depth, rate, and dry/wet). For anyone who has experience with these devices they will already know that (by convention) depth controls LFO amplitude and rate controls LFO frequency. If you don't know this then it's very likely that you're new to the world of audio effects and simply need to (once again) read the manual. There's only so much information that you can put on the face of a guitar pedal.

Slow_Hand 4y ago

Sometimes pedal UIs are obtuse because a single knob will control multiple parameters under the hood and there isn't a succinct way to describe it's effect that will fit on the pedal. In that case you'll need to read the manual. And then sometimes manufacturers give common parameters colorful names that illustrate the musical effect while not being 100% accurate. For example, a fuzz pedal I own has a "pinch" knob which functions like a gate, even though it's not technically a gate. Again, read the manual if it's not obvious. As for your example of a flanger or phaser, those tend to have a handful of common parameters that you'll encounter across all variations (delay time, feedback, depth, rate, and dry/wet). For anyone who has experience with these devices they will already know that (by convention) depth controls LFO amplitude and rate controls LFO frequency. If you don't know this then it's very likely that you're new to the world of audio effects and simply need to (once again) read the manual. There's only so much information that you can put on the face of a guitar pedal.