Tag: effects pedals

The Electric: How To Dial In Complicated Pedals

On By adamdolhanykIn electric guitar, worship5 Comments

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THINGS AIN’T LIKE THEY USED TO BE

Some pedals are easy as pie to dial in. The MXR Phase 90 and it’s one control knob come to mind. The Tube Screamer is pretty straightforward: volume, tone, gain… that’s it. (Note: I love both of these pedals)

But as technology has advanced, pedals and their controls have become more advanced and complicated. Some people stay away from pedals with too many knobs or complicated controls. Some people have them, but don’t know what to do with them.

My goal is to walk you through some steps that should help you conquer your fears and expand your guitar tone!

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The Electric: 5 STEPS TO BETTER TONE

On By adamdolhanykIn church band, electric guitar, Uncategorized, worship3 Comments

In this series I try and address different aspects of the practical side of playing electric guitar in church music. This week we’ll talk about 5 steps to getting better tone from your rig.

Most of us are obsessed with our tone on some level. How do we get a better tone? Is it our gear? What changes do I need to make? What steps should I take. This week I throw out a few quick ideas that have helped me along the way.

While everything I write here is just my opinion, many of these opinions have been formed from hard learned lessons. So lets talk about getting better tone in 5 simple(ish) steps:

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The Electric: Overdrive Overkill

On By adamdolhanykIn blog, electric guitar, thoughts, worship15 Comments

In this series I try and address different aspects of the practical side of playing electric guitar in church music. This week we’ll talk about the different types of overdrives, and why you may be wasting money on your rig.

Note: Any opinions or gear recommendations I give are my own based on my own experience. No company pays me to endorse them. But I can be bought! 😉

So if any guitar, amp, or pedal maker wants to send me there stuff they can contact me HERE 

 

I’ve written about Overdrive pedals in worship many times in the past. HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE for example. My point today isn’t to talk about how to use them or which one is the best. My point is today is to talk about a common mistake that many guitarists (both worship and otherwise) make in selecting and purchasing the overdrive pedals in their rig and how this can end up costing you needless dollars.

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The Electric: Knobs, Switches, and Settings

On By adamdolhanykIn Arrangment, band practice, church band, thoughts2 Comments

In this series I try and address different aspects of the practical side of playing electric guitar in church music. This week we’ll talk about playing without effects or pedals.

 I’m a little hesitant to write this post. When I write in general it just about my experience and things I’ve picked up over the years. But I’ll fully admit that I’m still learning more and more about how the guitar and amp work on their own. Effects pedals are great, but they can do us a disservice by letting us cut corners and thus not forcing us to learn about the relationship of the guitar and the tube amplifier.

Younger players often rip on older player who seem to only want to relive the classic rock glory days of the 70’s and 80’s (and if that’s you it’s time to learn some new tricks 😉 ) but I’ve gained an invaluable amount of insight from those older players who can do more with just a guitar and amp than you or I could with 12 pedals. So here’s some thoughts on what happens when you choose to or are forced to play with out effects in your rig.

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The Electric: The Best Overdrive Pedal For Worship

On By adamdolhanykIn blog, church culture, electric guitar, worship40 Comments

In this series I try and address different aspects of the practical side of playing electric guitar in church music. This week we’ll talk about overdrive and gain pedals worship bands.

 

What is the best overdrive pedal for a worship guitar player?

The question is asked constantly on Google searches, blogs, forums, and even people who find their way to this blog.

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The Electric: Chord Voicing

On By adamdolhanykIn blog, blogs, electric guitar, thoughts, Uncategorized, worship1 Comment

In this series I try and address different aspects of the practical side of playing electric guitar in church music. This week we’ll talk about chord voicing and how they can be used when playing in the church band.

 

THERE IS MORE THAN ONE WAY TO PLAY THE G CHORD

A while back I was asked to play electric guitar at the last minute. The church had an electric and an amplifier and that was it. No overdrive pedal, no delay, the amp  had some reverb but the options were pretty much just “on” and “off'”. What’s a guitar player to do?

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The Electric: Setting Up A Guitar Rig For Worship. Part 3-Effects Pedals

On By adamdolhanykIn blog, electric guitar, thoughts, worship14 Comments

I try and address different aspects of the practical side of playing electric guitar in church music.

This week we’ll talk about setting up your electric rig for the first time or upgrading it to something better, specifically Effects. This is part 3 of a 4 part series. Part 1 can be found HERE, Part 2 can be found HERE. Part 4 can be found HERE.

THIS PART IS A LITTLE QUIRKY

I’m writing these posts in order of what I think it the most important part of getting a good sound in your guitar rig: Amplifier>Effects Pedals>Guitar. Here’s where it gets a little quirky, because while I think that effects pedals do more for the overall tone of a guitar rig, I wouldn’t buy them before buying a guitar. You can’t play guitar if you don’t own one. So I you have a budget to spend on setting up a guitar rig for worship, put the effects pedals at the bottom of the list (just this one time). This is why I encourage people setting up a rig to get an amp with onboard effects (Vox AC15, Fender Hot Rod Deville, etc) so that you save money on the initial set up costs.

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The Electric: Setting up a Guitar Rig for Worship. Part 1-Starting Out or Stepping Up

On By adamdolhanykIn blog, blogs, electric guitar, thoughts, Uncategorized, worship6 Comments

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I try and address different aspects of the practical side of playing electric guitar in church music.

This week we’ll talk about setting up your electric rig for the first time or upgrading it to something better. This is part 1 of a 4 part series. Part 2 can be found HERE. Part 3 can be found HERE. Part 4 can be found HERE.

Who Is This For?

I guess I’m writing for two different people. The first is the worship leader who has been leading for a while, and only used an acoustic guitar. The way music is going this worship leader wants to start using an electric guitar as their rhythm guitar either every so often or a majority of the time.

The second person is the one who has an electric guitar set up, but it’s not very good and they want to get serious about it and they are going to use it mostly or specifically for church music.

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Overdrive Truth

On By adamdolhanykIn electric guitar, thoughts, worship1 Comment

I got this quote from the Guitar For Worship Blog:

“You’ve sold your Fulldrive for a Tim, your Tim for a King of Tone, your King of Tone for a Jetter Gain Stage, your Gain Stage for a Wampler Ecstasy, your Wampler for a Rockett Flex Drive, your Flex Drive for a Pearl, your Pearl for a JHS Double Barrel, and then end up using your stock TS9 most of the time.”

 

 

The Electric: Reverb

On By adamdolhanykIn blog, electric guitar, worshipLeave a comment

I try and address different aspects of the practical side of playing electric guitar in church music.

This week we’ll talk about Reverb, Reverb Pedals, and how that works in a church band.

The simple definition of Reverb (or Reverberation) is that it is created when a sound is produced in an enclosed space causing a large number of echoes to build up and then slowly decay as the sound is absorbed by the walls and air in a room. The Reverb effect has been in use for Decades, from 50’s rockabilly, to 60’s surf. From 70’s classic rock to 80’s New Wave. Reverb was key to Pearl Jam influence on the “grunge” sound and Radiohead’s OK Computer (as well as every other Radiohead album). John Mayer, The Shins, Kings of Leon. Everyone uses Reverb. Everyone talks about Delay in The Edge’s U2 guitar sound, as well as Coldplay ripping off that sound, but the truth is that without reverb neither band gets the classic sounds they are known for.

I’m not going to talk about settings or different pedals or anything like that. There are a lot of good reverb pedals out there and you should go and check them out. What I want to talk about is why I use reverb and how I use reverb.

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