MANDO
[ GEAR + GADGETS: THREE ESSENTIAL PEDALS/EFFECTS | Tyson Bryant ]
I never intended to play electric guitar. (which have a higher natural volume) to
I would have been content to forever a louder, boosted signal when you are
spend my time in the wholly acoustic ready to play those killer solos and fills.
realm. But our worship team had a There are different ways to accomplish
season when we were light on personnel this. You could use a true Volume Pedal
and I was recruited to cross over to the with the foot rocker that you roll down to
dark side (that is, they asked me to rotate get quieter and up to get louder. Another
in to the lead guitar spot on occasion). approach (the one I use) is to have a
I like to have my fun with my electric guitar second patch that adds 4-6 db of extra
friends, poking fun at their tendency volume. When it is time to solo, I patch
to add noise to an otherwise pleasant up. I patch back down again when I’m
musical enterprise--but I do have to
admit. . . they’ve got some very cool toys! My
foray into the land of lead guitar has forced me
to get comfortable with the marvelous variety
of pedals available to contemporary musicians
that allow us to shape, shift, and mold tone.
A mandolin player will never need all the same
effects as an electric guitar player, but some of
them are indispensable for your mando rig.
Guitar traditionalists have a different physical
pedal for every effect. The result is a
pedalboard that takes up more floor space
than most keyboards. Unless you’ve got
your own roadie, that’s way too much stuff
to drag around. A more reasonable approach
is a multi-effects pedal so that you can
have access to all the effects you need in a
single, compact unit. By way of example, in
the past I’ve used a Zoom A2.1u Acoustic
Effects Pedal, and I am currently using a
Line 6 HD500 (which is more complex, but
Both units allow me
to pick and choose how I’d like to shape
my signal.
Often overlooked, yet indispensable. The DI
will allow you to send your shiny, processed
mandolin signal to the sound board. Your
sound engineer will appreciate being able
to hand you an XLR cable to plug in without
needing to go through all the trouble of a direct
time for your mando rig, but using one of these
all-in-one devices simplifies things a lot.
So now you’ve got yourself a multi-effects
processor--what do you do with it? Here are
a volume pedal or volume boost patch really
have to ride your fader quite so much to make
sure that you are heard properly.
EQ
Rounding out the list of the most indispensable
electronics for a mandolin player is EQ. Using
EQ is often more art than science, and as such
there aren’t many rules that are universally
[ Proper use of a applicable (even to mandolins). A good rule
volume pedal or your EQ to help make your amplified signal
volume boost patch
really helps your sound
of thumb is to remember that you are using
resemble as closely as possible what your
instrument would sound like if you didn’t
HAVE to amplify it. I like to use a selective
subtraction approach. I setup an EQ effect
engineer out. They with a narrow width (or ‘Q’), set the EQ to
won’t have to ride your sweep through the frequency range while I
fader quite so much to standout that actually improve the tone of
make sure that you are
heard properly. ]
Each of the individual components discussed
below can absolutely be added one pedal at a
back to a rhythm part. Proper use of
helps your sound engineer out. They won’t
DIRECT INPUT (DI)
box plus battery and/or phantom power.
GEAR GLUT
also more versatile).
the top three things you are likely to use:
moderately remove the frequency, and then
play to see if there are any frequencies that
my mandolin when they are removed. I had
a mandolin bridge pickup once that created
an awful “thumping” noise in my signal, but
I was able to tame that by reducing some of
the low-mids with EQ.
VOLUME BOOST
The most useful trick to have in your bag is
the ability to increase/decrease your volume
at the touch--or stomp--of a button. This is
so that you can quickly switch from a lower
D.I., Volume Boost, and EQ are the three
hardest electronics to live without. In the next
issue, we’ll look at more ‘advanced’ effects that
can polish your live mandolin tone even further!
volume while strumming out rhythm parts
July 2017
WorshipMusician.com
61