stacked together to get a big solo sound . The kind of solos we usually play in worship music are melodic and doesn ’ t need an overly saturated distortion sound . Most guitarists like to have something like a Little Green Wonder , ProCo Rat , or Fulltone OCD and blend it with their transparent drive to get a little push . Overall , this helps the sound cut through the mix in order to not have to raise the volume too much .
DELAY Most worship musicians have two delay sounds . A short delay , and a long delay . Most of the time most worship musicians use either a tape delay style sound , or a digital delay style sound . But I recommend trying out a few options . For example , for my short delay I use a bucket brigade style sound since I use it for shorter and faster songs . And for my long delays I use a tape delay sound . It should also be noted that the ‘ dotted eighth-note ’ is the standard setting for the worship sound . Meaning when you tap the tempo on your pedal , you would tap the quarter note and the pedal will play back the dotted eighth note .
AMBIENT REVERB The biggest contribution to the worship sound and most noticeable is the ambient reverb sound . Everyone wants to replicate the cloud sound from Strymon , and really that ’ s where the ambient sound became popular . There are other pedals that do this style of reverb also , but overall , this consists of a clear sounding reverb with “ breathy ” or “ air ” like high-end . Most of the time you can get close with a hall reverb with the high-cut at 12k , and the lowcut up to 250Hz . Make sure the pre delay is set at a slower attack ( around 100 mls ) so the reverb won ’ t overlap over the chord or melodic line , and the mix and decay are set so that the reverb is present and lingers for a few seconds .
In conclusion , I left few details out like compression , modulation , wah and volume pedals because even though it ’ s used in the worship sound , it ’ s all bonus . What I covered in this article are the main ingredients to get the main worship tones . And just like any batch of ingredients you can manipulate and change to taste !
Chris Rocha Chris Rocha is an American Christian producer , guitarist , business owner and pioneer in the Spanish Christian music industry . He is a two time Dove Award winner , has worked on two Grammy award winning records and has produced or recorded guitars on 5 Grammy nominated albums .
Jonathan Diaz Jonathan is a guitarist who is not only involved with his local church , but is also the director of School of Rock Cocowalk and instructor of CR Online !