Guitar Effect Pedals

During his career, Jimi Hendrix employed many effects both in the studio and in live performance that gave his music a completely new dimension. For example, Jimi used many fuzz box units among which were the Arbiter Fuzz Face, the ‘Axis’ fuzz , and the Mosrite Fuzzrite.

Another effect that Jimi used and has since become synonomous with his name was the Vox wah-wah pedal. Jimi employed this effect on many of his studio recordings such as “Voodoo Chile (slight return),” and “Burning of the Midnight Lamp.”

A third type of effect that Jimi used in the studio was a Leslie Speaker cabinet. This effect created the swirling sounds heard on studio tracks such as “Little Wing” and “House Burning Down.”

The Uni-Vibe was yet another effect used by Jimi predominantly in live performance. This created a swirling effect quite similiar to the Leslie Speaker cabinet, although it differed in that it had a speed control, unlike the Leslie cabinet. This meant that the swirling effect could be sped up or slowed down. This effect was employed on tracks such as “Hey Baby (The Land of the New Rising Sun)”, “Earth Blues”, and “Machine Gun.”

A fourth effect Jimi used was the Octavia. This device, as noted by “Jimi Hendrix: Electric Gypsy,” “gives the effect of a multiple mirror image of the actual sound,” but phased inverted. So really it produces a sound that absolutely multiplies all the harmonics up, almost to infinity, so you get an extremely high tone out of it.” The Octavia made it first appearance on “Purple Haze.”

Finally, there is undoubtedly a plethora of other effects that Jimi used in the studio other than just the ones that were mentioned above but to name and detail all of them would take far too much time. The only thing left to be said is that Jimi Hendrix was enormously gifted and was one of the most brilliant musicians that has ever lived.

Although Stevie Ray Vaughn wrought most of his tone out of his fingers, he did employ a couple of effects that were important aspects of his overall tone - the Ibanez Tube Screamer and the Crybaby Wah-Wah pedal.

Stevie Ray Vaughan used both the early TS-808 and the later TS-9 Ibanez Tube Screamer stomp boxes in his career. The TS-808 is easily distinguished from the TS-9 by its small black knobs, smaller stomp button, white script on the housing, and darker green color. They have become a particularly coveted distortion unit and command high prices these days, due in great part to Stevie’s association. The Tube Screamer was his primary distortion device. He employed it to overdrive the front end of his tube amps and to add a natural tube-like saturation and sustain to his lead voice.

Throughout his career Stevie Ray Vaughan alternated between the Crybaby wah-wah pedals and the vintage Vox wah-wah pedal. A superb example of his wah-wah playing can be found on the track “Say What” from Soul to Soul. Other notable SRV wah-wah pedal examples include “Voodoo Chile” and “Come On”. While the use of the wah-wah pedal is fairly rare in the blues genre, Stevie made it sound like the most natural thing in the world.