Tremolo Pedal Round Up

134
Guitarist october 2015
Six Tremolo PedalS £89- £249
W
e’ve all heard tremolo guitar
its all over surf music, 1960s
soul, Spaghetti western and spy
movie soundtracks and plenty of classic
songs: The Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter,
Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Born On
The Bayou, The Smiths’ How Soon Is Now,
right up to its use by Radiohead and The
Black Keys. So whats the history and the
latest on this first electronically-created
modulation effect for guitar, and what do
you need to look for in a tremolo pedal?
Tremolo is a cyclical change in amplitude
(volume) that manifests itself as a rhythmic
pulsing. It first appeared in standalone form
for guitar in the shape of the DeArmond
Tremolo Control in the 40s, but the
recorded tremolo sounds we’re most
familiar with came built into amps, and
Fender popularised the effect most with
the Tremolux in 1955 although its usually
wrongly labelled as ‘vibrato’, which is
actually pitch modulation.
Two basic methods for producing
tremolo were seen in Fender amps: the
early amps varied the bias of valves while
‘blackface’ amps from around 1963 onwards
used a photocell. Besides these two, usually
referred to as bias and opto tremolo, there’s
a rarer-type of Fender tremolo as briefly
seen in some of the company’s brown Tolex
amps from the early 60s. This is known as
‘harmonic vibrato’ created using dual-band
filtering, and offering a sweet, phase-y trem.
Synchronised Tremolo
The staple controls of tremolo are knobs
to set the speed and the depth of the effect,
and all tremolo pedals will have these, but
while many modern pedals have the sole
aim of recreating the vintage-amp tremolo
sounds, many more have added new
features to provide a wider range of sounds
and functionality.
One of the most common facilities now
provided is tap tempo for instant foot
control over the speed, offering tremolo
thats rhythmically synchronised to the
music you’re playing. Because of the nature
of the tremolo effect, it can seem to make
your sound less prominent in a band mix
when switched on. Consequently, many
companies are now providing output
volume knobs on their trem pedals so you
can have unity gain, or a boost, when the
effect kicks in.
At the root of tremolo is a particular
geometric waveform used to modulate
the amplitude and, while that’s fixed in a
tremolo-equipped amp, some pedals will
offer a choice of waveforms (sine, triangle,
square, and so on), crucial to shaping
the sound: a square wave, for example,
can give you an on/off sequenced effect.
Some pedals also offer the ability to adjust
the symmetry of the waveform, perhaps
to make it slightly lopsided. One recent
innovation as seen in pedals by Pigtronix
and Keeley is dynamic control, whereby
the speed or depth of the effect can be
affected by how hard you play. Other pedals
can offer instantly footswitchable tremolos
at two different speeds.
Turn the page for our review round-up
of six modern tremolo pedals.
TREMOLO PEDAL Round-up
The effect that just wont go away: the guttural wobble of tremolo is just
as valid today as it was in the 1960s. We consider six modern choices…
Words  Trevor Curwen  Photography  Adam Gasson
GIT399.peds_trem.indd 134 9/4/15 2:00 PM

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