By simply pressing an effect and adjusting the settings on a big ol’ two dimensional pad, you’ll be able to shape tones in this virtual guitar effects rack. And speaking of racks, you can adjust them precise using either your computer keyboard or mouse/trackpad.
Basically it’s a more narrowly-focused lab where you tinker with the impact that feedback, speed and drive has on the character of a single strike of a chord or looping riff. Starting with that, hit one of the five effects up top. There are buttons for Delay, Wah, Phaser, Tremolo and Distortion. You can only have one effect enabled at any given moment, so just click the button for the sound you’d like to experiment with.
How to Use This Guitar Effect Tool
The XY pad beneath these selection buttons represent the two main settings for each of the effects. Which settings map to the X and Y axis depends upon which effect you’ve selected. The labels beside them will dynamically update to indicate what’s being controlled. Drive (horizontal) and Tone Brightness (vertical) are used, for instance, when in Distortion. Speed is horizontal and Depth are vertical in Tremolo.
To get started, you simply click the Play riff button to play the audio. It will loop a small snippet of a guitar phrase that you run through your chosen effect. As the riff plays, move the puck around within the big grid by clicking and dragging it to alter the sound in real-time. Alternatively, you can hit the Chord stab button which will fire off a single harmonized chord. This is great if you are wanting to hear how an effect sounds as it decays (particularly when using the Delay effect).
Moving the Dry/Wet slider back and forth alters the amount of clean, untreated guitar signal mixed with the processed one. Slide it to the left for a cleaner tone; to the right for a heavier effect. Lastly, there’s the volume slider on the far-right side of the app. Keep this down low at first so you’re not surprised!
You can use your mouse or your computer keyboard to tune and play the sound. Alternatively, you can do it all with the keyboard on your computer. Number keys 1-5 is used to cycle through the five effects. The arrow keys are for nudging the puck (left, right, up, down) for small adjustments. For starting/stopping the looping riff, press the letter R. To launch the chord stab, press C.
Turn on Auto-sweep if you’re looking for a more hands-off approach. It’ll rock the puck back and forth in a rhythm. This works very well when paired with the Wah effect to produce a moving, funky bassline feel. Pressing the question mark key or clicking the How to play button will toggle the help panel, in case you forget how to operate it.
There are also some techniques that give the best results from the widget. For example, begin with the Wah effect engaged and press the Auto-sweep button. As the widget automatically sweeps horizontally, slowly drag your puck up and down vertically. While the horizontal sweep stays in place, you’ll notice how the intensity of the wah adjust.
Move your puck to the top right corner to experiment with the Delay effect. Bumping into the corner increases the feedback and time simultaneously, resulting in long trailing echoes. These long tails work perfectly with the Chord stab button which provides a clean start point each time.
If you’re using the Distortion effect, you might consider leaving the drive lower on the left side and increasing the tone on the top edge. This results in a bright but not overly harsh sound. If you’re using this on a smaller screen, there’s a fullscreen button in the widget that expands the interface to take up more space. Click it, play around until you’re ready to stop, then click it again to leave fullscreen mode.
It’s deliberately designed this way so you can concentrate on what sounds like what, with each effect having two related parameters. No buried settings or complicated menus here. Choose your effect, fire up the sound, grab the puck. Below the pad is a readout of the currently active values for each axis, so you can easily go back to whatever setting you were playing with.
It’s a very simple tool for exploring sound design, where you can easily hear what subtle changes make a difference tonally. It doesn’t require detailed knowledge about the technology behind it. You simply move the puck around the grid and hear the change of texture. You snap back-and-forth between effects to see how moving that same puck sounds in different contexts. In one mode, it may feel aggressive centered; while in another mode it may feel mild. These contrasts give you an idea of the characteristics of each effect.
Each sound has its sweet spots and you have all the time in the world to discover them. Nothing’s wrong, just different flavors. The interface reacts immediately to your input and you can sculpt the sound without hesitation. It’s a tactile learning experience whether you’re after some inspiration for your own music or if you’re simply curious about how effects work. Pick an effect, open your ears and start dragging the puck to see what comes out of it. The loop is there, waiting for you to shape it.