5 - The Echo/Delay Pedal
The echo is the least needed pedal on the board, but it can make an enormous difference on your sound if you have one. The selling point of an echo or a delay pedal depends on two kinds of delay sounds: the clean repeat and the unclean repeat of the echoes.
Analog delays in the past had their allure because their repeats weren’t as polished as digital delays. For example, most analog delays have a clean echo on the first repeat, and it turns bleaker than the second repeat and more bleaker than the second on the next ones.
Digital Delays emulate repeated sounds perfectly. Subjectively, you are the one who will decide what fits your sound as a musician. The selling point of modern DSPs like the Strymon Timeline is that they can emulate both lo-fi Analog sounds and accurate digital delays.
The appeal of digital and modulated delays came into fruition because of Brian Eno’s notable experimental works and his subjective interpretations of what being in space sounds like. Eno’s eccentric and experimental route birthed rock bands like Heroin, Radiohead, and Cave In to create nuanced musical soundscapes.
4 - "Dirt" pedals
Dirt pedals tend to boost or clip the sound of your guitar. The “Dirt” in Dirt pedals amplifies several frequencies of your sound to sound better or even worse. The staff pedals organized the classifications according to dirt: Clean Boost, Overdrive, Distortion, and Fuzz.
The worst-sounding dirt pedals had the best recordings. If you wonder why, ask David Gilmour, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, and Jimmy Page, among others. This pedal is everyone’s first guitar pedal.
However, some guitarists gravitate towards boosting their clean sound. John Mayer and a progressive band like Periphery tend to gravitate towards compressing and boosting their clean sounds. For John Mayer, it is his preference for sound clarity. Periphery tends to gravitate to their heavy-gauged strings for their distorted sounds, so boosting them would be logical.
