Guitar Accessories - Everything You Need
Your choice of guitar accessories is a very personal choice with some being practical and to help your playing and others to look after and store you valuable Instruments. Playing guitar requires lots of upkeep from guitar string, picks, batteries and cables to guitar tuners and basic maintenance tools.
Best Guitar Effects Pedals
Guitar effects pedals are the backbone of many guitar accessories choices. Your tone and flavor of the music you can be influenced by the choices you make here. First and for most you should understand that pedals don’t make you a great player. Its how much time and effort you put into learning the guitar with its chords, scales and even tunings.
The top pedal choices are normally centered around overdrive pedals which is normally the first port of call in your guitar accessories adventure.
Color and Expression Pedals.
The most notable overdrive pedal is the TS808 Tube screamer or TS9 which are both legendary for their sound and ability to add flavor to an already overdriven guitar adding more mid tones to mush it out of the overall mix in a band situation. These are in every bodies effects loop from Steve Vai to Stevie Ray Vaugh.
The Wah pedal is and amazing expression tool and their are a few very popular choices that come to mind immediately such as the Dunlop Crybaby or Vox Wah. The wah pedal allows the user to rock the pedal back and forward like a moveable EQ going from a low to high frequency making the notes and chords shift. Made famous by many from Kirk Hammet (Metalica) & Slash (Guns n Roses) you will find one of these crucial.
Colour & Shimmer
In your guitar accessories you cant go past a few other important pedals like a chorus, Reverb and Delay pedals. These give you the ability to fill the room with more sound. Chorus can give you that wall of sound if desired or a full clean pulsing swirl to your chords.
Reverb and delay pedals are similar but still different in their final output. Reverb pedals will give you add depth of sound your amp may not deliver giving you a fuller sound. The delay pedal does just that and guitarists like the Edge who is famous for his use of delay which gives you repeats of a note or chord at a choice of times between them. This can sound amazing but if you make a mistake it will be repeated as well. Truly a great addition to most guitarists arsenal of accessories.
Guitar Stand
Owning an amazing expensive guitar or a an inexpensive one you need to look after it/them by having somewhere to put them on stage or at home. Guitar stands come in many variations from single units to multiple guitar racks, wall racks and more.
It is popular to hang guitars on the walls of a home as well and this is actually a great way to keep a guitar. You will see it done in many a guitar shop as well. It ensures the neck is looked after and the guitar remains in great condition. Its obviously important to ensure the attachment is done well so your precious guitar does not drop to the floor.
Guitar Straps
A very important guitar accessory is the guitar strap which is essential for all players. What you use as a guitar strap is a very personal choice. Some like small thin items or thick wide leather straps are really the choices. I have included a number of possible options you may like below.
Guitar Tuners
Guitar Tuners are a very important part of any guitarists arsenal because everyone will know when your playing out of tune even a little. There are many types from floor units that will sit in your floor mounted effects rack to headstock varieties which are super convenient. There are also a range of hand units that have been popular but these days the headstock varieties are ever present even with professional musicians.
You want something not to intrusive but readable in all conditions at a glance. If you need to change tuning at all it has to be fast and acurate so when choosing consider when and where you play and how readable the face is to you.
Best Guitar Cables
Guitar cables are an important part of the signal chain and the quality of your tone. There is a wide range of guitar cables and the pro’s profess the quality of the cable and it is totally relevant to the sound produced. The length of the guitar is said only to effect the quality of the tone when it is very long. Lets say 18-20 ft in length it is reported to start to effect the signal quality. If you only using 10-15 foot cable you likely not to notice the sound difference.
If your running an effects board then you will need a range of small connectors between your effects pedals to make it convenient. These small jumper cables come in different plug configurations from straight to 90 degree bends. There are also a number of different finishes from plastic to material finishes as well as multiple colors. If you buy a decent branded cable your likely to get a quality item. I just don’t recommend getting the cheapest possible.
Guitar Strings
Guitar strings are always a topic of conversation when tone is in question. Strings come in many forms from nylon to round wound and flat wound strings. Guitar string as also come in a massive amount of variations in size. The basic packs that come on guitars from factories are usually either known as 9’s or 10’s. This is based on the measurement of the smallest string in the set of 6 which is either 0.09 or 0.10 of an inch. Yes its all done in the old style measurements.
It is possible to mix and match strings as well and custom sets are available depending on your application and music style. Tuning of the guitar is also a part of the equation especially in heavy metal where many guitars are played in much lower tune than the normal E tuning that we are use to. The strings will become looser than needed to play in light gauged strings and will vibrate and hit the frets stopping the note.
In this situation much heavier gauges are used with drop D or even Drop B tuning. If your not sure what this is then don’t worry and I would recommend a set of 9’s or 10s to get started. The next questions is does the size effect the tone? Honestly I don’t think it makes any difference other than personal preference. Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top plays with light strings at 0.070 or 7’s. These are really small and I would worry I would break them but he has amazing tone and never breaks a string apparently. His tone is as amazing as you would want so really again its a personal preference how hard you want to work when playing chords and solo’s.
Effects Pedal Boards - Guitar Accessories
One of the forgotten guitar accessories is the very useful pedal board. These come in many different forms and allow you to arrange your guitar effects pedals in an order and also power them. When it comes to powering effects pedals using batteries is a great option because they don’t generate any additional noise in your signal chain. It is possible for effects pedals when powered to create a hum coming out the speakers from your pedals.
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