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Same, same but different.

When I was working in a music store (instruments), one of my favourite tasks was testing new equipment. It is important as a sales person to know how the gear works and how to tweak it to sound great.

This involves having a free hour or so to plug in this new guitar, amp, or effects unit and explore it's sonic palette. This lead me to some enlightening discoveries.

Anyone that has gone guitar shopping will know that each guitar has it's own unique properties and no two guitars will sound the same. But this is also true with analogue effects pedals and amplifiers. In the same way each piece of wood that is used to build a guitar is full of slight variation within it's makeup, so is an effects pedal's circuit. One of the main cause of these variations is something known as component tolerance.

Each component (resistors, capacitors, etc..) that are combined to create a working circuit, all have a tolerance rating. This rating lets you know how precise this component has been manufactured, with tighter tolerance components generally costing more than other parts that have a little more wiggle room.

Some components can have a tolerance of ±20% which means a 100k resistor with this same tolerance, can have an actual rating anywhere between 80k-120k. This may have an impact on the sound produced.

Circuits inside your favourite pedals can have quite a lot of components and when you start to add these slight variations up, the differences in the sound produced between units can become quite noticeable. This does depend on the manufacture's choice in components, as high quality close tolerance parts (like we use in all our units) will produce a more consistent result from unit to unit.

The great thing is, this gives each effects pedal it's own unique "vibe" and no two are alike, much like guitars.

So remember to hold on to that favourite pedal of yours, because you might not ever get that same sound again :)

Best Regards

Waylon McPherson