Soothing frequencies

[Markus Kersius]

Right, after wima'ing my original greer lightspeed last night, I had this brainfart.
'Why do I like this pedal so much?'
And why do I like that one, and those ones.
Then it hit me.. could it be related to frequencies?
In other words, could these pedals be close to each other in frequency range and are there certain Hz frequencies that seem pleasing to me, and other people?
That would explain the popularity of certain pedals to an extent..
It's a bit hard to explain, but has anyone here had a similar thought and did some research?

 

[caiofilipini]

In general, I think it's a combination of frequency response and harmonics. Some people prefer even harmonics, others prefer odd harmonics. It's weird and fascinating!

 

[HamishR]

It's strange that some pedals tickle a lot of players and others don't. The Lightspeed does seem to make players happy - it's doesn't do it for me but that's ok, I have others! I suspect that it's a combination of feel - and diodes and their interaction with the chip play a role there - and frequency response. A lot of the instruments we like have quite a vocal sound, so if an overdrive can emphasise vocal frequencies coming from our guitar then it's possible that we respond favourably to that pedal. Maybe the frequency response reminds you of your own voice, or the voice of someone you like.

As well as this there is the way the diodes (or whatever is causing the distortion) cause the breakup or granularity of the sound. I suspect distortion is popular because it mimics the way our voices break up when we shout or scream. Before electric guitar trumpets were very popular, and when blown hard they too have that kind of distortion. It's fascinating.

 

[Untro]

As i was saying with a friend recently, there’s a lot of different flavors of dirt! It’s been really interesting learning about distortion circuits in particular, and how many different, sometimes elegant ways they do the same thing differently.

I have a background as an live sound engineer, and i have some understanding of frequencies and how we perceive them, but how we get there is still a mystery to me! Having a good understanding of which frequencies control which different feel is helpful. For instance, sometimes a bump or notch at 1.2k vs 3k can make a guitar either nasaly and annoying, or just right to cut through a mix. Likewise a cut at 500 or 800 could set it perfectly in the mix or suck all the life out the lower mids.

but no doubt, once you find something that makes your rig feel ten times larger/louder, dont second guess too much! Set and forget is the best possible ending!

 

[Markus Kersius]

Thnx for your replies!
Tweaking pedals and amps is a thing a lot of people spent time with, and do too much sometimes I noticed.
And that was what started to intrigue me.
Is there a "secret" frequency setting regarding your amp and pedals?
Or pedals that sit exactly right and operate in that frequency.
The tubescreamer is one example, it's so distinguishable with it mids, and also popular since it was introduced.
It still finds it place in rigs 40 years later.