Browsing all articles tagged with Guitar
Sep
4

Guitar Effects Pedals, Start your Own Niche Business

Guitar Effects Pedals, Start your Own Niche Business

Guitar effects or distortion pedals are the ideal product to sell both on and off-line. They are small, easy to pack and ship and most importantly VERY profitable.

Guitar effects pedals are big business, a search on Ebay will uncover a wide range of fast selling items being snapped up by budding guitarists worldwide.

An effect pedal is basically a small device that distorts the sound coming from a musical instrument to modify the instruments sound. These devices alter the sound quality of the input signal to produce effects such as overdrive, wah-wah, flanging, fuzz, distortion, reverberation and chorus, and are used primarily by guitarists and keyboard players, but gaining popularity with instrumentalists such as violinists.

Their size and market demand for effects pedals make for a great business opportunity for anyone that is looking to service this hungry market.

When I first heard about a guide written by a guy who trades guitars and other music gear both on Ebay I was interested enough to buy it and was glad that I did as, not only was it superbly written and very workable, it gave me the idea for several niche businesses that showed massive profit potential.

The sheer range of guitar effects pedals available and the size of the marketplace make this a potentially very lucrative area in itself. I was very surprised to see the profit potential of these small in-demand products, and a couple of things that I picked up whilst researching the market really grabbed my attention.

First thing I noticed was that the profit margins were very high for an item that was easy to pack and ship, and does not have to be purchased from suppliers in any large quantity, and can be sold profitably both on and offline.

Secondly that these items are selling quickly online at a variety of prices which means that the market is wide open to sell into.

I also noticed that sites such as Ebay do not sell all of the effects pedals that I came across in suppliers that I found listed in the guide, and sellers were listing effects pedals and other music gear items that were selling fast with very little or NO competition.

While I was reviewing the guide and researching the music gear re-seller marketplace, I noticed in one of my son’s heavy metal magazines a review of a guitar effects pedal known as a wah-wah pedal, and the reviewer gave the item a glowing report. After checking out Ebay, I noticed that these pedals were selling at a heck of a rate with a profit margin of around 40 per cent, and were previously selling well enough without the magazine’s endorsement.

Anyone looking to set themselves up in a niche, under-exploited and easy to run business would do well to purchase the guide, make notes on the recommended suppliers items and go for it.

As I mentioned earlier, I believe that there are several niche businesses available to exploit that could be very easily profited from using exactly the same tactics that the guide’s writer uses to sell guitars at an amazing rate.

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Aug
30

Twitter- A New Direct Guitar Tutorial Marketing Tool For The New Age

Twitter- A New Direct Guitar Tutorial Marketing Tool For The New Age

One of the biggest advantages of using Twitter as a marketing tool is that this amazing social networking platform sends out its messages in real time. This is truly the greatest benefit you can receive from using Twitter. Twitter is an extremely active site with thousands of users accessing the platform 24/7, talking about and commenting on thousands of topics. You could pick a keyword or phrase relating to just about any topic in the news and you would very likely find a dozen or more tweets from users discussing it. Twitter has even outpaced Google News as an instant source of timely news. The key to Twitter’s current popularity is due to the fact that only 140 characters can be typed at a time; this makes it especially adaptable for people who are accustomed to texting by cell phone, and has turned tweeting into today’s favorite communication medium. If you are an online marketer, how do you make use of a site like Twitter to market your services or products? Through Twitter, you can zero in on the specific keyword searches made by people seeking various answers or solutions that are related to what you have to offer. With this direct link between you and your consumers, you will easily be able to pass your competition that does not have this avenue of communication. This article will review the simple yet effective benefits of Twitter marketing.

The first thing you need to know about Twitter marketing is the fact that your platform is going to be very wide. This depends on what you’re offering to the market. You should never try to get random followers first, always acquire targeted followers first, then move on to random. If you plan to find success using the Twitter marketing technique, you need to be familiar with simplicity. The audience you reach in Twitter can bring success to your enterprise because they will spread the word about your Online Guitar Course business and do a large share of your marketing for you. It couldn’t be more simple to create a list of followers that are already interested in what you have to offer. You won’t even have to get email addresses from your followers because you are already in contact with them through Twitter. That list is a valuable commodity to you, and you need to build the value of your brand to get the maximum benefit from it.

How do you feel about spying on your competition? Yes, you can in fact use Twitter to see what your competition is up to. Twitter has an advantage with this because it’s free and it can be done in real-time, using your competitors’ searches. With Twitter search, you can see the feedback that your competitor is getting from its customers and get an idea of what things people are asking for, and what their suggestions for improvement are. In doing so, you will acquire a clear and precise image of what your target audience is looking for so that you can give it to them in a way that other leading competitors cannot. And this is especially effective when you don’t see your competitor taking care of the customer issues, where you can just tweet the person in trouble and point them to your product for the solution.

You should investigate how marketing with Twitter works, if you are interested in employing Twitter marketing to obtain great results and to gain the advantages of socially based marketing. It’s not rocket science, but there’s definitely some art and technique involved. Learn the process, learn how Twitter can be used to drive traffic and then start Tweeting!

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Aug
28

Effective Tips on How to Learn to Sing While Playing the Guitar

Effective Tips on How to Learn to Sing While Playing the Guitar

If you’re a person who loves to sing and has a passion for music, then probably you want to learn to sing at the same time playing the guitar. In this article i am going to give you helpful tips on how to learn to sing while playing the guitar.

It is not an easy task singing while your fingers are busy strumming the strings of the guitar, you need to train yourself. Below are tips that will help you master the two craft.

1.Start with the easy ones – For you to better learn to sing while playing the guitar is to start with the easy songs. There is no need for you to rush things because you have lifetime to be able to learn. There are some guitarists who start with complex songs and end up not hitting the right notes. What people really want to listen is the singer that knows what he is doing.

2.Learn songs that involve only up to three chords – First you must choose a choose that has up to three chords only, and analyze it. The simpler the notes the better it is for you to learn.

3.Work on one session at a time – To better improve in learning to sing while playing guitar it is important that you pay attention to details. As much as possible focus on everything and be meticulous in what you are doing. You will have better performance if you go into details and concentrate really well.

4.Practice on both activities – To be able to put them together, you must take the time to practice both. It is important that you are as good as singing as you are with playing the guitar for you to really amaze the crown and have them listen to your performance.

5.Work on hitting the singing melody – It is very vital that you should know what your voice needs to do in the melody, do not just settle for straining to reach high or low notes or falling out of pitches every time you sing while playing the guitar. You should work on hitting the melody right.

6.Familiarize the chords of the song – It should be involuntary on the part of the guitar playing for you to be able to focus on the singing aspect. It is important that you practice the chords of the song over and over until your familiar with it, to the point where thinking about the next chord is not needed rather it flows naturally.

Singers who can play the guitar get a lot of attention and recognition because it is not an easy task, especially if they executed them well. For you to be able to become one of them you should practice and take a lot of your time and effort in learning the craft. Work hard both on the singing and the guitar playing and in no time i’m pretty sure you will me become successful.

For more tips on how to learn to sing while playing the guitar, click here. Find the best reviews on singing in key here!

Aug
27

Guitar Effects Pedals: 5 Pedals Everyone Should Own

Guitar Effects Pedals: 5 Pedals Everyone Should Own

So, you’ve got your guitar rig, amp, and some skills under your belt. You’re looking to spice up your sound a bit with some effects, but you’re not sure what kind to get, what they do, or anything else about them for that matter. Not to worry, choosing pedals is relatively simple. There are only a few major types, and though you can get many others kinds, keeping things simple is usually the best approach. In this article, I will outline the different types of pedals available, what you can expect from them, and how to choose the best model.


First and foremost, a gooding tuner pedal is an essential accessory for any gigging musician. Sure, you might be able to tune by ear just fine under normal circumstances, but things might get a bit harder on a noisy stage. A tuner pedal cuts off the signal from your guitar (so your audience doesn’t have to hear the tuning process), and gives you visual indicators as you tune your string, allowing you to keep in perfect tune even in the most difficult of conditions. Though this isn’t an “effects pedal,” its such a key item that I still needed to mention it.


A reverb pedal is perhaps one of the best basic pedals you can get. Unless you’re fortunate enough to own an amp with high quality built in reverb, you probably don’t have a really good reverb sound available. Reverb adds a lot of depth and atmosphere to a piece of music. Of course, like many effects, it can be easily over used, but in moderation it is excellent. There are many types of reverb, ranging from high tech digital designs to really basic technologies. One of the most sought after reverb types is modeled after the spring reverb found in early Fender amplifiers. These are expensive, but they do give a very lovely vintage tone. If you’re interested in a reverb unit, be sure to listen (and play through, if possible) each pedal to see if it has a sound that suites you well.


The most commonly desired pedal by many players is the distortion pedal. A distortion pedals, as its name implies, distorts the signal from your guitar to give a distinctive sound. Of course, there are many ways of accomplishing this distortion, so every pedal has its own unique sound. It’s hard to give general guidelines for choosing a distortion pedal, since every one is completely different, but you should definitely make sure that your pedal does not sound too harsh. This harshness is a common flaw with cheaper or lower quality distortion pedals, so try to buy quality.


Another essential pedal is the delay pedal. A delay pedals plays back your guitar sample in a loop, with a given decay. It’s a little hard to explain, but if you listen to almost all songs by U2, or “Run Like Hell” by Pink Floyd, you’ll hear the effect clearly. It’s a fairly complicated effect and requires precise timing to get the repeated loops to sound in rhythm, but the final effect is worth it. Definitely a pedal to check out. One of the most important aspects of choosing the delay pedal is that it has intuitive controls. You don’t want to be fussing around with a bunch of fiddly controls on stage.


For the final pedal, I recommend getting whatever you want. This may seem like a copout on my part, but I can’t speak at all to your personal sound and style. If you’re going for a trippy sound, try a flanger. If you need a wah pedal, by all means get one. The point is, sound is very personal, and nobody else can tell you what to get. Shop around, play around, and you’re sure to get the pedal board of your dreams.

Jul
11

Find out How To Master Guitar Chords Effectively

Find out How To Master Guitar Chords Effectively

Guitar tutorials put a heavy emphasis on learning to play chords. Once the guitarist has learned to play chords a world of musical potential unfolds. When the beginning guitarist moves from single note play to those magical progressions, the guitar will open doors to all the music you have dreamt of playing.

All the practice time you have spent perfecting your single notes will now make sense. The transition from single note play to chords opens the doors to many of today’s popular songs as well as allows the guitarist to create their own combinations. Here are a few suggestions to mastering the chords.

Keeping It Simple

Learning to play the chords is a natural progression. The transition can seem laborious but with your ability to play singles notes well, you will be able to master simple chords by combining your notes.

Your guitar tutorial will encourage you to begin with easier chords, like A to E, G to A or D to G. By practicing these chords you will be learning to shape and form chords. When you have mastered these elementary chords, you will be ready to move on to more challenging combinations.

Stay positive

Even learning these simple chords will take plenty of practice. Your positive practice regimen and your guitar tutorial will be your best friend as you work through the process. Stay committed to learning something new every day and soon the chords will become natural.

By continually referencing your guitar tutorial, you always have a handy learning tool upon which you can rely. Eventually your practice will pay off. One day, the chord will kick in and you will be on your way.

See And Feel The Chords

Your tutorial will encourage you to visualize the finger movements related to the chords. Learn from your mistakes. When you err, see the location of your fingers and visualize where they should be to accomplish the chord. Soon that visualization will become reality. By developing your visualization skills, you will soon be able to play chords while blindfolded.

Remember that chords will test the strength of your fingers. As you move to wider scales, you will need to increase your span. The guitar tutorial will have suggestions about how to increase finger strength and expand reach.

Master One Chord Each Time

Don’t put the cart before the horse. Stick with the plan of learning the simple chords first. Completely master the easier chords before dallying with more intricate moves. It is repetitive but rewarding practice time.

Gain an understanding of the root note, which is the chord’s base note. All movements begin with this root note. Guitarists gain confidence by being familiar with the starting point.

Let Your Guitar Tutorial Show You The Way

The tutorial will provide diagrams for movements related to many chords. Study these diagrams and practice them with the visualization in front of you. Your guitar tutorials will show you the way top the proper audio and video techniques for each chord. You will be able to rely on those wonderful chords to bring your guitar to life the rest of your guitar playing days.

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Jun
15

Guitar Effects Pedals

Guitar Effects Pedals

If you are serious about the guitar then you may want to consider investing in guitar effects. Guitar effects pedals come in lots of different shapes and sizes. Their main use is to change the way your guitar sounds.

There are thousands of different guitar effects pedals to choose from some new some rare and old – some create sounds that alters your guitar sound so much it is almost unrecognisable as a guitar sound.

Guitar effects pedals come in many different formats. You can get he single effects units – often called stomp boxes and chain them together or you can opt for a multi effects unit that combines lots of effects in one box. There are also other formats such as rack mounted effects units and processors.

For the purpose of this article I am going to illustrate a couple of the most commonly used guitar effects pedals that I consider an essential. I personally use these pedals. These can be easily chained together in whatever way you choose and changed to get the sound that you want from your guitar.

Distortion / overdrive pedals

Whilst the above is in fact two separate pedals the effect they produce are similar. I personally own a distortion pedal but tend to use the amplifiers overdrive effect to get the sound I want.. Basically they take your clean sound and convert it to an overdriven or distorted sound. This gives you a rock type sound found on hundreds of songs.

Wah Pedals

Wah pedals are a great guitar effects pedal. Rather than just an on/off situation this is an expression pedal. It is called a wah pedal because literally, it makes your guitar sound as though it is saying “wah”. This is great for slow and fast lead playing and produces some really great results.

Delay Pedals

This adds an echo effect to your sound. Can be used to layer multiple sounds or, more commonly, and in my case, used to beef up your lead sound. It is a subtle difference that can make such a difference to your playing.

Chorus Pedals

Another popular guitar pedal that adds depth to both your clean and distorted tone is the chorus pedal. This thickens the sound by doubling up notes in layers and altering delays in a very subtle way.

With guitar effects pedals there are massive differences in sound quality. Often the more expensive a pedal is, the better it will be. It is also very true, especially with the examples above, the older the pedal is the better quality sound it will produce. As with most things guitar related,  they don’t make things like they used to.

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Jun
6

Guitar Effects Pedals Vs. Rack Mount Processors

Guitar Effects Pedals Vs. Rack Mount Processors

If you play electric guitar or even if you’re just a fan, you’ve undoubtedly asked yourself how your favorite artist gets ‘that sound’ on one of your favorite tunes.

There is a dizzying array of guitar effects processors available these days and finding the right combination of guitar effects pedals and rackmount gear can be a daunting task that requires a certain amount of experimentation before finding the combination that works best for you.

Larger touring rock bands often have racks full of processors and a stage littered with pedals to switch between effects patches. Still, many musicians have found the old-style stompbox guitar pedals to offer the best bang for the buck. Although digital multi-effects processors offer some distinct convenient advantages, allowing guitar players to build combinations of effects -i.e. Chorus + Delay + Reverb + Distortion – into patches and banks for easy recall and switching later, there are some drawbacks to this approach as well. The combination of effects that’s written to a patch ad the associated parameters (amount of delay, reverb decay etc.), generally can not be changed on the fly. In addition, when switching between effects in a live gig situation, oftentimes there is a slight sound dropout which makes it impractical to use while sustaining a long chord for instance.

The stompbox guitar effects pedal set up, however provides much greater flexibility, allowing the guitar player to switch on and off individual effects at will. In addition, many guitar players prefer the ‘warmer’ tone provided by some of the older analog effects pedals. For convenience, you can purchase a pedalboard style case that will allow you to keep standard sized stompboxes connected together, so you don’t need to continuously reconnect everything each time you play. Many of these pedalboards also provide power supplies to connect all guitar effects pedals to, so that batteries don’t need to be constantly changed.

In the end, the best way to find what works for you is to experiment. Individual guitar effects pedals, multi-effects pedals and rackmount processors, along with various midi switching devices can be bought fairly inexpensively on sites like Ebay, if you take the time to look around and do your homework. If you find something that doesn’t work for you or your setup, you can always find someone who will be willing to buy it from you.

Richard Brodsky has been playing guitar since the 1970’s. He knows the best place to buy guitar effects pedals is http://www.myguitareffects.com

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May
30

How to Run Guitar Effects Through an Amplifier

How to Run Guitar Effects Through an Amplifier

This is a great question and one most guitarists ask themselves. Why do we ask ourselves instead of someone who knows? I’ll start with there is no etched in granite answer. Ultimately it comes down to what sounds the best to you. Simply put, there is no right or wrong way. A gray area so to speak that nobody talks about.

That being said, lets put together a basic strategy that is sold and popular and easy to do.


The effect loop in your amp is an other place to route the signal. It offers another way of adding external effects gear and components such as a stomp box/s into the signal trail.

Putting effects onto the effects loop sounds different than if you plug it into the front, or input of the amp. In other words, the front of the amp or input is the same plug your guitar plugs into. Plugging an effect into the front of your amp tends to mask or color the sound because going through the front or input of your amplifier allows the signal to be processed by the gain and equalizer. This is perhaps the most preferred method because the effect is introduced and passes through the EQ and gain circuits.


The effects loop on your amp eliminates the effects gear from Gain or EQ influence. A better statement might be that the sound is pure and untainted when it goes through the effects loop. That is a desirable quality for certain types of effects.

Most people run effects such as delay units and other effects similar to delay like a chorus pedal through the effects loop.


A favorite vibe can be created by putting the other effects such as my Wah, Compressor, Maxon Overdrive, Sustainer, Soul Vibe and the rest of my effects in the front or input of my amps. There are no cemented rules on what order to put them in. Have some fun and experiment on the order of effects coming out of the amp and going to the guitar. You can examine and listen to most effects gear online at one of these guitar stores.

Note:You will need a pedal board. Ther are plenty of excellent pedal board options.

Do you have another strategy? This strategy works great for most of the guitar players, what works for you?

One last thought, use a really good quality cable to connect any effects you choose for your system. The smallest items can make the biggest difference. A good habit to get into is making sure you buy quality components by well know manufacturers.

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May
27

Get Guitar Effects for Your Computer

Get Guitar Effects for Your Computer

Once you have learnt some chord progressions and riffs and you are beginning to sound like a guitar player it will be time to start getting yourself your own individual sound. These days guitar players can add effects to their playing in many ways. It used to be necessary to connect to an amplifier but now their are guitar plug ins and software to give you all kinds of effects. You can apply distortion, sustain, wah-wah, chorus, flanger, reverb, delay effects and listen to the results in your headphones without disturbing your family or neighbors. All you need is a sound card.

The effects software that many guitarists think is the top of the range is Native Instruments Guitar Rig 3. It is expensive but good.  It provides guitar and bass effects by modeling many popular amplifiers, cabinets, microphones, and effect pedals. It has twelve guitar and bass amps, and a matched cabinet module gives you real classic sounds. The Guitar Rig software has faithfully modelled stomp boxes, distortion and volume pedals, eighteen guitar and six bass cabinets, four rotary speakers and nine microphones – all based on popular vintage gear. A great feature of this effects software is the drag and drop interface for mixing your sound. Just choose an amplifier from classic Fender, Marshall, and Mesa Boogie amps, select the size of your cabinet and play around with the forty-four effects.

The Line 6 Pocket Pod Guitar Multi Effects Processor has over three hundred onboard/portable tones and over 3000 presets. Battery-powered and about the size of a tuner, Pocket POD is a portable guitar effects solution. You can use it for effects in front of your amp, or just plug in headphones and practice.

Guitar FX 3 is a cool software that has not been updated for years but it is good and it is free. Just do not expect it to work if you are using Vista and you should make sure you have plenty of RAM. To get started you just plug your guitar into the microphone or line in. It offers a big range of presets plus you can the tabbed menus to create custom tones which can be saved as presets. You can apply distortion, wah-wah, noise gate, compressor, flanger, reverb, chorus, delay and some of other filters.

Another free effects program is Audacity. Audacity is a free, user-friendly audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. With Audacity you can record live audio, convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs, edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV or AIFF sound files, cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together. You can record from a microphone, line input, or other sources and create multi-track recordings. You can change the pitch of your music without altering the tempo, or vice-versa plus Audacity lets you remove static, hiss, hum, or other background noises. The guitarist can alter frequencies with Equalization, FFT Filter, and Bass Boost effects. Other built-in effects include echo, phaser, wah-wah and reverse.

Just so you are not left looking for the guitar effects software using redundant URLs I have left it to you to search using the product names. Some of the software that you need to pay for is available on a trial basis or you might find it for less money on ebay.

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