so i have two children who are guitar players. Both have classical lessons and are grade 5 and 7. They both also are playing electric guitar with my small son playing bass and just getting his new mim standard p-bass which he loves.

I was wondering what is the best way for them to learn guitar effects? Lots of their friends seem to have multi-effects pedals but they seem to be used poorly. I guess I am looking $50-100. options seem to be

1. trad single effect pedal (but cheap versions)
2. multi-effects pedal
3. software via a pc
4. get an electric guitar teacher (expensive)

what do you think the best way to learn about effects is and what setup should they be starting with.

thanks

First hand experience....get one or two and play with them.You can pretty much go on
Youtube or anywhere on the internet and see which pedals do what and how they work and what sound they make.A multi effects pedal can be had for cheap.If I was a kid and I wanted to learn,I would get a wah pedal and start from there.They are super fun and every guitar player should have one.I am sure many others will chime in also.Multi effect pedals can be had for cheap and that is also an option.That way you can see what effects they like and you can always expand from there.I own a very old digitech...it is ok and was fun when I was young but today as an adult ,I prefer a single effect pedal that does a specific sound..but that can get costly real quick going that route.I am the type of guitar player that plays pretty much through a tube amp and maybe a couple effects at the most.Simple is best sometimes.More often than not I play simply with a wah pedal,guitar and amp and that is it.I hate when guitar players start going crazy fiddeling with there effects an forget about the music.Good luck

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1986 Fender Sidekick Reverb 35
1990 Fender Red Knob - "The Twin"
1992 Fender Newporter - Acoustic
2000 Fender American Series Strat - Natural ash
2010 Fender Mustang 1
2011 Fender Blacktop Jazzmaster -Sunburst
2012 Fender Champion

Try the Zoom G1X multi-effects pedal. You can frequently find them on Ebay for around a C-note and they feature most of the popular effects plus several amp and cabinet emulations. I think 40 factory pre-sets are included plus 40 user-programmable patches to create specific sonic profiles using the on-board modules in selectable combinations.

HTH

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

I wanted to get some effects without buying a bunch of pedals. I've been using the Deltalab DGFX 1 for about 2 years. It's $99. There's so many pedals available that I couldn't tell you it's the best sounding for the money since I haven't tried any others. I just know it does the job I need it to. I'm practicing with a band and I've gotten a few compliments on my guitar sound. It can be a bit confusing at first but I've gotten pretty good at dialing in what I need. Your kids will figure it out in no time I'm sure. I've been thinking of stepping up to a Vox Tonelab EX. I haven't done it yet, but I'm real tempted. I like Vox products.

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'10 American Deluxe HSS Sunset Metallic
'10 JA-90 Thinline Telecaster
'15 Music Man JP-15 Blueberry Burst
'07 Les Paul Standard Faded LCPG #82
'14 Carvin ST300
'12 Carvin CS424S
'66 Guild Starfire IV w/Bigsby
'14 Warmouth Partscaster Daphne Blue

I have to take myself back to when I first got into guitar effects. I personally think multi-effects is the way to go. Yes, they probably will use and abuse the effects in ways that are not so nice on the ears. But at the same time, it opens up a lot of experimentation that will probably keep them interested in exploring all the different sounds and crazy stuff.

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One other option. I bought a Fender Gdec 30 amp. It's a great practice tool. It has a bunch of preset effects and amp models that were made by pro musicians along with backing tracks to play to using those presets. It hooks up to a laptop with Fuse software that you can use to tweak the presets and download other presets from online. It seriously makes practice fun and lets you experiment with all kinds of effects and amp settings.

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'10 American Deluxe HSS Sunset Metallic
'10 JA-90 Thinline Telecaster
'15 Music Man JP-15 Blueberry Burst
'07 Les Paul Standard Faded LCPG #82
'14 Carvin ST300
'12 Carvin CS424S
'66 Guild Starfire IV w/Bigsby
'14 Warmouth Partscaster Daphne Blue

I have been playing (on and off) for the past 27 years and I play semi professionally now... The only effect I own is an overdrive....

go figure, I must be an enigma...

I would start out with only 2 pedals... an overdrive (bad monkey is a good cheap one) and for the second one maybe a chorus/flanger... Boss makes a good chorus...

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In Reference to Blues Legend RL Burnside:
After a heart attack in 2001, Burnside's doctor advised him to stop drinking; Burnside did, but he reported that change left him unable to play.

You can get a mult-effect unit new for 50.00 that has all of the basic effects. I have a Digitech RP3 that someone gave me that has distortion, overdrive, compressor, delay, gain boost, reverb, 5 wahs, tuner, pitch shifter, and more. You can find something like that for about 20.00. As they learn what each one does and what they like, then they can focus in on higher quality components (pedals or other). You can google each effect and learn about what it is doing to the signal and common use.

Another approach is to get a guitar interface for the computer and use vst effects in a host. You can find any effect for free. However, with kids the multi-effect pedals might be a safer setup.

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My ability to spell is in direct proportion to the amount of coffee I've had.

I got into using effects properly by getting one effect at a time and using that effect until I was confident that I had every conceivable use for it mastered,then I would move on to another type of pedal.The most commonly used effects are: distortion/overdrive, wah wah pedal,chorus,reverb.From these "main" types you can move on to tremolo,vibrato,digital delay/echo,flanger,phaser.

Some types and brands of multi-effects pedals can be very daunting and complicated in their usage,especially to a novice who isn't acquainted with what the function of each effect type is.Some amps such as Marshall,Fender and Vox have great little amps with multiple effects that you can dial up and even program in if you like and some of them go for not much more than $100.Your best bet would be to go to a reputable dealer and ask which multi-effects unit or amp would be most suitable for a novice and which had the easiest user friendly functions.Lots of luck with it and good for you getting your children grounded in guitar,they'll always be indebted and thankful to you for that in years to come.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

thanks for all the great advice

and the one thing I forgot to ask - do you recommend the same starting setup for my bass playing son

thanks

i cant help with your bass query, but i found that after buying a zoom multi fx pedal first, i found myself only using a bare minimum of the effects on offer, so eventually brought individual pedals of the just the effects i wanted and sold the zoom pedal. i certainly dont regret it, but having that zoom first meant i found out which effects were which, the ones i wanted to use, and the ones that were totally useless. ive now got a wah, delay/reverb, chorus and overdrive. probably the most standard combination going.

Hi wheresmejumper, welcome to the Forum.

I'd certainly bow to the views of the bass players round here, but meantime I'd suggest a small bass amp which incorporates effects might be a useful way for a beginner to go. Many makers offer these, and nice ones include the Roland Cube models, either the Bass Cube 20XL or the Micro Cube from this page:

http://www.roland.com/amp/bass/index.html

Either of those would get someone a good way down the road before bigger money has to be spent, if he/she turns out to be serious about it. A second-hand one on Ebay or similar could come in at your target price.

Also, you asked:

The single strongest piece of advice I'd offer is encourage them not to over-use the effects and to turn the levels down on the ones they do use. The most common beginner mistake with FX is to have them turned up way too high, so they're playing the effect rather than the guitar.

They'll do that anyway, but at least tell 'em!

Good luck - C

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Someone should tell The Edge that.

(U2, Brute? - I'll get my coat...)

Other than that, Ceri's was sound advice (I'm here all day), and many of the other posts made lots of sense as well. So much so that all is left for me is to say: hi wheresmejumper and welcome to the forum!

Cheers

Nutter