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THE GUITAR ACCESSORIES GUIDE

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Once you've bought your guitar, it's difficult to know which accessories are essential and which you can live without. Whether you've been playing for a long time or just started, you may have seen some of these names pop up and not fully understood what they do. Hopefully this post can clarify the function of these accessories, so you can decide what you need.


So without further ado, let's talk about some common guitar accessories:


1. Capos


This is a small device that clamps across the neck of your guitar and shortens the length of the strings, raising their pitch.

The main advantage of using a capo is that it lets a guitarist play a song in different keys while still using first-position open-string chord forms.


If you're someone who plays guitar to accompany singing, this is a great tool for changing the key of a song to suit your range without learning a completely different chord progression! Just move your capo up or down and play the same chord shapes in the new position.


2. Tuners

If your acoustic guitar doesn't have an in-built tuner, I would recommend looking at getting a clip on tuner. These are much more accurate than tuning apps that use a microphone, as they pick on the vibrations as you pluck the strings. Clipping them onto the headstock of your guitar gives you quick access if you need to make minor adjustments whilst in action.

Be wary of choosing the cheapest option available with these, as the lower quality tuners tend to lack longevity and give up on you sooner than you'd like!


3. Pedals

Pedals are small, metal enclosures housing circuitry, which you step on to activate; hence their nickname, "stomp-box". Once turned on, it can drive, distort, modulate or reverberate your guitar tone.

There’s an infinite combination of effects to explore, from subtle changes to tone-defining shifts, allowing you to add new creative dimensions to your playing, or simply improve the overall sound quality of your guitar.


Overdrive & Distortion

These pedals create distorted, crunchy tones - widely used in rock, metal and even pop.


Reverb

Emulates the reverberations you experience in large rooms and halls as the sound bounces off the walls and back at you. This adds life and fullness to your sound.

Most genres utilise reverb in some way. It's a great addition to a clean guitar tone or used in conjunction with other effects. Different types of reverb have unique qualities:


  • Plate

A plate reverb is a large box with a metal sheet suspended inside. This is vibrated by a transducer transmitting an audio signal, where it is recorded by a microphone attached to the sheet. Plate reverbs sound less ‘natural’ than room reverbs, with a nice smoothness and a body that starts bright, then gets darker over time.


  • Spring

Spring reverbs, like plates, use metal, a transducer, and a microphone to create a reverb, but rather than a metal sheet, they use springs. These have a dark and metallic sound.


  • Shimmer

Shimmer is an effect that pairs reverb with a pitch shifter, creating rising or cascading sheets of sound. Great for ambient genres or an ethereal touch.


  • Digital

Digital reverb systems are designed to replicate all the above effects using algorithms.

However, convolution reverbs use samples of actual spaces so you can recreate the reverb response of specific places, such as studio rooms, large halls, forests, you name it.


Delay

Pretty straight forward! These cause the guitar signal to repeat creating an echoing effect. There are a few controls you’ll find on almost every delay pedal, allowing you to change the speed of the repeats and how many repeats are created.


Tuners

This should be the first pedal you plug your guitar into in a signal chain and is such a great investment. You may already have a clip-on tuner, but a pedal is much more reliable, accurate and can be positioned neatly with your other stomp-boxes on a pedalboard.


Modulation

Modulation effects like phaser, flanger, tremolo, chorus and vibe pedals, create movement in your sound. The intensity of this ranges depending on effect. All of these effects achieve different results by doing largely the same thing: they split the guitar signal into two parts, delaying one and changing it before feeding it back into the first one to create a blend of the dry and wet signal. Great for R&B, blues, jazz & other alternative genres.


MultiFX

Multi FX are larger pedals that contain several effects in one unit. A multi FX unit typically costs less than buying all the equivalent individual effects and as a beginner, it’s a great way to hear and experiment with a number of sounds. The only downside is that you can miss out on more unique effects pedals that indie brands have to offer.


Looper

If you're interested in improvisation or composition of your own music, I would highly recommend investing in a loop pedal.

Record chord progressions or leads, loop them and add layers of melody or even practice your soloing. These are great for idea generation and can really build confidence and help get you performance ready!


Setup

Plug your jack into your guitar & the other end into the pedal input. Now connect another jack from the pedal output to your amp or audio interface. If you want to use more than one pedal, use shorter patch cables to link them all up. Using pedals through long cable runs weakens the signal. Keeping your cable chain short ensures a constant signal flow from your guitar to amp so you have high definition tone! You'll also need to provide pedals with power from the mains but a power cable is usually provided with your purchase.


4. Cables

If you have an electric or electro-acoustic guitar, you'll need a jack cable to connect to your amplifier. These can be angled or straight.


A straight one is well-suited if you have your guitar jack on the side of the body. The drawback of straight jacks is that they're not protected from every angle, therefore can be damaged by pulling, twisting, etc.


Patch Cable
Patch Cable

The angular guitar cables have their jack at a 90-degree turn. This is designed to be less obstructive. It is commonly used for guitars with a jack input on the face of the guitar body, minimising the risk of accidental damage. I would also recommend using angled jacks for hollow-body electric guitars.


If you want to build a pedalboard of multiple stomp-boxes, you'll also need some patch cables to connect your effect pedals to each other.


5. Plectrums (Picks)

A plectrum is a small flat tool used for plucking or strumming.


Here are 4 factors to consider when choosing plectrums:


  1. THICKNESS


Guitar picks usually fall into one of these gauge ranges:

Thin

.40-.60 mm or less

Medium

.60-.80 mm

Heavy 

.80-1.20 mm

Extra Heavy

1.20 mm+


THIN picks are better for:

  • Brighter Tones – accentuates high frequencies.

  • Tighter dynamic range – their flexibility limits the volume, which is great for studio recording.

  • Acoustic Guitar Strumming – adds more clarity to individual notes in the chords.


THICK picks are better for:

  • Mellower Tones – the weight and rounder edges emphasise the bass more than treble.

  • Wider Dynamic Range – greater control over volume and attack.

  • Electric Lead Guitar – allow for speed and accuracy while soloing.

  • Heavy Distorted Sounds – maintains clarity and separation between notes.


  1. TEXTURE


The more textured the surface of the pick, the easier it will be to grip, especially when your hands get sweaty! The same applies to softer picks too. More grip is great but keep in mind that texture also affects how the pick rolls off the strings.


  • Smooth, slippery picks produce cleaner, natural tone, whereas rough picks will add more grit and colour.


  • Smooth, round edges will have a warmer tone, while sharp edges will have a stronger attack and brighter sound.


  1. SIZE AND SHAPE


With smaller guitar picks, there’s less distance between your hands in the strings, which is great for incorporating hand techniques like palm muting and fingerpicking. Bear in mind, “small” is totally relative, depending on the size of your hands.


You can find all kinds of weird shaped picks available, but you can't go wrong sticking to a variation of the standard triangular teardrop shape.

Which variation you choose will depend mainly on the sharpness of the striking surface.  Here’s the difference:

  • Sharper points – have a stronger attack, brighter tone, and typically work better for soloing.

  • Rounder points – have a softer attack, mellower tone, and typically work better for strumming.


  1. MATERIAL


The material of the guitar pick is what ultimately determines the stiffness, texture, and overall performance.



  • Nylon – lightweight & flexible picks, typically softer with a textured grip

  • Celluloid – stiffer with a smoother, slicker texture compared to nylon.

  • Acetal – aka Tortex (Dunlop’s popular line)  – which has a slight textured grittiness



6. Stands


Leaning your guitar against a wall can be risky. To avoid hard falls and scratched walls, consider getting a stand! If you have more than one guitar, or need a way to store your guitar safely, there are lots of stands available that display your instrument beautifully and minimise damage.


7. Audio Interfaces

If you're interested in music creation, you will need an audio interface of some kind. These allow you record your instrument output directly into your recording software or DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). Audio interfaces connect to your device via USB. You can then plug in your guitar using a jack cable, ensuring the input on your recording software is set to the interface. Using the outputs, you can either connect to external speakers or listen with monitoring headphones.


To conclude...

When buying new gear, take advantage of the range of reviews and demos out there by knowledgeable guitarists to make sure you know what you're buying! And don't worry about getting these accessories all at once! I hope I've been able to outline what everything does, so you can assess what you want based on your style and personal taste. Ultimately, curating your guitar gear is a long term journey and the longer you play, the more insight you'll have into what you need.


Happy shredding! 🎸✰



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