Making Hardware Synths and Drum Machines Shine with Guitar Pedals

While software synths and virtual drum machines are unmatched in terms of power and flexibility, there’s something special about hardware synths and drum machines. Their knobby interfaces, sliders, keys, and pads yearn for interaction, and, to my ear, they possess a certain sonic edge over their software counterparts — though that debate will no doubt continue. But, mostly, they’re a lot of fun to use, and making music should be fun first and foremost.

What can possibly make hardware synths and drum machines more fun? Well, effects, of course! Modulation, delay, distortion — these are the tools that make synthesizers and drum machines come to life. You can use plug-ins or even old-school rack units to process your synths and drum machines. But don’t overlook guitar pedals.

Guitar pedals are one of the most cost-effective ways to make your synths and drum machines shine. If you’re like me — a guitarist who came to synths later in life — then you may already have a bunch of pedals sitting around, waiting to spice up your synths.

When using guitar pedals with synths and drum machines, you can approach it from one of two ways: A) in line to process the signal on the way in; or B) sending the signal(s) from a bus or insert after it is recorded.

Using guitar pedals as in-line processors is the most straightforward approach. Just plug your synth or the outputs of your drum machine into your pedal or pedals and run their output into your mixer or audio interface.

Bear in mind that guitar pedals are made for instrument-level, high-impedance outputs like those found on a guitar or a bass. So, to get the best results using them with synths and drum machines, gain staging and impedance matching are important. If your synth has an instrument-level output, like the Behringer Odyssey analog synth, then use that when working with guitar pedals. You’ll also want to record using an instrument input on your audio interface or a DI box for the best signal integrity.

If your synth only has a line-level output, then use the synth’s volume control to make sure you’re not overdriving the input of your pedals. Or, conversely, overdrive the heck out of them if sonic destruction is what you’re after. Since most hardware drum machines feature line outputs, this is the approach you’ll have to take when using pedals as in-line processors for drum machines.

The second option, using guitar pedals as send/return effects, gives you more control over the balance of your dry signals and your effects when it’s time to mix. I often use guitar pedals in this way by sending a pre-recorded synth track through the outputs of my audio interface to a re-amp box into the guitar pedals and back into an instrument input on my interface or a DI box. The Radial EXTC-SA and Analog Alien EPI Effects Pedal Interface are designed specifically for interfacing guitar pedals into your DAW rig. The trick to making this most effective is to set the effects at 100% wet and blend them to taste with the original signal in your DAW.

To learn more about re-amping, click here.

For this exercise, I focused on using guitar pedals as in-line processors. This approach has a few advantages. First, the guitar pedals become part of the sound-design process and may lead you to unexpected results. Second, it forces you to trust your instincts and commit to a sound. I find it useful for avoiding the option paralysis that can come with a computer full of plug-ins. Third (and this is an extension of the second point), I find that mixes come together more easily when I’ve committed to effects during the recording phase.

The Gear

I’ll break down several different ways to use guitar pedals with synths and drum machines, but first let’s check out the gear.

Synths & Drum Machine

Behringer PRO-1 Analog Synthesizer – A modern re-creation of an influential 1980s monophonic synthesizer with patch points for integrating into a Eurorack modular system.Behringer Odyssey Analog Synthesizer – Behringer’s take on the legendary “Punk Rock Synth” with an expansive effects section and contemporary features.Moog Grandmother Semi-modular Analog Synthesizer – A super-fun compact monosynth with two of Moog’s legendary oscillators, a ladder filter, numerous patch points, and a built-in spring reverb.Roland Alpha Juno 2 Polyphonic Analog Synthesizer – Roland’s last analog Juno-series synth released in 1985. Often overlooked due to its lack of a self-oscillating filter and DX7-style membrane interface, the JU2 has a glorious character, PWM sawtooth waves, and a 7-parameter envelope generator.Yamaha RX5 Digital Rhythm Programmer – Yamaha’s 1986 flagship 12-bit digital drum machine with 12 individual outputs and full-featured MIDI implementation. Mine is loaded with sounds from a Linn LM-1 Drum Computer using a third-party USB cartridge.

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Guitar Pedals

EarthQuaker Devices Tone Job V2 EQ and Boost Pedal– A straightforward 3-band EQ and boost pedal with bass, treble, and midrange controls.EarthQuaker Devices Grand Orbiter V3 Phaser Pedal– A tweakable analog phasing effects unit with three ranges of speed control.EarthQuaker Devices Spatial Delivery V2 Envelope Filter Pedal – A modernized version of the classic funk effect with three filter modes (lowpass, bandpass, and highpass).EarthQuaker Devices Data Corrupter Harmonizing Pedal – An unpredictable 3-voice harmonizer synth pedal with an all-analog signal path.Korg SDD-3000 Digital Delay Pedal – The pedal version of the legendary rack delay unit with additional delay types.BOSS CH-1 Stereo Super Chorus Pedal – A stereo chorus effect with tone control. Mine is an analog unit from the mid-’90s. Modern CH-1s are digital.MXR Dyna Comp Compressor Pedal – A longtime pedalboard-standard compressor with a simple 2-knob interface for sensitivity and output level.

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Processing a Hardware Drum Machine with Guitar Pedals

Hardware drum machines, especially of the vintage variety, benefit from processing. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find a single example of a professionally mixed song featuring a hardware drum machine that wasn’t augmented in some way with outboard processors. While you may not have a rack full of dynamics processors, EQs, and effects, you can use guitar pedals to fill the gap and to give your drum machines the gravitas they deserve.

Adding Weight and Punch to Kick and Snare with an EQ Pedal

Old-school 12-bit drum machines, like the RX5, are very midrange focused, which is great for punching through a mix. However, they often lack the heavy low end and sizzling highs common to modern mixes. To compensate, you’ll need to shape the frequency of the drum components using EQ. While software EQs are certainly effective, subbing in an EQ pedal can have immediately satisfying results and offer a touch more character than a plug-in. Here, I used the EQD Tone Job V2 to give the RX5’s kick drum a low-end boost while pulling back the midrange, and I treated the snare drum to a dash of top-end sizzle.







Snare Raw







Making Hi-hats Dance with a Phaser Pedal

Hi-hats from a hardware drum machine can sometimes sound stiff. That can be partially solved by varying the velocity of the hits, adding swing, or programming the hats by hand using the pads and leaving them unquantized. Even so, they may still lack the unpredictability and movement of real hats. One way to give your programmed hats a more organic feel is by running them through a modulation pedal. In this instance, I used the Grand Orbiter V3 for a slight phasing effect that helps the hats dance.







Transforming Toms with a Harmonizer Pedal

With the kick, snare, and hats, the purpose of the guitar pedals was to subtly enhance the core sounds. However, with the toms, I took a different approach and experimented with the Data Corrupter. By only using the square wave, I was able to transform the 12-bit tom samples into gritty electro-toms with an exaggerated falling pitch.







Spreading Cymbals and Percussion with a Delay Pedal

With acoustic drums, cymbals and high-pitched percussive elements like tambourines often act as the glue that pulls a performance together — a wash of noise that wraps around the kit’s components. When programming drums using a hardware drum machine, the role of cymbals and auxiliary percussion is similar, but they don’t fill the space in the same way. Modulation effects can help, but a modulated ping-pong delay can have greater impact and help to define an ambient space for your primary kit elements to nestle into.



















Processing Hardware Synthesizers with Guitar Pedals

Here’s a simple equation to keep in mind when using hardware synths: synths + effects = awesome! More than any other instrument (even guitars), synths beg to be soaked in delay, chorus, reverb, and every other imaginable effect. I’m a big fan of using 19-inch rack processors with my synths, but they take up a lot of space and can be quite expensive to purchase and maintain. Letting my guitar pedals do double duty as synth processors has opened a ton of soundscaping possibilities, and it can do the same for you!

Fattening up a Synth Bass with EQ and Chorus Pedals

One of the biggest selling points of analog monosynths, like the Behringer PRO-1, is their ultra-fat low end. However, sometimes the low end of an analog synth bass is so big and wooly that it can undercut its impact in a mix. Though it may seem counterintuitive, the way to get a big, fat analog bass tone is to tame it with EQ. In this example, I’ve used the Tone Job V2 to boost the midrange and treble frequencies, thus attenuating the lower frequencies. I could have cut the bass, but using additive EQ gave me two frequency bands to manipulate rather than one. Additionally, I mixed in a touch of CH-1 chorus (in mono) set to the slowest possible speed and maximum depth, which thins out some of the low-midrange frequencies through phase cancellation and tightens the patch.







Breathing Life into Arpeggios with Modulation and Delay Pedals

Arpeggios and ostinatos are a mainstay of electronic compositions. They’re easy to do, and they always sound great. But their repetitive nature can make them come across stale if not given life with effects. Using a combination of a modulation effect and a delay can give your arpeggios some much-needed movement. In this example, I’ve dialed in light phasing with the Grand Orbiter V3, which is then routed through the Korg SDD-3000 set to an eighth-note delay. There’s a slight loss of definition, but it’s more than made up for by oodles of vibe.













Stacking Effects for Swirling Stereo Pads

Stereo pads are another hallmark of synth-based music, and the wider, juicier, and swirlier the better! To get your pads ultra-wide, it can be tempting to use a stereo width plug-in — but let me offer another way. Try running your pads through a stereo ping-pong delay and then run each side of the delay into a different modulation effect. The differences between the left and right channels contribute to a greater perceived sense of width. You can hear it in the audio example below, which uses the SDD-3000 in LCR (ping-pong) mode with the Grand Orbiter affecting the left channel and the Spatial Delivery affecting the right channel.







Creating Space Around a Synth Melody with a Stereo Delay Pedal

Sometimes, I feel like delay is cheating. It’s an instant “gooderizer”! But, hey, if it works then work it. Using a stereo delay pedal set to ping-pong, you can add immediate interest and dimension to a fairly vanilla synth melody such as the one below. Once again, the SDD-3000 was employed for this task.







Hyping a Melody with an Envelope Filter Pedal

One of my go-to tricks is doubling a main synth melody with a second synth. For the example track, the Alpha Juno 2 is the lead singer, as it were. I recruited the Moog Grandmother to sing the melody in unison with a different timbre. Yet, I wanted to give it an even more distinct flavor, so I reached for the Spatial Delivery. The Spatial Delivery is an envelope follower that can mimic the behavior of a resonant filter on a synthesizer. For this patch, I was using the Grandmother’s built-in spring reverb, which shows up after the filter in the synth’s hardwired architecture. The Spatial Delivery became a second, post-reverb filter with a slow sweep, drawing lovely harmonics from the spring-reverb tail. It got a bit spiky at the peaks, so I reined it in with an MXR Dyna Comp.







Generating a Gnarly Synth Lead with a Harmonizer Pedal

What’s an electronic composition without an absolutely greasy synth lead? New-age music! But seriously, I was committed to creating a glitchy, fuzz-guitar-like lead to close out this demo track, and it ended up providing a good example of working with pedals during the sound-design process. Before starting to program the lead patch on the Grandmother, I engaged the Data Corrupter. When creating the sound, I was changing parameters on both the pedal and the synth simultaneously. For all intents and purposes, they merged into a single instrument, which became quite evident when I bypassed the Data Corrupter to record the raw sample — a weird and uninspiring patch left uncloaked!







Putting It All Together

Now’s the time to sit back and listen to our pedal-processed sounds in context: “Rockpile Rumble,” an ’80s-inspired track that sounds like it was ripped from a doomed straight-to-VHS action thriller featuring Lance Henriksen as the big bad. As alluded to before, committing to the effects while recording made for a quick mix with very few additional plug-ins needed — just a little light tone and dynamics shaping using instances of FabFilter’s Pro-Q 3 equalizer plug-in and Waves’ Renaissance Compressor plug-in. Reverb is courtesy of Reverb Foundry’s HD Cart, a knockout software emulation of the Lexicon 480L. Check it out!




Explore Another Way with EarthQuaker Devices

In this article, I admittedly played it safe, using pedals for the most part to gently enhance or augment the synth and drum parts. But that, of course, is only one approach. Starting with the same raw tracks, our friends at EarthQuaker Devices went rogue and employed the sorcery of guitar pedals to re-amp and transform these synth and drum-machine parts into a dystopian synthscape. Here’s a preview:




To hear the full track and explore another way to use guitar pedals to transform synths and drum machines, read the full article from EarthQuaker Devices.
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