Definition

When you operate a guitar or a piano, you can use pedals and footswitches to play these instruments more efficiently. With pedals and footswitches, you can multitask, i.e., use both your hands and feet, allowing for superior performance. And like other products, pedals and footswitches can also be bought online for less money.

What to look for in pedals and footswitches?

How many commands can you handle?

Before buying pedals and footswitches, you should gauge your performance level. The simplest is the single pedal, which is used to send a single command. A double pedal, likewise, can send two separate commands at the same time. You also have options in heavy-duty pedals and heavy-duty pedals with guards. For outdoor performance, you may look at waterproof pedals.

Options in pedal action

The more experienced you are, better will be your pedal action. There are essentially four types of pedal actions and you again need to choose as per your experience level. The options are momentary, two stage, maintained and anti-trip safety feature action.

Pedals and footswitches with or without cable options

Different pedals and footswitches use different types of cables and you can even go wireless. Apart from wireless cable types of pedals and footswitches, the other options include cable with leads, cable with terminated leads, USB cable and cable with series plug. If you choose a wireless pedal, you will need to use the one or two jacks.

How to choose your pedal and footswitch according to your need?

Get the right accessories

To enhance your performance using pedals-and-footswitches, you should look to buy the right accessories too. Two accessories that immediately come to mind are footswitch extension cord and footswitch amp. Without proper accessories, you will be able to go some way, but your performance will not be the best.

Pedals and footswitches for different instruments

There are different types of pedals and footswitches for pianos and guitars. Footswitch Marshall, for example, is a pedal for use with your guitar. Marshall is one of the best known names in pedals and footswitches, but there are many other top models that you should go through. You will find that you are able to expand your horizon in making your purchase.

Buy gradually

You should look to buy from those pedals-and-footswitches that you know how to play or at least find easy to learn. There are simple and complex pedals and footswitches and it is best to graduate to the complex ones as you master the simpler ones.

What are the most popular pedals and footswitches?

MOOG AUDIO Electro Harmonix Bad Stone is a phase shifter that adds a wider sweep to your music. This is a new model that retains the manual shift control and auto and manual phase options. Digitech DL-8 Delay/Looper Guitar Pedal with discontinued clearance has one single stompbox footprint. It features diverse and rich palette of delays including Reverse, Analog, Modulated, Lo Fi, Slapback and Tape for augmented performance from you. The DigiTech Drop is a pedal with dedicated polyphonic drop tune for you to drop your tuning from one semitone to a full octave. All the controls are at your foot.

Conclusion

Even the best pedals and footswitches cannot make you perform at your best ability if you are not used to managing them. Make sure you know how good you are and buy accordingly. Don’t worry about the cost because you can save a lot when you shop online for pedals and footswitches.