A vibrato unit is an electronic

effects unit An effects unit or effects pedal is an electronic device that alters the sound of a musical instrument or other audio source through audio signal processing. Common effects include distortion/overdrive, often used with electric guitar in el ...

used to add

vibrato Vibrato (Italian language, Italian, from past participle of "wikt:vibrare, vibrare", to vibrate) is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch (music), pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. ...

to the sound of an electric instrument, most often an

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

. Vibrato units may be individual stomp boxes or built into multi-effects units, but are traditionally built into

guitar amplifier A guitar amplifier (or amp) is an electronic device or system that strengthens the electrical signal from a pickup on an electric guitar, bass guitar, or acoustic guitar so that it can produce sound through one or more loudspeakers, which a ...

s. Vibrato units are particularly used in

surf music Surf music (or surf rock, surf pop, or surf guitar) is a genre of rock music associated with surf culture, particularly as found in Southern California. It was especially popular from 1958 to 1964 in two major forms. The first is instrumental s ...

. The name ''vibrato unit'' is contrary to normal usage of the term ''vibrato'', and in that sense the unit is incorrectly named.Fender '65 Princeton Reverb Reissue , Guitar reviews , MusicRadar.com ''...the effect is misnamed. Vibrato in musical terms means modulation of pitch...''
/ref> The guitaring tradition of using the term "vibrato" to refer to a

tremolo In music, ''tremolo'' (), or ''tremolando'' (), is a trembling effect. There are two types of tremolo. The first is a rapid reiteration: * Of a single Musical note, note, particularly used on String instrument#Bowing, bowed string instrument ...

effect began in 1956 with

Leo Fender Clarence Leonidas Fender (August 10, 1909 – March 21, 1991) was an American inventor known for designing the Fender Stratocaster. He also founded the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. In January 1965, he sold Fender to CBS, and later foun ...

's use of the term in naming the Fender Vibrolux. In all other contexts the effect produced by a traditional vibrato unit is known as ''

'' rather than ''

''. A few guitar amplifiers do feature true pitch shifting vibrato, notably some models offered in the late 1950s and into the 60s by

Magnatone Magnatone was a brand of electric guitars and amplifiers produced between 1937 and the mid-1970s. The company was based in California. The brand name was revived in the 2010s by Ted Kornblum. History Beginning in the late 1930s, Magna Electroni ...

and presently by Juke Amplification. Still other amplifier manufacturers describe the effect, in accordance with standard music terminology, as ''tremolo''.

History

What is now called a ''vibrato unit'' was one of the earliest electronic guitar effects.

Danelectro Danelectro is a brand of musical instruments and accessories, founded in Red Bank, New Jersey in 1947. The company is known primarily for its string instruments that employed unique designs and manufacturing processes. The Danelectro company was ...

Gibson Gibson may refer to: People * Gibson (surname) Businesses * Gibson Brands, Inc., an American manufacturer of guitars, other musical instruments, and audio equipment * Gibson Technology, and English automotive and motorsport company based * Gi ...

, and

Premier Premier is a title for the head of government in central governments, state governments and local governments of some countries. A second in command to a premier is designated as a deputy premier. A premier will normally be a head of governm ...

all produced guitar amplifiers with built-in amplitude modulation units in the late 1940s. The term ''vibrato'' was first applied to the effect in 1956 with the introduction of the Fender Vibrolux. Fender's first amplifier with this effect, the

Fender Tremolux The Fender Tremolux was a guitar amplifier made by Fender. It was introduced in the summer of 1955 with a rated power output of 15 watts, cathode bias, two 6V6 output tubes, and a 5V4 tube rectifier. The Tremolux was the first Fender amp with a bu ...

model 5E9, had been introduced in the previous year. Despite the different names, the effects circuits were similar, and the effects almost identical.

Controls

A vibrato unit normally has three controls: * Speed controls the

frequency Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit of time. It is also occasionally referred to as ''temporal frequency'' for clarity, and is distinct from ''angular frequency''. Frequency is measured in hertz (Hz) which is eq ...

of the variation, typically from a maximum (fully clockwise) of five to ten hertz to a minimum which may be as slow as one cycle taking several seconds. * Depth or intensity controls the

amplitude The amplitude of a periodic variable is a measure of its change in a single period (such as time or spatial period). The amplitude of a non-periodic signal is its magnitude compared with a reference value. There are various definitions of amplit ...

(volume) of the variation. The minimum depth (fully anticlockwise) is typically (but not always) zero, that is no effect on the sound at all; The maximum depth does not normally cut the sound off completely at the cycle minimum, but may reduce it by as much as 6 dB, virtually a cut off to the ear. * An on/off control, traditionally a pull-on switch on the ''depth''

potentiometer A potentiometer is a three-terminal resistor with a sliding or rotating contact that forms an adjustable voltage divider. If only two terminals are used, one end and the wiper, it acts as a variable resistor or rheostat. The measuring instrume ...

, a foot switch, or both. The ''off'' position bypasses the unit. In the case of an amplifier mounted unit where both switches are supplied, the unit is bypassed if the pull-on switch is off, regardless of the pedal. If the pedal is not plugged in, the unit is turned on and off by the pull-on switch; If the pedal is plugged in, then it controls the unit when the pull-on switch is ''on''.

Vibrato or tremolo?

The term "vibrato unit" was introduced on high-end Fender

s in the 1950s, starting with the Vibrolux amplifier in 1956, in the same period in which what is now called a "

tremolo arm A vibrato system on a guitar is a mechanical device used to temporarily change the pitch of the strings. Instruments without a vibrato have other bridge and tailpiece systems. They add vibrato to the sound by changing the tension of the string ...

" was introduced on Fender guitars. The "synchronised tremolo" was introduced in 1954 on the first

Stratocaster The Fender Stratocaster, colloquially known as the Strat, is a model of electric guitar designed from 1952 into 1954 by Leo Fender, Bill Carson, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Instruments Corporation has continuously ...

guitar. The only previously successful "tremolo arm" was the

Bigsby vibrato tailpiece The Bigsby vibrato tailpiece (or Bigsby for short) is a type of mechanical vibrato device for electric guitar designed by Paul Bigsby and produced by the Bigsby Electric Guitar Company (currently an independently operated subsidiary of Fender M ...

, often simply called a "Bigsby". In 1958, Fender reinforced his usage with the "Fender floating tremolo" on the

Jazzmaster The Fender Jazzmaster is an electric guitar designed as a more expensive sibling of the Fender Stratocaster. First introduced at the 1958 NAMM Show, it was initially marketed to jazz guitarists, but found favor among surf rock guitarists in th ...

and some subsequent guitars. The "synchronised tremolo" became the most copied of these three basic patterns of "tremolo arm", although both of the others continue to have some following. In both the case of the "tremolo arm" and "vibrato unit",

had reversed the established usage of the terms ''vibrato'' and ''tremolo''. That is, he called a device that produced true

a "synchronised tremolo", and a device that produced true

a "vibrato unit". In fact he was using the terms interchangeably. The first Fender vibrato unit (1954) was called "tremolo", and some later Fender tremolo arms were called "vibrato tailpieces" or similar. But the terms that became established were "tremolo arm" and "vibrato unit", both contrary to standard usage, with the result that electric guitarists traditionally use the terms "vibrato" and "tremolo" in the opposite senses to all other musicians when describing these hardware devices and the effects they produce.

True vibrato

Guitarists do also produce true vibrato in many different ways, including: * As ''

finger vibrato Finger vibrato is vibrato produced on a string instrument by cyclic hand movements. Despite the name, normally the entire hand moves, and sometimes the entire upper arm. It can also refer to vibrato on some woodwind instruments, achieved by loweri ...

'' similar to that produced by movement of the left hand on the

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

and other stringed instruments. * By use of the ''

vibrato arm A vibrato system on a guitar is a mechanical device used to temporarily change the pitch of the strings. Instruments without a vibrato have other bridge and tailpiece systems. They add vibrato to the sound by changing the tension of the strin ...

'' provided (by whatever name) on many electric and some acoustic guitars. * By manipulating the

tailpiece A tailpiece is a component on many stringed musical instruments that anchors one end of the strings, usually opposite the end with the tuning mechanism (the scroll, headstock, peghead, etc.). Function and construction The tailpiece anchors t ...

of an

archtop An archtop guitar is a hollow electric or semi-acoustic guitar with a full body and a distinctive arched top, whose sound is particularly popular with jazz, blues, and rockabilly players. Typically, an archtop guitar has: * Six strings * An arc ...

guitar not fitted with a tremolo arm, normally with the right hand. This is particularly a

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

and

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

technique. * By manipulating the strings between the

head nut A nut, on a stringed musical instrument, is a small piece of hard material that supports the strings at the end closest to the headstock or scroll. The nut marks one end of the vibrating length of each open string, sets the spacing of the string ...

and

machine head A machine head (also referred to as a tuning machine, tuner, or gear head) is a geared apparatus for tuning stringed musical instruments by adjusting string tension. Machine heads are used on mandolins, guitars, double basses and others, and ar ...

s. This is particularly used on open strings of a

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

. * By use of effects units such as flangers, phasers and

chorus effect Chorus (or chorusing, choruser or chorused effect) is an audio effect that occurs when individual sounds with approximately the same time, and very similar pitches, converge. While similar sounds coming from multiple sources can occur naturally, ...

s, that are able to modulate the pitch rather than just the volume. Some manufacturers also produce vibrato pedals. * By use of moving loudspeaker and/or moving loudspeaker baffle systems such as the

Leslie speaker The Leslie speaker is a combined amplifier and loudspeaker that projects the signal from an electric or electronic instrument and modifies the sound by rotating a baffle chamber ("drum") in front of the loudspeakers. A similar effect is provided ...

. * By use of the motor-driven Kaufman Vibrato tailpiece built into some early

Rickenbacker Rickenbacker International Corporation is a string instrument manufacturer based in Santa Ana, California. The company is credited as the first known maker of electric guitars – a steel guitar in 1932 – and today produces a range ...

guitars, and similar units. In common with all other musicians, all guitarists from classical to rock use the term ''vibrato'' to describe finger vibrato.

References

{{reflist

External links