Mobile Tones
Joshua Nettheim · 2025
Effects pedals are key technologies for touring instrumentalists and central to many musicians’ “signature sounds.” However, the place of these smartphone-sized objects is increasingly being challenged by smartphones themselves. This chapter examines questions around musical mobility and sonic identity through the lens of effects pedals, the electric guitar’s archetypical mobile devices. As sonic signatures are squeezed into smaller, smarter objects, is practicality reason enough to replace pedals altogether—or are guitarists’ sonic selves still tied to older mobile media?