Vibe/Tremolo-Difference

What is the difference between a "vibe" pedal and "tremolo" pedal? They seem to do the same thing.

I think it is speed and number of strings affected.

Vibrato normally refers to very fast (relative to tremolo) vibrations on one string where as trem will be a slower oscillation in pitch for multiple strings.

What that translates to in terms of pedals is any ones guess !

I think they're both the same , just different companies would give different names for the same thing for the sake of uniqueness .

I have a tremolo effect in my Boss GT-3 effect unit , and my Fender amp has a vibrato channel ... Basically both are the same (except that the multi-effect got more parameters to control).
I don't think there's any difference in terms of speed (if you increase the speed massively on any of them , it won't sound cool).

Well, to take the terms literally, vibrato is what you do with your fingers and tremolo what you do with the bar. So vibrato is a change in pitch and volume, and tremolo is a change in pitch. In guitar playing terms (i.e. not effects terms), vibrato is faster and much more subtle, whereas tremolo is slower and more obvious.

That being said, I have had limited experience with both these pedals. I can think of a couple of songs that use tremelo, and the above description seems fairly accurate. Since the two effects are similar, it would make sense that tweaking of settings would make them sound similar, just as overdrive and distortion can be made to sound similar with settings tweaking.

Alrighty, now that I've given you my opinion, I'm off to Google to find out the right answer!

The only difference between a tremolo and vibrato is that the term tremolo has more than one meaning. Besides having the same meaning as vibrato, "tremolo" is also used to desribe an effect where the volume level fluctuates like a sine, triangular or square wave.

[Edited by SPL on 11-19-2003 at 09:56 AM]

Some interesting ideas:

Vibrato
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Vibrato is a musical effect where the pitch or frequency of a note or sound is quickly and repeatedly raised and lowered over a small distance for the duration of that note or sound. Sometimes, vibrato is erroneously referred to as tremolo, a periodic fluctuation in the amplitude (rather than frequency) of a sound.
Click for the whole article

From Wikipedia discussion on the Vibrato article

Well my formal music training is classical (though my vocation is modern electronic music), and I've never heard vibrato refer to anything other than a rapid variation in pitch. Tremolo on the other hand, seems to be a bit of a catch-all word, sometimes meaning vibrato (especially in a derogatary way when talking about a singer doing it too much), sometimes rapidly repeating one note (especially on a mandolin or piano, with string instruments often having the word tremolando used instead), and sometimes rapidly changing volume (as in certain organs and groovy psychadelic guitar effects).
Click for the whole discussion

Seems like there's some confusion throughout the web! But the above two paragraphs seem to give some kind of definition.

Yup, the term "tremolo" IS misused a lot, so much that its wrong meaning has actually become accepted it seems.(check dictionary.com)

OK, BUT....Voodoo Labs makes both a vibe and trem pedal. Now, the difference in between these pedals, to me, seems that the vibe pedal gives the rotating speaker effect and trem doesn't. It's just that I don't know what to buy, A Uni-Vibe or a trem pedal.

Tremolo sampler

Manufacturer is T. Miranda custom amps & effects
www.tmiranda.com">www.tmiranda.com