You’ve gone to your local guitar store and bought some pedals and the next question is “what order do I put them in? Try this common order first:
- Dynamic Range – Compression
- EQ – Wah Pedal, Equalizer
- Drive – Overdrive, Distortion, Fuzz
- Modulation – Phaser, Flanger, Chorus
- Time-Based – Reverb, Delay
Each pedal imparts its own coloring to the audio signal. This order goes from least alteration of the signal to the most and minimizes the chance that the effects introduced at each point in the signal path cancel the previous ones out.
Dynamic Range
If you have a compression pedal this should be first in your default signal chain order. Compression automatically “rides the gain” by pumping up volume when levels are low and cutting it when levels peak too high. The behavior of the rest of your effects chain becomes much more predictable by receiving this more uniform and consistent audio signal.EQ
If you have an EQ type effect it is most likely a Wah pedal, which creates its distinctive effect by sweeping a narrow frequency range up and down as you move the pedal. Placing the wah pedal next in this suggested default order enables it to benefit from the consistent audio signal coming from the compressor and it yields a more open vintage sound. In addition its output is more predictably colored by other effects down stream in the signal path such as gain and modulation.Drive
Drive pedals emulate the saturated gain sound of a tube amp turned up to 11 by clipping the audio signal. Since this effect adds lots of gain to your signal it works best in this next position as we’re still dealing with a clean signal from the compressor and wah pedal; thus you avoid boosting unwanted noise.Modulation
Modulation type pedals operate by splitting off a portion of the signal and applying slight delays and or altering the pitch of the incoming signal before mixing it back together with the unprocessed portion. This signal treatment increases the likelihood of cancellation effects if modulation is placed earlier in the signal path.Time-Based
Time-based effects are last in this suggested default order because they repeat the original signal without alteration. This treatment earlier in the signal path will conflict with other effects that alter the waveform if they were later in the signal chain giving you unpredictable results.Now that I’ve laid out the “rules” I can move to the inevitable exceptions.
- If you have a Fuzz Face pedal you will need to plug your guitar into it directly. I learned this the hard way. It goes nuts if you have anything other than the guitar in front of it.
- Try the wah pedal just after drive pedals for a thicker sound.
- While modulation effects generally go after drive try placing phaser effects in front of your overdrive and distortion pedals.
15 comments:
All of it sounds generally correct to me. Glad you mentioned trying the phaser before overdrive, that was one of my exceptions and it gets used both before and after equally. Others:
- Auto-filters or envelope filters/followers (all really the same thing as an exaggerated automatic wah) are often placed before compressor to tame harshness. Matter of fact, my Ibanez UE-303B is hard-wired auto-filter -> compressor -> chorus/flanger.
- Modulation can come after delay for a different sort of tone. Some delays have a separate loop output for the delayed signal so that you can modulate only the delays. That's a really cool sound, kind of like a warped tape echo accompanying the clean direct signal.
In some cases, you might run your flanger before distortion. That's entirely to taste, and it's more to my liking with output stage distortion than with preamp or pedal distortion. (Output stage distortion just means cranking up your amp's master volume to get your distortion rather than using pedals or any pre-gain controls on your amp. It's a whole different beast, and probably another topic for you at some point.)
Hi,
Just a quick note to say thanks for running this blog! I stumbled onto it when my Google Blogsearch picked up this posting about pedals.
Ended up reading through your entire blog in one sitting and I'm now more determined than ever to really dig into the guitar.
Mark,
Dig in and rock out! Great site you have btw. Thanks for reading!
great info... thanks for the post!
good rules to follow here man. Another thing that's major is volume pedal placement. I personally use it behind my overdrives and infront of my modulations, just for swells. I think it sounds much better that way, swelling an overdriven signal as opposed to swelling into an overdriven line of effects. never tried the flanger before drive though, that sounds pretty sweet
great tips. where would I put my tuner. I have a korg pitchblack stomp style. I usually put it 1st but I recenly got a volume pedal & dont know if it should still be 1st.
skully
I consulted my resident expert and his advice is that the tuner usually comes first so you can tune on the raw signal. Before overdrive is the rule of thumb for the Volume Pedal and lets you roll back to a clean signal. If you do after overdrive that lets you fade in a fully overdriven signal, which introduces a different effect. At least put volume before delay so you can fade but leave the repeats going. As in all things signal chain, experiment.
I like to put the Compression pedal just after the overdrive and turn it's volume up higher than the rest of the pedals are working to boost my leads. I keep the Comp. effect low tho.. I play through an AC-30.
Just my thang.. ROCK AN' ROLL!
I have a Pedalboard and my chain looks like this: Signal from wireless into my wah. Out of my wah into a Rotovibe then I had the signal traveling into my Boss FV500L which I have hooked up as an expression pedal to control the Whammy effect in my TC Electronics Nova System which is placed in my effects loop of my Marshall head and the output of the Boss FV500L feeds directly into the Marshall head.
Is that correct? Or do I go from the wireless into the FV500L FIRST and run the expression out? Please help. I am mind boggled.
Thanks for the note. I'll check with the resident gearheads and get some answers for you.
Here is the local gearhead take on your question...
Sounds like a fun rig to play through. :)
A few comments:
1. If it sounds good as he's currently running it, then it's fine. That being said, read on...
2. He has the low impedance version of the FV pedal, which is what the "L" stands for. The high impedance version (FV-500H) is the one more intended for use with guitar than the L version, due to guitar pickups being high impedance. The manual says to run another effects pedal in front of the FV-L (which he is doing - and he's well buffered due to the wireless), so that the impedance will match better than connecting guitar straight to the FV-L. He would have more placement options with the FV-500H, especially if he ditched the wireless or wanted to run the volume pedal first in the audio chain after the guitar. Again, if it sounds good then fine.
3. He's using the FV as both volume and expression simultaneously (unless there's an undocumented mode selector I don't know about), which would adjust the volume every time he used the pedal to control a parameter on the TC unit. (That seems to defeat the point, doesn't it?) Seems like he should only be using it as one or the oother (volume or expression) and if he needs boh then he should have two separate pedals. Does he really need a volume pedal? If not, then just go straight from guitar > wah > rotovibe > Marshall and just use the FV as an expression pedal and NOT in the audio chain. That's how I would probably run it.
4. As for the TC in the FX loop, that should be fine though I have no experience running FX in that manner. Just make sure that the volume matches when you switch the loop in and out and that you're not overloading the input of the TC.
5. I'm a minimalist, in spite of my love for effects. I would take an approach something like this to be sure you maximize tone... Unplug everything. (Including the TC - take it out of the FX loop.) Plug the guitar straight into the Marshall and set it where it sounds good switching between channels at stage volume. 90% of the time that's how you'll be playing anyway. Then add one piece at a time into the FX chain, and make sure that every time you add something it has the same output level and sounds just as good as when you had the guitar plugged straight into the amp. If at any point the sound isn't as loud or doesn't sound as good, then either pull that piece of gear or reconfigure until it sounds good. Effects are never worth a loss of tone is the bottom line.
Problem - After 10 Yrs. switching from digital proccessor to analog pedals and pulling my hair out - MXR Dyna Comp, Roger Mayer Octavia, Fulltone OCD, EH Small Clone, Boss Harmonist, MXR Carbon Copy Delay, EH Holy Grail Reverb, ISP Decimator G string noise reduction, and into a Marshall Super Lead 100JH(old style no OD channel or master Vol.) - so the OCD is important for the OD sound of 80's Hard Rock, etc. - when I run out of the OCD and straight into the amp, OCD works fine(OCD vol at 10:00, but as soon as I connect the other pedals(mod, delay, & reverb and click on the OCD, the volume drop to almost nothing, even cranking the OCD only just increases the noise - anybody know whats up with this??? - HELP
Problem - switching from digital proccessor to analog pedals and pulling my hair out - MXR Dyna Comp, Roger Mayer Octavia, Fulltone OCD, EH Small Clone, Boss Harmonist, MXR Carbon Copy Delay, EH Holy Grail Reverb, ISP Decimator G string noise reduction, and into a Marshall Super Lead 100JH(old style no OD channel or vol) - so the OCD is important for the OD sound of 80's Hard Rock, etc. - when I run out of the OCD and into the amp, OCD works fine(vol at 10:00, but as soon as I connect the other pedals(mod, delay, & reverb and click on the OCD, the volume drop to almost nothing, even cranking the OCD only just increases the noise - anybody know whats up with this??? - HELP
I'll see what I can find out.
Where is your OCD in the signal chain, (first last or middle somewhere). I assume you've tried different combinations. Some tests:
Plug each pedal individually into the amp and verify you get the tone and volume you want with each.
Try OCD in combination with one of your other pedals first and last in the chain, any difference in behavior?
If your volume drops off on any combination with the OCD on each of your pedals in both orders (try OCD with each other pedal individually first and last) you may need to look at the OCD itself. What version is it? Version 4? You can get upgrades for older pedals, new PCB.