Pedal Order Options

[gnarkill]

I have collected a few pedals over the past few months. I am looking at the order of them, wanting to make sure I have it right.

Compressor, Noise Gate, Fullbore Metal, Wylde Overdrive, back thru the noise gate, delay, eq, chorus and then looper.

I am also getting a volume pedal soon, and I have a tuner pedal. Where do those go in the chain?

Also, this is pretty specific... but the Fullbore Metal and the Wylde Overdrive sound COMPLETELY different when I swap positions. If I put the Overdrive before the Fullbore Metal, then it sounds great, but is a bit mucky and isnt tight (even with the Noise gate). And if I put the Overdrive after the Fullbore metal, it completely changes the sound, not quite as metal. Does anyone have any input here?

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[Todd Simpson]

This question comes up quite a bit as you might imagine as folks get in to pedals. Generally speaking, I'd say put your tuner first in line as many tuners can mute or not mute your signal depending on what you want. Then I'd put the noise gate.

As for the rest, there are a wide variety of views on pedal order which mostly come down to personal preference. If you like the way it's working now, just stay with it as there is not one "right way really.

The VOLUME PEDAL is one thing that I'd say put right after your tuner in the front so you can do swells.

As for the gain staging, yes. Put the overdrive before the distortion box. Overdrive is something that works well to help drive distortion but works poorly placed after unless that's the sound you like.

I have collected a few pedals over the past few months. I am looking at the order of them, wanting to make sure I have it right.

Compressor, Noise Gate, Fullbore Metal, Wylde Overdrive, back thru the noise gate, delay, eq, chorus and then looper.

I am also getting a volume pedal soon, and I have a tuner pedal. Where do those go in the chain?

Also, this is pretty specific... but the Fullbore Metal and the Wylde Overdrive sound COMPLETELY different when I swap positions. If I put the Overdrive before the Fullbore Metal, then it sounds great, but is a bit mucky and isnt tight (even with the Noise gate). And if I put the Overdrive after the Fullbore metal, it completely changes the sound, not quite as metal. Does anyone have any input here?

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[Mertay]

You can use the od and distortion separate too, I'm guessing the fullbore simply takes over the amps tone but alternatively you can use the overdrive (with output increased) to get a different heavy tone from the amp (which must be on the drive channel or you'll get extreme volume boost from the clean channel).

Both your distortion and overdrive might respond better to your compressor though, using compressor as a boost is a common thing too. Keep in mind not all pedals respond well to pre-boosting so you have to experiment.

I usually try to build tone by starting from the cleanest tone option, this doesn't have to be ultra clean if you aren't finging yourself not using such clean tones. This is what I've been going though since I borrowed my friends ibanez jd9;

Base tone; a marshall vst amp, set clean though has some drive in it (banging the strings makes this obvious)
add TS9; which is what a ts9 is made for with a marshall amp. Thick creamy drive tone for maybe bluesy soloing
add bb9; a clean booster with a lot of output, if the amp was analog it would work together with ts9 for distortion but can't happen with soundcard.
add jd9; Similar to ts9 but a bit more agressive and brighter, can take a boost well so with the bb9 I'm at distortion tones.
add mt2; disengage jd9 but still the bb9 on, for shred. If playing powerchords can be left alone or work both with ts9 or jd9.

All the fx comes from the computer (post)...so after finding spots and adjustments that sound the best to me I don't find myself turning knobs or tap dancing much which should also indicate something has been done right take your time when experimenting, it should be fun not a job

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This post has been edited by Mertay: Dec 2 2015, 10:26 AM

[Gabriel Leopardi]

That's a killer pedalboard!

My volume pedal is one of the most important pedals in my pedalboard. I use it first in the chain and connect tuned to the "tuner out" of it (ernie ball volume pedal include this extra output) to have 1 pedal less in the chain. I use my volume pedal for muting when tuning but the main function is to clean my distorted sound for different tones and dynamics. I use 1 channel from my amp and use my volume pedal to get crunchy clean tones and everything in between.

About overdrives, I always use them before distortions because I like to use them to give an extra boost and sustain for solos and arrangements and that where I get the best performance.

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[Todd Simpson]

GABE has some great points. You can use your VOLUME pedal to control the TONE of your amp. He is using ONE CHANNEL on one amp and getting ALL of his tones from it.

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