GMC:er Posts: 25.297
Joined: 23-December 09
From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Pedal Order can be a tricky topic. There are certainly “Best Practices” to be observed, but also, just experimenting and figuring it out for yourself, for what best works for you, is certainly valid as well. It’s a good idea to know what the best practices are, before heading off on your own and trying stuff without any understanding of how it might work or not work.
Let’s start at the start. Some folks use a BUFFER pedal in their chain. This goes up front typically. However, most pedals are “True Bypass” which reduces the need for buffers, but some folks really love them. So if you are going to use a buffer, they go first and last in any chain, except for devices like wah, treble boost, fuzz pedals, which should go before the buffer. I’ve never found buffer pedals useful personally, so let’s proceed without them for now.
Pedals can be split in to several different categories. Dynamic, Distortion/Overdrive, EQ/Boost, Volume, Modulation, and time based pedals. So which should come first?
Typically, dynamic pedals should be near the front of your chain and include compressors, octave pedals, envelope filters, synth pedals etc. These pedals depend on the dynamics of the guitar to trigger them, in many cases. So keeping them up front can be helpful.
After dynamic type pedals, we typically put Overdrive/Distortion pedals. These are pedal that drive the signal to hard/soft clipping and create a distorted sound. Some folks use more than one of these type pedals. Most folks don’t. If you do, it’s a good idea to put the higher gain pedals in this group closer to the guitar in the chain. Many folks use an overdrive pedal to drive the front of an amp, or even to drive another pedal that is acting like a preamp such as an EVH 5150 pedal.
After these types of pedals, one can add Boos pedals. This is up for debate however. It can be just to add volume to a given signal, but some folks like their boost before their overdrive in order to drive the overdrive harder. This results in more saturation instead of increased volume. EQ pedals typically go in this spot as well. But again, some folks put the EQ before the drive pedals in order to “pre eq” the sound that is hitting the distortion pedals in order to tighten the sound.
Next up, volume pedals. This next spot in the chain is good for volume FX. However, some folks like a volume pedal in the front of a pedal chain so as to do volume swells that then hit all of the fx pedals, instead of using the volume pedal to control overall volume. Some folks put a volume in front and at the end of a pedal chain.
Next up, modulation pedals. This next spot is a good place for modulation effects like chorus, flange, phaser, tremolo etc. That way, your tone gets modulated after the distortion. Some people do like these fx before distortion, but it’s an atypical approach.
After that, we can place our time based effects like delay then reverb. Some folks want reverb, then delay. It’s really up to you. Of course, in the studio, one might not put any time based effects on a tone until after it is recorded and then add them in post production. This approach is also common in live sound setups. However, for individual rigs, many folks put delay/reverb at this point in the signal chain.
This approach can be used on pedals but also on multi fx devices and plugins like overloud THU. It’s the same idea after all.
That’s a basic overview of pedal order. What order do you put your pedals in?
