Arranging a pedal board

Purge

Purge

Traitorous Usurper
The new "massive amount of pedals" thing is a little new to me...I used to use a Boss GT-6 for all the wacky sounds, but those things are totally useless for live applications. (tweaking effects on the fly with a bunch of simulated digital knobs that fluctuate in levels? Meh...pass.) So basically, I've never really dealt with a signal chain in my effects before, and I'm doing some experimenting to see what works and what sucks. How would you guys arrange all of this? Anything missing? Any opinions on the shittiness of some of these pedals that should be replaced with a better option? (too much Boss, blah blah etc.) Here's what I've got, along with the order that they're currently in:

Boss TU-2 tuner
Boss Metal Zone
MXR Zakk overdrive
Morley Bad Horsie wah
Boss DD-7 delay
Boss Tremolo
Boss Chorus Ensemble

There's also a Morley Little Alligator volume pedal, but that one is running separately through the effects loop on the amp...seemed to make sense to me. Really, the only other pedal I'm considering is a Digitech Whammy...hard to find a great use for, but they really are fun as hell. Also, depending on how all this works, I might even be looking into some additional delay pedals, along with an ABY switch if necessary.

The most important thing on that board to me is the DD-7. I'm not necessarily interested in doing the "one man band" schtick, but I am digging on it's looping features and would like to use that more often. I do a lot of delay based riffs (think Buckethead's Big Sur Moon and apply that to a heavier sound, a la Amorphis), so placement of that pedal in the chain is pretty important. Last night, when I thought it would be cutesy to loop the end of Opeth's Deliverance, I was able to get the melody riff on repeat, but then I couldn't get the "bah duh buh bum" part to register through the amp. The signal kept cutting off on the riff I was playing live. Are distortion/overdrive effects typically placed before or after the delays?

Summary for Gerg, even though he's likely to opine that effects suck and all I need is a distortion pedal and a bat to hit people with: Set up my pedal board for me, because I'm a dumbass and I'm lazy. :D
 
Here's how I would do it:

Guitar > tuner > wah pedal > boost/overdrive/distortion pedals in any order >
> tremolo/chorus/other LFO FX in any order > delay.

Some people recommend that LFO FX and time-based FX are better situated in an amp's FX loop.
 
Zaphod B said:
Some people recommend that LFO FX and time-based FX are better situated in an amp's FX loop.
Click to expand...

Makes perfect sense, now that I think about it. That way, when I'm looping something through the delay, I'm not trying to pass another signal directly through the pedal. Probably where my amp cutting problems occurred. I swear...I'm getting dumber with each passing second. :rolleyes:

Thanks for the help.
 
Purge said:
Makes perfect sense, now that I think about it. That way, when I'm looping something through the delay, I'm not trying to pass another signal directly through the pedal. Probably where my amp cutting problems occurred. I swear...I'm getting dumber with each passing second. :rolleyes:

Thanks for the help.
Click to expand...

No prob. :)

I reconfigured my pedal board recently after I acquired two Eventide FX boxes - a Timefactor delay and a Modfactor multi-LFO FX box. Even though those two units are on the pedalboard, I have them running through the FX loop of my amps, while the other stuff (wah, overdrive, distortion) is going straight into the instrument input. So including the MIDI cable for the foot controller (to control amp switching as well as the two Eventide boxes) I ended up bundling a 4-wire, 20' pedalboard snake.

Life used to be so simple! :D
 
Here's a simple explanation in how to place your effects in a signal chain -

1). Signal Conditioners (preamps, compressors, distortion, EQ, Wah Wah)
2). Time-Based Effects (Chorus, flanger, pitch shifter)

A noise gate (if used) should go here, that way it won't be able to cut off reverb/delay

3). Ambient Processors (reverb, delay)

Placing your Wah pedal before your destortion pedal (my own preference)(made popular by hendrix) will give you a different sound than if you place distortion before wah, so experiment with that and see which you like better.
Also, placing a volume pedal before your amp's input would allow you to increase or decrease input gain by raising or lowering the volume on your pedal, which, if desirable, would allow you get cleaner sounds out of an overdriven amp.

Another thing to keep in mind is that an effect will sound differently depending on whether you place it before the amps input or in the amps FX loop. (I'm not sure how differently it will sound because I haven't experimented with it much myself). A much more in-depth article HERE


More in-depth page on FX chain order HERE
 
Great info, KoP...huge kudos. I'll check out those articles.

And dude...you are clearly WAY over-qualified to work at a Guitar Center. :D
 
Purge said:
Great info, KoP...huge kudos. I'll check out those articles.

And dude...you are clearly WAY over-qualified to work at a Guitar Center. :D
Click to expand...

Haha :D

Another thing to remember is don't let the rules control you... Just use those tips as a guide line and experiment with fx order. Who knows, you might find some new crazy sound ;)
 
Kingofpain678 said:
Placing your Wah pedal before your destortion pedal (my own preference)(made popular by hendrix) will give you a different sound than if you place distortion before wah, so experiment with that and see which you like better.
Click to expand...

I havent broke out a distortion pedal since I was a kid and bought my first amp that saturated...are there any decent new designs?
 
darrin_h2000 said:
I havent broke out a distortion pedal since I was a kid and bought my first amp that saturated...are there any decent new designs?
Click to expand...

Nope.
If your goin for a moderate to high gain sound best bet is to just run a tube screamer in front of a tube amp.

Of course magazine ads will tell you terrible pedals like the boss metal zone or metal core sound great.
they don't.
 
Kingofpain678 said:
Of course magazine ads will tell you terrible pedals like the boss metal zone or metal core sound great.
they don't.
Click to expand...

Mostly in agreement here so far. I picked up one of those metal zones, mostly for the option of being able to dial in all ends of the distortion spectrum...moderately heavy all the way up to feedbacking pisschirp chainsaw death. So far...meh. Not great, not terribly shitty, just "meh". I'm getting more use out of the MXR overdrive for sure.
 
Purge said:
Mostly in agreement here so far. I picked up one of those metal zones, mostly for the option of being able to dial in all ends of the distortion spectrum...moderately heavy all the way up to feedbacking pisschirp chainsaw death. So far...meh. Not great, not terribly shitty, just "meh". I'm getting more use out of the MXR overdrive for sure.
Click to expand...

My problem with it is that it's way to buzzy/fizzy

I like a tone that roars, not that sounds like a bucket of really pissed bee's :cool::D

To each his/her own though... I'm not saying it's the right or wrong pedal for anyone.
 
darrin_h2000 said:
Somebody should start a "Fuzzboxs that suck" thread.
Click to expand...

I think that'd be a pretty long thread!

Kingofpain678 said:
And alternatively, A "Fuzzboxes that pwn" thread
Click to expand...

And that'd be a pretty short thread!

I think that Carl Martin and Voodoo Labs make the only couple of fuzz boxes that are versatile enough to really be any fun. I shopped and shopped around for a fuzz box a couple of years ago and never found anything that I'd be willing to spend any money on. There are a couple of fun one-trick-pony fuzz boxes like that one that Keef used on "Satisfaction" (the name escapes me, they made a reissue of it under a different brand).

Carl Martin and Voodoo Labs both have all sorts of parameters that you can tweak to make all sorts of fuzz-type tones. But ultimately, you have to have a good-sounding amp in the first place for a fuzz box to sound anything except like that oh-so-familiar "tank of angry bees" tone that bedroom guitarist teenagers seem to specialize in.

I just couldn't drop $150 or $250 for a stomp box that would only net me one or two usable tones and a few dozen tones that would only serve as hornet mating calls.
 
Tadpui said:
I just couldn't drop $150 or $250 for a stomp box that would only net me one or two usable tones and a few dozen tones that would only serve as hornet mating calls.
Click to expand...

Wow...the only one I had ever bought was an Arion Metal Master...and it was $35...I thought it was the best thing ever...made that peavey TKO of mine sound like a real amp.
 
I dunno, people seem to like the Big Muff pedals. My personal favorite distortion is the EH Metal Muff, but it sounds crappy on some amps, so it just depends. Just depends on the sound I want. Rock = OD, metal = Metal Muff.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top