General FX chain ordering

[suprstar]

I'd like to hear some facts and opinions about where and what order to hook up various fx. I have a rack with 4 channels of compressor-expander-gate-limiters, 4 channels of quadraverb, and 2 channels of 31-band eq. My common sense tells me you want your noise gate right up in the very front, then modulation, and EQ at the very end to tweak the final signal, is that more/less correct?

For vocals, I use the preamps on a 8x2 mixer that has fx sends/returns. I've been running mic -> board -> comp/gate -> quad -> eq -> daw.

Is there any benefit to rearranging anything, perhaps the quad and the comp? How bout running a noise gate with no compressor in the very beginning, and add compression later in the chain, like after the quads maybe? Would you want your modulation compressed or not?

For guitars, I also have a volume pedal and a wah. My current setup is guitar -> wah -> volume -> amp. The fx loop goes to the comp -> quad -> eq. My understanding is the fx loop is after the preamp and before the power amp, so the rack should be getting a nice constant line level signal. I assume bass can be treated as a guitar as far as signal chain goes.

I'm not really dissatisfied with anything in particular, just looking for tips and general info. TIA,

 

[Massive Master]

You really just have to think through it --

If there's a general rule of thumb, you want to handle corrective processes first (core EQ, sibilance & plosives, noise, etc.), dynamics next, modulation next, spacial enhancement last.

Generally...

 

[dementedchord]

while no onesgonna spank you if you dont do it this way... i was taught and generally stick to... tonal-dynamics-time domain... which for the most part is what john just told ya...