How to Properly Order your Effects Pedals
Written by admin on March 3, 2009 – 6:43 pm -When you begin using multiple effects pedals in a series like, distortion pedals, chorus effects and phase effects, it is important to follow a few simple guidelines when determining what order these pedals should be placed in. Improperly ordering your effects chain or pedal board can result in poor tones and unwanted noise.
Remember, these pedals are actually altering the signal of your guitar, so when placed in a chain, an effects pedal could be processing a signal that has already been altered many times. This is what makes the order of them so vital to your sound.
1st Positions – Chromatic Tuner / EQ
I always recommend placing a chromatic tuner (if you have one) , first in your chain. This ensures that the pedal is getting the strongest signal possible, which will make accurate tuning much easier.
Now is a good time to also add your EQ pedal to your chain. This allows you to shape your sound before it starts to have effects applied.
2nd Position – Distortion/Overdrive/Fuzz
It is important to have your distortion pedals as the leaders of your chain because they are what your guitar tone is based on.
Placing these pedals first in your chain ensures that you are only distorting your true guitar sound.
When you start playing with multiple effects, this keeps the integrity of the more complex effects pedals like chorus and flange in tact. These pedals carefully alter your guitar’s signal, and distorting them could taken away from their tone.
3rd Position – Wah Pedal
There are some guitar players who prefer having their Wah Pedal in front of their distortion pedals (Jimi Hendrix), but I have found that I get the best results by placing it after them in the chain.
A Wah Pedal is basically an EQ that sweeps the high ends, and low ends of your sound, which will cause the signal going to the distortion pedal to be altered if it is placed before it.
Placing your Wah pedal after your distortion pedals will provide a nice linear sweep because you’ll have one steady signal coming into it.
4th Position – Delay
At this point in your effects pedal chain we have shaped the tone of your guitar, and added the foundations of distortion.
Placing a Delay pedal in this position will result in only the signal coming into it to be repeated, thus preserving the sound of the modulation effects that will come after it.
You do not want to add delay to effects like flange, and chorus. If you were to place these before your Delay pedal, the effects they create would also be delayed. You want these to be consistent while the core sound of your guitar is being delayed.
Position 4 – Modulation
Modulation effects consist of flange, chorus, phase, envelope filters, etc. All of these add color, and depth to your sound.
As we noted earlier, it is important to keep these signals as true as possible on their way to your amplifier. Running a flanger effect before a distortion, or overdrive pedal would distort the flanger’s sound, and would harm the subtlety of the effect.
Position 5 – Volume Pedal
This position should be reserved for any pedal that is going to take away from the sound of your guitar, primarily a volume pedal.
You want to place your volume pedal in this position so that you can accurately decrease the effect volume for ALL your pedals.
If you were to place it in the middle of your chain, you would only lower the effect volume for all of the pedals that come before it.
This is also an acceptable position for a Tremolo pedal.
Position 6 – Reverb
Reverb is an effect that usually occurs naturally. For this reason, you want to place this effect after all of your modulations, distortions and EQs have been applied so that the Reverb can shape your sound as realistically as possible.
So that is all there is to it. Those are the basics to effects pedal ordering and I hope they can help you organize your chain or pedal board so you can get the best sounds possible.
I do want to note though that the great thing about creating music is experimentation, and that there is no “set in stone” way to order your pedals.
The ordering I have provided for you is what I use, and it is what creates the best tones out of all the combinations I have tried.
If you have any questions, or would like to add your own opinions on effect pedal ordering, please leave a comment.
Tags: effects chain, Pedal Board, pedal order
Posted in General Info | 28 Comments »
28 Responses
to “How to Properly Order your Effects Pedals”
2 Trackback(s)
- Aug 17, 2009: 6 Tips for Getting the Most out of your Distortion Pedals |
- Feb 14, 2010: Wah pedal problem - My Les Paul Forums
By Nelson on Jul 3, 2009 | Reply
Where do you suggest a compressor be?
By admin on Jul 6, 2009 | Reply
Hi Nelson,
I would recommend placing a compressor in one of the first positions in your effects setup.
This is because you do not want to compress the signal of your distortion and other effects pedals.
-DJ
By Danny on Jan 15, 2010 | Reply
i usually place my chorus pedal before my delays and reverbs, based on the idea of having tone shapers before tone repeaters. this is probably because i tend to think of delay and reverb as ‘icing’. my tone better be great before it gets repeated by a delay or reverb. just a thought.
By Danny on Jan 15, 2010 | Reply
just another thought. i recently burned up a line 6 echo park delay pedal trying to power it with my dedicated 9 volt, 7 amp power supply (not a voodoo labs product). the echo park is a 9.6 volt pedal. watch out for this.
By Sung Tong on Jan 19, 2010 | Reply
Where do you suggest an octaver pedal should be? before or after overdrive?
By paul on Feb 11, 2010 | Reply
I agree completely with your suggestions on effect ordering and for a great many years I have arrived at that flow. I hear all the time of dist being put after chorus, Fl, or Phase and that seems to be so ridiculous to me. I have a conflict with my Whammy which I use for more harmonizer effects than pedal weirdness and my Digitech Synth Wah, both seem to like the up front trigger from the raw guitar, BUT which one first? Also Dist after the Synth Wah like you can a wah??? I have heard some guys using the syth-wah in a loop but looping effects that are not line level will cause a volume drop of 3-4db.
I do not think it’s wise to dist the incoming signal to the Whammy or Synth Wah or how the wah might react further down the chain. Unlike a Wah the Synth wah is triggering filters.
Also FullDrive2 where to put this??? It does not seem to tollerate but few pedals in chain with it, most react badly. I usually follow the rule of OD before ditortion but the Visual Sound guys seem to like the OD after????? Thoughts?????
By jPOE on Feb 14, 2010 | Reply
i have a fulltone mvd-2 and am looking for as much out of it as i can get. So im playing with the order. Trower is God
By Paul on Feb 14, 2010 | Reply
I always have a huge problem with wah pedals, BEFORE or AFTER distortions and OD??? Hendrix before and Trower after are the best examples of each, both have great tones. I have always used the wah in front and all trigger filter pedals in front. Also any harmonizer effect sounds better in front.
Modulation sweeps in front of distortion or even severe preamping on the amp can drastically reduce the bandwidth sweep, beauty and fullness of the Chorus, etc. It’s a matter of sound physics.
I sometimes like a UniVibe on amp-in (Hendrix/Trower) because it gets a real distorted warble rather than the beauty of the sweep. BUT, it is not a beautiful sound that some units can bring, like a VS Liquid Chorus or a TC.
Bare in mind the old-school guys did not understand line load capacitance, proper buffer circuits, by-pass, …nor did they have amp-loops!
Duplicating the old often takes us away from the greater quality of the modern for the limitations of the older. Just food for thought.
By Mike on Mar 13, 2010 | Reply
What are you considering to be the first position, is it the one that the guitar is plugged into? Cause if thats the case, if you have yor distirtion after the tuner and before lets say the chorus wouldn’t you be distorting the signal that goes into the chorus, and so on? The way I would see it and PLEASE correct me if I’m wrong would be going from right to left would be wah, chorus, flanger, phaser, distortion, eq. This way te more copmplex pedals would not be affected. Please let me know what you think Thank You
By Nicole Fournier on Jun 4, 2010 | Reply
I have my pedals set up the same way. the problem I am having is when I use my wha pedal it increases the volume too much, so I wind up shutting off my distortion to reduse the volume, I’d rather keep the distortion on ? someone suggested using battery power for the wha (in general they belive a wha should ONLY be played with battery power.. but this did not solv the issue.. I use a cry baby
By darkhorse on Jun 23, 2010 | Reply
Several things:
Why put a tuner in-line, even if it is a true by-pass??? Just another box to add load. Run your tuner off of any direct or dry out from any effect. The more up front the better but since everything is off when you tune it does not matter. Gets one more box out of the chain. I have my Whammy up front because I use it for harmonizer modes and the dry out feeds my tuner, a pefect result.
The reason Hendrix used a wah before dist is because the old Fuzz Face hated wahs. He also used the VOX pedal because the CryBaby design did not work well with the old Fuzz. These days pedals are more forgiving but pretty much all wahs will sound better before gains as they are filter. Check the boards, 98% of wahs are up front.
Just like all envelope filter-auto wahs go before and any harmonizers sound better up front for truest signal divide and triggering. Satriani’s last board is a very good example of what plays well and where. His Wah is 1st, POG, mini POG, Deja-vibe, Sometimes also has an octaver before gains, next lower gained VOX JS DS, 2nd VOS JS DS for high gains. Whammy is board end nto sure if it is in loop. He has 2 Vox JS TimeMachine delays one set for med and long delay which go into a wet amp. Other amp(s) is dry. Joe mainly uses clean channels and his board for tones.
Exceptions to position on the rules are the Whammy which when used for pedal 8va sweeps can go at the end of the chain or loop, but for harmonizer modes it needs to be up front.
Phasers and Vibe pedals can go before or after gains, depends on the box interaction and feel. They also sound great in the loop which is where I put them for decades. In general all modulations and expecially delays will sound better in the loop, more headroom and clarity of bandwidth.
Hendrix ran his Univibe after his Fuzz and his Wah first and he only had these three basic effects. Satriani runs his Deja-vibe before one of his Saturator pedals set for less gain.
Some have claimed harmonizers after gains but try that and it is a load of crap. A signal divider or multiplier needs a straight true signal from the guitar to trigger properly.
Also ODs before high gains as the OD after will completely change the voice and dynamic of the high gain. I am of the opinion if you hate the sound of your dist so much perhaps you need to try a new one.
There are rules and there are options. Some young players think the tracking glitch burble on a monophonic tracking box is some sort of musical effect. That is why we have rules. Or the guy complaining a good dist box was terrible because it sounded terrible in his loop.
By darkhorse on Jun 23, 2010 | Reply
PS dude above
Chorus in loop.
Chorus sounds really terrible before gains.
If you adjust the delay out of it to sound right, you have a flange sound. Flangers, Phasers and Vibes can go before gains BUT Hendrix did not do so and they sound bloddy good in the loop AFTER gains and preamping!
Chorus is more for strummy pretty clean chords you have to slow them down and remove a lot of the delay to have them sound good with dist so why not use a Flange. A chorus is a flange with short delay in front of it to detune the pitch.
By kev on Feb 20, 2011 | Reply
I disagree about the volume pedal. I see the volume pedal as a volume knob that’s on your guitar so I’d put it before or after the tuner
By eduardo garcia on Mar 28, 2011 | Reply
This would be the right order
1) WAH
Delay
2) Compressor (not fan but anyways)
3) OverDrive
4) Distortion
5) EQ
6) Chorus
7) Flanger
By johnathan osullivan on Apr 25, 2011 | Reply
should i run my wah from the guitar in and my other effects through the effect loop,would that sound better using multiple effects?
By paul on Jun 19, 2011 | Reply
FYI, These are my 2 new boards: I run an amp loop board and an amp-in board. I have struggled many a year on where to put things and I still ponder over the Vibe unit but I have found the secret. One has to remember not everything is ever all on and some things are never on in combination with others.
My new amp in board:
Radial Boost/Buffer Pedal
New Q-tron Plus
Vox JS Big Bad Wah
Fulltone Mini Deja-Vibe
Vox JS OD ICE 9
Rivera Blues Shaman Overdrive
Ibanez Tube King TK999HT high gain
Electro Harmonix Nano Small Stone Phaser (just like it here, like like to hear that sweep and retain some clairity on my ODs or gains.)
Amp loop board:
TC Electonics Corona Chorus (buffer on)
TC Electronics Flashback Delay (bypass mode)
HardWire RV-7 Lexicon Reverb (buffer on)
BBE Sonic Maximizer (BBE is a bypass pedal hence the best I could do was turn on the reverb buffer to keep the signal quiet before it, if you use the right combination of buffers and true bypass you can keep your noise floor down without a noise reduction pedal.)
My rig line is very quiet from the combination of true bypass and the buffer pedal first in chain. Tried a lot of things everywhere and this is what works the best in the highest fidelity and tone.
My tuner is out of chain, I am current not feeding it. I am adding a Radial Bypass loop switcher soon and will probably put the tuner in one of the loops.
True bypass does not save you from cap load and tone degrade and too many not so great buffers like all Boss will muddle your tone. The best ideal chain is a sandwich of buffer on the ends and bypass in the middle.
In general I list it:
-Good quality impedance Buffer Pedal
-Tuner (if you have to)
-Triggered Filters
-Harmonizer/Pitch Shifter Effects
Wah
-Compressor (if you use one, they sound good for cleans w chorus, some options here but usually screws up your signal dynamic or drastically increases your noise floor)
-UniVibe effect option
-Overdrives (before high gains, trust me)
High Gains
-Phasers (just do not like them in front of gains, basically with a cleaner boost type drive anything sounds good in front of it.
-Univibe option (seems to sound the best into a moderate drive or a amp channel, my rig gives me all combinations)
AMP Loop
-Chorus, Delay, Reverbs (no other place for me on these units)(Chorus into amp in is not as beautiful and into dist is a sonic crime)Delays and Reverbs need the head room and clarity of the amp loop after preamping.
Flanger is an option, treat it like a vibe or phaser amp in or loop if you like. In the loop I would place it before or after Chorus.
I use the BBE Sonic Maximizer in my loop which adds headroom, punch and clarity to my clean or gained tones. I have a three channel amp so I have infinite options of differing gains and combinations.
Tips: try not to daisy chain power supplies, use an isolated filtered supply like warts, Voodoo Lab or the BBE SupraCharger. Daisy chaining can cause noise floor (Fulltone’s do not tolerate daisy feeds)can cause switch popping and ground loop hum. If you are using a daisy chain no doubt through little Boss, all those little buffers are hiding the noise in your chain and muddling your true tone when off.
By Adrian on Aug 13, 2011 | Reply
Please reply directly to my email.
I have 2 DD20′s Gigadelays and a DD3 delay. How should I order them? I use a pedal power Plus power supply. Also I notice one delay pedal had a louder crisper delay sound and the other doesn’t. I have played with the settings and feel its because I have 2 in the chain. The noise on my guitar also increases faster now as I raise the volume or treble.
Any tips.
Please reply to my email.
Adrian D’Souza
By AlexTheLion on Sep 4, 2011 | Reply
I believe the wah pedal is preferred among players to come before the OD/Dist/Fuzz etc. I’ve read in other posts that many guitarists prefer their wah sound distorted rather than their distorted sound ‘wah-ed’. This means that they still get to keep the true sound from the OD/Dist/Fuzz pedal.
On the other hand, modulation is generally preferred after the drive for a more prominent modulated tone.
But nobody seems to agree on a single ‘right’ way to order effect chains.
So I guess you shouldn’t really believe anything you read until you’ve tried it and found what sound suits you.
By Skot on Sep 6, 2011 | Reply
I appreciate all the suggestions for arranging pedals, I have tried long and hard to find the right sound as you can probably tell from my list of equipment. I am considering buying a Voodoo MIDI pedal and just putting my pedals into it unless someone can give me some suggestions. My amp is a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe and I use a Tele most of the time. Here are my pedals:
- Boss DS-1
- Roger Linn Adrenalinn 3
- Blackstar HT-Dual
- Boss Multi-Wah
- MXR Carbon Copy Delay
- Electro Harmonix Holy Grail Nano Reverb
- Roland GR-1 Guitar Synth
- Electro Harmonix Big Muff Soviet Version
- T.C. Electronic Poly Tune
I have considered using a line switcher and using the Adrenalinn on one line and the pedals on the second. Any help would be awesome.
By AMB on Oct 14, 2011 | Reply
Hi,
I have a Boss ML-2 Metalcore, Boss DD-7 Digital Delay & NS-2 Noise Suppressor and I was wondering how I should order them. The order I have placed them in up until now is:-
Amp – Delay – Suppressor – Distortion – Guitar
I’m told that it is wise to place the Suppressor in front of the Delay so that I am not killing any of the delays.
Is this correct? If not, how would you advise I go about fixing this?
Also, my ML-2 Metalcore pedal ‘hums’ rather loudly when I stomp on it; the Noise Suppressor does not have any effect on eliminating the ‘hum’. Please Help Me
Thanks
AmB
By jonathan black on Oct 14, 2011 | Reply
I have a comp, od, dist, wah, vol, 2 delays, whammy, noise reducer, tuner.
Suggestions???
By Paul on Dec 14, 2011 | Reply
Back again in the new year.
All new board again.
Problem I think some of you are having is too many buffer circuit pedals like BOSS. Too many buffers which are not so great in the Boss models can befuddle your true tone and often create noise in your chain. Other problems are daisy chaining power supplies which is not cool from a large pedal board perspective. You need either the VoodooLab2, or the BBE isolated filtered supplies.
Proper voltage is pretty much exact. If you have a pedal that needs 9.6v then your better use the wart it usually comes with. My MicroPOG is like that. Some effects like dirt you can often voltage starve for weird battery going dead oddness if you like that sort of low tech thing.
mA are a rule as well, you can give something more mA than it requires but not less. Power supplies are evrry bit as important as using good quality short and possible cables.
The best chain is not all true by pass not all buffered circuit pedals especially when their buffers are not so great. Optimal is high end buffer 1st in chain, true bypass pedals, and a final buffer end of chain. If you are getting hum or noise apart from normal high gain issues then you are crossing grounds or have bad power supply issues.
By Paul on Dec 15, 2011 | Reply
My new two level board I made.
Note positions they are well placed and considered. This is a no noise quite board with no loading or coloring of tone, often only 1-2 pedals may be on at a time. It is about options and colors to paint with.
Lower Level amp in chain:
-MXR/CAE dual inductor/boost wah (true bypass)
-Radial PB1 High end buffer w switchable class A clean boost. (buffer drops impedance to low)
-Electroharmonix Micro POG (true bypass)
-Electroharmonix Qtron Plus (true bypass)
-Wampler Esctasy Overdrive (true bypass)
-Wampler Pinnacle Distortion (true bypass)
-Hardwire PH-7 Phaser (true bypass)
-Fulltone DejaVibe (true bypass)
-Ibanez Tube King HT999TK Distortion (real tube buffer circuit)
Upper level shelf AMP LOOP chain:
TC Corona Chorus (true bypass)
TC Flashback Delay (true bypass)
Hardwire RV-7 Reverb (true bypass)
BBE Sonic Mazimizer (true bypass)
AMP is a slightly mod’ed Carvin V3 w their vintage load 4×12, amazing half stack, currently running 50 watt mode w Mullard EL34s and 7025s in preamps. 3 channel uber gain capability.
Power feed master from a Furman Power conditioner, VoodooLab2 and BBE Supracharger, plus a special wart strip for high voltage needs of some pedals a brick cannot do. 1 supply feeds 1 chain to avoid ground loop issues.
By Paul on Dec 15, 2011 | Reply
Seens like you can find any notion about pedal placement where ever you look. Some players do some really bad placements because there is too much of the “there are no rules” issue and “try it and see” Gets exasperating at times when you are really trying to figure something out. Often a bad or weird tone is mistaken for a great sound but it is often a one trick pony that has a weird sound that is really not so great as it is whacked.
There are some rules, not many but some rules of sonic frequency flow and matters of quality sound and fidelity. I also demand from my board a lot of options and tonal variants more so than something that has a novel tone perhaps sounds weird for one song. That is probably better served in a studio than a working pedal
board.
Hate to come off as a know-it-all, but seriously after more decades playing than most have lived I have learned a thing or two and have done some really wrong things myself.
Email me if you like for any special questions or puzzles on your chain (dark-horse-pa@hotmail.com) I’ll offer you what I know and if I do not know I can steer you to someone who does.
Just FYI, never run delays into dirt! Noise suppression should be last in chain preferably in your loop not in front of things that make noise but rather after them. 1st off what noise is in your signal, can it be fixed without a gate NR pedal, are you using way too much gate and clamping to kill the noise and likewise killing your true dynamics and response? Email me and I can help walk you through things I have done and solved as I am pedal board maven from long ago when magic filled the air.
By another noob on Dec 26, 2011 | Reply
I have a fender rumble 75 and it has 2 input jacks and a line out can I run the lineout to the input of my cybaby wah and its output to the second amp input and guitar on the first would .this work or just be a feedback loop any advice on this for this uber noob would be greatly apreciated thanks in advance
By Wal on Dec 30, 2011 | Reply
I have a small set of pedals for bass… and i’ve tried several orders…. recommendations?
Tuner
Aguilar Tone Hammer
Aguilar TLC compressor
EHX bass big muff (distortion)
EHX Bass microsynth
Boss Flanger for bass and guitar..
Can anybody help me? thanks!!