SDMB Guitarists - Your opinion needed

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have eight effects pedals on my pedal board. A fellow guitarist has taken issue with how I’ve ordered them in terms of the signal path. My contention is that I’ve ordered them optimally for the sounds I need to get during gigs, but according to my fellow guitarist, I’ve broken several established rules of thumb.

I’ve listed the pedals below. I’m looking to the SDMBers to tell me which order they think they should be placed in and why. This won’t affect how I’m placing these effects along my signal path for my next gig, but I want to show my buddy that these things are open to several interpretations.

Caveats: My band typically plays hard rock covers and originals in the Van Halen, Guns N’ Roses and AC/DC vein. The amp I’m currently using does not have an effects loop.

The pedals (in no particular order):

  1. Boss Super Chorus
  2. Original “script logo” MXR Phase 90
  3. Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer (original)
  4. Roger Mayer Octavia (reissue)
  5. Boss Equalizer (set to scoop out the mids)
  6. Vox Wah
  7. Ernie Ball volume pedal
  8. Boss Digital Reverb/Delay

So, how would you route your signal through these?

2

I’m not what you’d call an expert, but I have a few vague hints. I think I’d put the volume pedal last, so that the other devices have lots of usable signal to work with. The equalizer and the wah perform similar functions, so I’d swap the two back and forth to see which way sounds better. Any clicks and pops from switching the various boxes on and off will be repeated if you don’t put the reverb/delay early in the chain. I hope this is somewhat useful.

3

The general template is to go in three groups. You organize within each group to attain the sound you want.[ul][li]Group one: compression, distortion, pitch shifters[/li][li]Group two: equalizers[/li][li]Group three: chorus, delay, flange, ect.[/ul]First thing: are you running all this stuff w/o a noise gate at the end? And if so, isn’t it buzzing like hell? Second thing: no compressor? Third thing: how often do you actually use that octavia? (just curious)I would start this whole thing with a compressor by the way.[/li]Start with the screamer(3) followed by the equalizer(5). This makes for a harder/smoother crunch. You could put the eq first if you want those “scooped” mids to distort more quickly than other frequencies-- but this may make some harmonics sound synthetic. I agree with AskNott in that the chain should end with the volume pedal(7)-- unless of course you are hardcore and decide to use the knob instead. We differ on the wah(6) though. I would put this as the second to last piece. If you must use the chorus, the delay/reverb, and a phaser as well, put 'em in the order of relative decreasing effect between the wah and the eq. Ya know-- delay, phase, chorus. The way to arrange all these time-abusing suckers is really a matter for your ear. They should definetly come after the distortion though as distortion has a tendency to mask the delicious subtleties of modulation effects.
Final answer: 3,5,8,2,1,6,7

Pull the battery out of that damn octavia and throw it out the window! :smiley:

4
  • p@cific@812 wrote…*

I’ve never found a noise gate that I actually liked. I have an old DigiTech GSP-2101 Studio Tube processor that I absolutely LOVE, but I’ve always had issues with the noise gate. They tend to clip sustained notes, so I’ve stopped using them altogether.

I also haven’t had the best luck with compressors, either. I’ve got an old Dynacomp and a Boss compressor/sustainer and I use them very sparingly. I know lots of guitarists swear by them, but I don’t like what they do to my dynamics.

Not on your life, man! Nothing like engaging the Octavia, switching to the neck pickup and sailing into Hendrix heaven… I’ve gotten many compliments on the sound I’ve been able to get through that pedal. Sure, it doesn’t get much use, but I think we might be playing “All Along the Watchtower” at Saturday’s gig, so I want to have it on the board, even if it only gets used on that one tune.
Thanks for the responses thus far. When I get a few more opinions, I’ll let you know how I’ve set this up, what my buddy objected to, etc.

5

Heh, I’m just giving you shit about the octavia. Don’t worry about it-- just a little ribbing between guitarists. I look forward to learning the mysteries of your config. As you pointed out, every guitarist has a slightly different idea about how to hook things up.

6

I’m no expert, but I agree with p@cific@812’s idea about three groups. One thing I would do differently is to move the reverb/delay to later in the chain. I’d probably start out with:

  1. Distortion
  2. EQ
  3. Octavia
  4. Phaser
  5. Chorus
  6. Wah
  7. Reverb/Delay
  8. Volume

My order of 3, 4 and 5 is totally arbitrary. If I was using only one at a time, the order wouldn’t matter. If I was using two or three together, I would experiment to see what sounded best to me.

The EQ could also be moved around - if one of the effects was emphasizing freq ranges in a way I didn’t like, I might put the EQ immediately after it. Or if I found that a pedal liked to be fed some particular freq, I might put the EQ in front of that pedal.

And I’d place the reverb near the end if it was mainly for simulating a natural hall reverb. If you’re using it more for a delay effect, it might work better in the middle of the chain.

Gee, what a wishy-washy answer. I tell you how I would do it and then tell you there are 53 other ways I might do it.

Of course, the only real answer is: Who cares about breaking rules of thumb if you like the way it sounds?

7

As promised, here’s my ordering…

  1. Boss EQ - I’ve found that scooping the mids before the signal hits any effects gives the best 70s hard rock tone.

  2. Chrome VOX Wah - Should always come before any sort of distortion or overdrive for an authentic sound. Should also come before any modulation effects to avoid mucking with harmonic overtones.

  3. MXR Phase 90 - To give an authentic “And the Cradle Will Rock” VH sound, needs to come before distortion or overdrive.

  4. Roger Mayer Octavia - The way I use this, the “drive” control is backed off just a smidgen from zero. This produces the Hendrix tone a la “All Along the Watchtower.” However, the Octavia overdrives the signal slightly, much like a fuzz pedal, so it needs to be treated as a distortion effect for the purposes of ordering. It needs to come before any other distortion effects to produce the Hendrixy tone.

  5. Ibanez Tube Screamer - Needs to come before the chorus pedal, for reasons I will explain in a bit…

  6. Boss Super Chorus - I have three sounds that make use of chorusing. There’s the clean, jangly sound that I can get by running my amp clean and bypassing all distortion effects. Then there’s “chorus after distortion,” which helps produce a post-OU812 EVH tone. Then there’s “chorus before distortion,” which I can get by running the chorus pedal and using my amp’s distortion.

  7. Ernie Ball Volume pedal - I use this mostly for volume swells, so it should come after most effects. However, I want to put it before reverb/delay because it would sound unnatural for delay repeats to be attenuated by the volume pedal.

  8. Boss Digital Delay/Reverb - See #7.

Thanks for your opinions thus far. Yes, I’ve probably broken a few rules here and there, but I think this setup allows for the widest range of tonal flexibility for me.

8

Eh, to each his own. Play what sounds good to you-- thats all that matters.

9

If you put the volume before the distortion, you can use it as sort of a continual controller…keep your guitar volume up, and use it to increase or decrease the amount of distortion…I have thought of using t volume pedals, one at the beginning and one at the end for this purpose…
JC