| | Effect Pedal Order |
| | A typical pedalboard setup links each pedal into the next until the signal is finally passed into the amp. The order in which the effect pedals are placed can have a big impact on the way your entire rig sounds. The intent of this article is not to point out a right or wrong way, that's a matter of personal taste. The main goal here is to explain the pedal chain in a way that you can get the most out of your pedals.
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| Compressors | In general you'll want to place your compressor as early in the signal path as possible. This is more important when your board includes filter type effects that alter the volume as they work. For example, if you place a rotary speaker type effect such as a Uni-Vibe before the compressor, the compressor will end up compressing the signal to the point where it will flatten out the rotating effect and you won't get the nice deep swirl that you're looking for. It's not wrong, but you're just shooting your Uni-Vibe in the foot.
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| Wah Wahs | One of my favorite tricks is to place a distortion or and overdrive pedal on either side of my wah. It's a matter of personal taste, feeding a distorted signal into a wah can give you a nasty, guttural sound, which frankly can be awesome. Using a disortion/overdrive after the wah results in a more natural, familiar tone. I like both, so on my board I bookend my wah with a pair of overdrives. This aspect of the signal change is very dramatic, and is one of my favorites to play around with.
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| Reverb/Delay/Echo | You'll get the most out of these types of effects placing them near the end of your board. A delay placed too early usually just ends up being a big mess, placed near the end, it can do it's job better because the echo or the reverb being added by the pedal doesn't get distorted.
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| Chorus | Placing your chorus pedal after your distortion/overdrive will result in a better more natural sounding effect.
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| Limiters/Noise Gates | Place these at the end of your board, but in front of echo type effects. Placing a noise gate after a delay for example will end up gating the decay of the delay making the delay sound choppy and crappy as soon as the decay hits the gate thresehold.
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| | The name of the game here is to experiment, you're not going to blow anything up, worst case scenario is that you'll end up with a sound you don't like and can learn from. Many happy accidents occur from tearing your board apart from time to time and playing with your pedals for a little while. Changing the order may make an average pedal sound more interesting, it can also negate all the tone from great pedal, you'll never know until you've messed with them for a while. I've had a number of pedals that I was going to get rid of, that were saved by changing their place in the signal path. So grab a beer, warm up the tubes and break all the rules.
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