Re: order of pedals

[lance glover <baumhaus@earthlink.net>]

Dlangenes@aol.com wrote:

> Folks,
>
> I'm an acoustic player recently converted to electric with a number of 
>pedals
> in my rep. could use advice from you veterans about the order in which 
>they
> might best perform in my setup. also, should i be putting them in my 
>amp's
> effects loop? which ones? why? i'm ignorant. please fill me in, people.
>
> here they are:
>
> Boss Chromatic Tuner Pedal
> Boss Reverb/Delay
> Boss Compression/Sustainer
> Boss Tremelo/Pan
> Electro Harmonix Small Stone
> Digitech Whammy/Wah
> Rat
> Nobels Preamp/Boost

well, you have more than a few choices. what i've come to know as a more 
or less
*standard* approach is compression/boost up front (guitar end), then wah, 
then
overdrive/distortion, then reverb/delay, and finally modulation effects
(phaser/trem...).

but take this with a big grain of salt, because many useful sounds can be 
had by
switching the order of one or several (and maybe all) of the effects in 
your
chain. also, its really best to start with fewer rather than more, because 
the
more devices in your signal chain, generally the weaker/thinner the sound 
coming
out of your amp.

it's like color. if you think of color as additive, i.e. when you keep 
adding
colors you get richer color, but if you add too many you get mud 
(sometimes mud
is fun, though). sometimes you get white, if you're dealing with reflective
color (then your tone just sort of vanishes, generally not a good thing).

another thought is to look at the effects you have as spices in your 
kitchen,
i.e. if you like your basic guitar/amp sound (since you didn't say what you
have, i"ll assume for the sake of argument that you like it and are not 
trying
to make up for inadequacies in these two components, which usually no 
amount of
pedal power will overcome), then consider the guitar/amp as the meat (or 
soy) of
your meal; you'll then need to decide which spices will be complementary. 
it's
unlikely all tof them will taste good together, in fact they'll probably 
drown
out the flavor of the meat (not to mention the soy, which hasn't a lot  of
flavor to begin with), so start conservatively. try a dash of compression 
with
the rat. run the compressor after the rat to see what effect this 
has...add the
reverb/delay. with just these three components, play around with various
settings. switch pickups. alter the tone/gain of your guitar or amp. take 
away
the compression. alter your playing style (trade plectrum for fingers or
vice-versa). throw in the whammy/wah. lose the rat and add the preamp & 
trem.
toss them all and start over. take notes (but don't make yourself crazy). 
if you
love a particular combination, definitely write it down somewhere. above 
all,
have fun. buy quality patch cords and get together a supply of spare 9v
batteries.

best,

lance g.