Mudd's stupid question of the day

[My name is Mudd]

Does it matter where the tuner is in a pedal chain?

[Unrepresented]

Yes. It's a lot easier to tune a good, clean signal than a modulating one or something heavily altered.

[My name is Mudd]

I was just coming back to clarify that I don't plan on tuning thru an active Big Muff Pi or anything...given that bit, is there still a preferred spot on the board?

[WyrdoBass]

Most people just keep it at the start of the signal chain. Less hassle. for example, consider if you were playing and you were using a bunch of effects, and the tuner is somewhere in the middle or end. You would first have to turn them all off, and then tune, then turn them back on. At the start of the chain it doesn't matter what else is on; it gets the clean signal regardless.

[My name is Mudd]

That makes sense. I was debating between putting it first or last, and now I know.

Thanks!

[warwick.hoy]

ha ha, that was brought up in the boss area forum.

Some guys were suggesting putting the TU-2 in it's own loop and the pedals in a different loop as it is known for a bit of tone suck.

[The Lurker]

i put my TU-2 second to last, so it can double as a mute. Almost everything ahead of that in the chain is true-bypass or has a very transparent buffer, so it works fine.

Once, just for kicks, I turned on my Blue Box and tuner and hit an A.... watching the tuner try to track the effected sound with the warbly octave thing was hilarious, it was like watching the red light thing the original Cylons had on Battlestar Galactica.

[Dash Rantic]

I don't quite understand why so many people put the tuner at the beginning of the chain--when it comes time to tune, just turn off the other effects, and there's your clean signal.

I find it *much* more useful to place my tuner (I have a Boss TU-2) at the very end of the effects chain, so it can act as a mute (as The Lurker mentioned). It's a much more effective mute when at the end end of the chain, because when you're using it as just a mute, it can also mute the hiss from distortion/compression/etc.

The only exception to this that I can think of is if you're using a ton of badly tone-sucking bypass pedals chained together that are not in a loop--which you really shouldn't do anyway :-)

So yes, placement in the chain does matter--end of the chain is where it's at

-Dash

[Sorefinger]

Originally Posted by Dash Rantic

I don't quite understand why so many people put the tuner at the beginning of the chain--when it comes time to tune, just turn off the other effects, and there's your clean signal.

You just answered your own question.

It´s very obiously less hassle if you don´t have to switch off all your effects, isn´t it?

And if your effects are hissy, a noise gate will be a simpler solution IMO.

Tuner first for me.

[TheMutt]

I'm not saying that the beginning or the end of the chain is better one or the other, but I personally put mine at the beginning. The reason for this is that I use a volume pedal near the end of the chain to mute everything. Works great for me, has the added bonus of allowing you to leave effects on if you have an effect that is always on and not deal with the all-on or all-off of a tuner bypass. I realize though, that this is not for everyone as some people use their volume pedals pre-distortion or at the beginning of their chain. Just a thought.

[katri]

I put mine just before my tone hammer which I use as a DI, so I can mute all signal going to the PA.