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fx pedals order

tristan12

tristan12

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Dec 8, 2014
19
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#1
Hi, my name ist tristan. Im putting together a pedal board. Ive never played with any fx before so im not new to playing bass but im new to playing with fx. Im using a boss tu3 tuner, a vox 2b fx pedal, a behringer graphic eq pedal and a bones aby signal splitter (I run two amps). Basically I need to know what order the fx pedal and the graphic eq should be in? Should I put the eq before the fx or the fx before the eq. Any help would be appriciated. Thanks alot, Tristan
 
#3
jez79 said:
It can work both ways
Eq before effects has more control over your base bass tone
Eq after effects can help correct overall freq problems/enhancements
Click to expand...
I also have built in eq on both my amps. Lows, low mid, high mid, and highs. With that being said would you recomend the eq pedal before the fx?
 
#5
I do my graphic EQ pedal before any of my real effects. I go tuner > compressor > EQ > filters/delays/dirts > DI > amp.

I do my eq before a lot of those others because I use the EQ primarily to get the right sound for my raw bass and my different techniques. I want an EQ setting for my finger playing and a different one for slap, as an example. If I use an effect after this, it almost always has it's own EQ stage where I can compensate for however it may be goofing up my tone shape.
 
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#7
kevteop said:
You've got two 'effects' and you're asking what order to run them in?

Experiment. It will be a short experiment!
Click to expand...
Yeah thats what im asking. And I understand my eq isnt even really effects. My effects pedal is actually a multi effects pedal with hundreds of settings and like I said, ive never messed with effects before. But yeah ill experement.
 
#8
There is no right order to put pedals in. It's preference really. I personally like to put EQ towards the start of my chain. That way I can dial in the clean tone i'm after and then distort it. I find it eq distortion is harder and doesn't always produce great results. That being said, I do however like an eq of some sort at the end (pre-amp) to further sculpt my tone before running it into my amp.

If your using a multi effects pedal then I would suggest your EQ at the start as there may already be some sort of EQ pre-built into the multi effects unit
 
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#9
Th
nendo said:
There is no right order to put pedals in. It's preference really. I personally like to put EQ towards the start of my chain. That way I can dial in the clean tone i'm after and then distort it. I find it eq distortion is harder and doesn't always produce great results. That being said, I do however like an eq of some sort at the end (pre-amp) to further sculpt my tone before running it into my amp.

If your using a multi effects pedal then I would suggest your EQ at the start as there may already be some sort of EQ pre-built into the multi effects unit
Click to expand...
Thanks, Ill try it at the beginning.
 
#10
jez79 said:
It can work both ways
Eq before effects has more control over your base bass tone
Eq after effects can help correct overall freq problems/enhancements
Click to expand...
+1 on this.
Other people's experience and opinion might be different.

Here's mine, based on what I see what's important in effects *inputs* and *outputs*.
- effects like dirt (OD, distortion, fuzz), octaves, envelope filters, synths react most strongly to the *level* of the signal coming into them, and much less so to the tone of signal;
- effects outputs almost always (excluding delays/reverbs) affect the *tone* of your signal.

Now: where would you put your EQ?

My opinion: effects don't really care much what is the tone color of the signal that you feed them. So EQ in front of them would be pretty useless - you EQ your signal one way, and what comes out sounds completely different. Effects do affect tone *a lot*, and often in a way that you don't have direct control over. But if you have your EQ after them - you have a good chance to fix what you don't like about the overall result.

One exception to this - might be specific to EBS Octabass (that I use) - octavers. Mine likes a lot of low freq in its input - it makes tracking much better than when I compress the signal before it (actually, I found that compression makes it worse for EBS, despite their own advice to do that). I deal with this by boosting lows on my bass (active) when I use octaver.
 

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