The order of the pedals

[BrainiacManiac]

So I got into the world of pedals about a year and something ago, the one thing that has always confused me is in what order should I place my pedals? Please enlighten me on this and explain the reasoning behind it.

Currently I have a Strymon Night Sky, a Pearl OC-07, an MXR Bass Fuzz Deluxe, a Jam Pedals Ripply Fall, a Boss RC-30 Loop Station and a Darkglass Infinity (will probably replace this one with an Anagram in the future).

 

[ceetee]

I'd go octave -> dirt -> chorus -> reverb -> looper -> di for a start. Then change to taste. Depends what you want in the loop, how you want to use the Infinitiv,... The Anagram will change this anywa i guess.

 

[Aric Bjorn]

So I got into the world of pedals about a year and something ago, the one thing that has always confused me is in what order should I place my pedals? Please enlighten me on this and explain the reasoning behind it.

Currently I have a Strymon Night Sky, a Pearl OC-07, an MXR Bass Fuzz Deluxe, a Jam Pedals Ripply Fall, a Boss RC-30 Loop Station and a Darkglass Infinity (will probably replace this one with an Anagram in the future).

HOW TO ORDER YOUR PEDALS

What order should I put my pedals in? No other pedal board question is asked more than this. The most important thing to remember is that there’s no wrong way to set up your pedals, and there’s not just one right way. Experiment with your signal chain and see how pedals interact with each...

jhspedals.info

That being said, here’s a general order we suggest for setting up your pedals:

Fuzz > Wah (more on this later) > Octave/Pitch > Compression > Boost > Overdrive > Distortion > Modulation > Delay > Reverb

There are lots of other options and opinions when it comes to pedal order and stacking pedals, and there are many detailed articles meant to help with this. My goal here is to give you a basic idea of a great standard set up.

The important thing is to have fun while experimenting with your signature pedal board setup! No one gets it right the first (or usually the second or third) time. Be a kid again. Actually play with your pedals and your guitar. You won’t get in trouble. I promise.

 

[Thunderthumbs73]

So I got into the world of pedals about a year and something ago, the one thing that has always confused me is in what order should I place my pedals? Please enlighten me on this and explain the reasoning behind it.

Currently I have a Strymon Night Sky, a Pearl OC-07, an MXR Bass Fuzz Deluxe, a Jam Pedals Ripply Fall, a Boss RC-30 Loop Station and a Darkglass Infinity (will probably replace this one with an Anagram in the future).

If you're happy with the interactivity and functions of the pedals... there is no problem with your existing order of pedals. As a guitar player, I pay particular attention to the order and specification of pedals, and I have a setup and paradigm that works for me. As a bass player, I use only a tuner, chorus and overdrive, in that order. And I really don't use any of those all that much- just a sprinke of tonal seasoning as necessary.

 

[Brandon Shea]

As a general starting point, I follow Rick Beato’s advice for pedal order: pitch, tone, modulation, time.

Within each broad category, you just have to experiment. That guideline should keep you in good shape though!

 

[monsterthompson]

Currently I have a Strymon Night Sky, a Pearl OC-07, an MXR Bass Fuzz Deluxe, a Jam Pedals Ripply Fall, a Boss RC-30 Loop Station and a Darkglass Infinity (will probably replace this one with an Anagram in the future).

Loop station - First to loop a clean tone that can be modified by subsequent pedals. (Almost) last to loop a designed sound. I might put the Night Sky after it for more ambient drones and/or to hide the loop point

Octave - Near first. It probably reacts best to a clean dry sound. Placing a clipping stage after it will glue any wet/dry blended sound.

Bass Fuzz - Next. If you’re using the cab sim on the infinity, then you’ll likely want the cab sim after the fuzz.

Chorus - It will likely be most notable after the fuzz. It could go before.

Infinity - Clipping and cab sim effects. Maybe the chorus after if going into an amp.

Night Sky - Last-ish to put the designed sound into a space. My preference is to use the EQ clipping and cab sim to filter the sound before it hits a time effect like delay or reverb. There’s certainly a case to be made for distortion after a reverb but that’s a less common use case.

This is all rough ideas and starting points I’d think through. There’s no rule you need to follow. Maybe you want to glitch the octave pedal tracking but running a huge chorus modulated sound into it and then space that into a reverb and smash all that with a fuzz.

 

[Bob_Ross]

what order should I place my pedals? Please enlighten me on this and explain the reasoning behind it.

Folks will offer lots of advice on how you should categorize your pedals, and then what order the different categories should go in. (E.g., "Things That Add Harmonic Content should go before Things That Filter Harmonic Content" ...or, "Things That Add Additional Temporal Information should go after Things That Maintain Temporal Synchrony")

And they're usually right.

But I just want to offer this take, which imho not enough people are advocating for or putting into practice:

Being able to rearrange the order of your pedals on the fly opens up worlds of sounds that are far more fascinating than just adhering to any one fixed-order paradigm.

If you can (temporarily, or momentarily) put the Things That Filter Harmonic Content in front of the Things That Add Harmonic Content -- iow, if instead of A>B you hit a switch and get B>A -- you can get sounds that will never occur in an A>B signal path.

So think about ways to rearrange your pedals without having to physically unplug or move anything.

 

[monsterthompson]

So think about ways to rearrange your pedals without having to physically unplug or move anything.

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ES5--boss-es-5-effects-switching-system
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[BrainiacManiac]

Folks will offer lots of advice on how you should categorize your pedals, and then what order the different categories should go in. (E.g., "Things That Add Harmonic Content should go before Things That Filter Harmonic Content" ...or, "Things That Add Additional Temporal Information should go after Things That Maintain Temporal Synchrony")

And they're usually right.

But I just want to offer this take, which imho not enough people are advocating for or putting into practice:

Being able to rearrange the order of your pedals on the fly opens up worlds of sounds that are far more fascinating than just adhering to any one fixed-order paradigm.

If you can (temporarily, or momentarily) put the Things That Filter Harmonic Content in front of the Things That Add Harmonic Content -- iow, if instead of A>B you hit a switch and get B>A -- you can get sounds that will never occur in an A>B signal path.

So think about ways to rearrange your pedals without having to physically unplug or move anything.

That is interesting, I have never thought about it. But I am guessing it requires things to be digital in order to quickly re-arrange a lot of them. Nevertheless I will try to experiment with different orders of the effects after I get my hands on the Darkglass Anagram. Thanks for the advice!

 

[Bob_Ross]

I am guessing it requires things to be digital in order to quickly re-arrange a lot of them.

"Digital" in the sense of a microprocessor-controlled routing matrix, with memories for different configurations, sure...that would be practically mandatory if you wanted to totally reconfigure the order of every pedal (e.g., to go instantly from pedal A>B>C>D>E path to pedal D>B>E>C>A path).

But you can also do some re-arranging via analog switchers: One of my pedalboards has a pair of nested flip-flop loop switchers so that short chains of pedals can either be in front of, or behind, other short chains of pedals. Much easier to keep track of, and no programming in advance required.

And another of my pedalboards has a VFE Klein Bottle to handle routing. This is basically like an analog mixer with a number of Aux Sends that can cross-feed one another. It's pretty easy to set it up so that Aux 1 (which has a signal path to 1 or 2 or 20 pedals) then feeds Aux 2 (which has a separate signal path to 1 or 2 or 20 different pedals)...but then you step on a footswitch and now Aux 2 feeds Aux 1. or Aux 3. Also all analog.

Hilarity ensues.

 

[Aric Bjorn]

And another of my pedalboards has a VFE Klein Bottle to handle routing.

I love it. I don't need one, but it looks like it could be a lot of fun, and the name is *perfect*. Maybe some day I'll have enough of a need to justify getting one, now that I know they exist....