I’ve seen a few ‘where does this go?’ and ‘should this be at the beginning or the end of my chain?’ And I’d like to revisit the age old debate of ‘what is the correct pedal chain formula?’
The one true answer to this is:
Wherever it sounds best to you.
Now I know that doesn’t help a lot of new guitar players as you may not know what sounds best to you yet so there are some gentle guides/suggestions.
Boards can be split into sections:
Tone effects - your preamps, drive, eq, compressors
Volume pedal - generally goes here so drive stays unaffected by volume pedal
Modulation - your tremolo, chorus, phaser and generally anything that doesn’t obviously fit into another section
Delay - delays, echos, repeats
Reverb - space effects
This is what some guitarists consider to be the law and other consider more of a loose guideline.
The one golden rule in my opinion is, if it sounds good to you then it’s right.
Pedal Groups
Before we get into the various effects orders you can use, it’s important to discuss the main pedal groups. Effects pedals are categorized based on the way that they interact with the signal of a guitar, bass, or another instrument.
It’s useful to become familiar with the different groups of effects pedals as they are often deliberately positioned in the signal chain according to the category they belong to.
Here’s a breakdown of the various categories of effects:
- Dynamics (Compressor, Limiter, Noise Gate)
- Filter Effects (EQ, Wah, Talk Box, Envelope Filter)
- Pitch Effects (Tuner, Pitch Shift, Octaver, Octave Fuzz, Harmonizer)
- Volume (Volume, Tremolo, Boost)
- Gain Effects (Overdrive, Distortion, Fuzz)
- Modulation Effects (Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Vibrato, Ring Modulator)
- Time Effects (Delay, Reverb, Looper)
https://www.guitarlobby.com/guitar-pedal-order/
