Put Some Order in Your Guitar Effects Chain

With so many Effects Pedals out there, how is a musician to know what order they should be in when chaining them together? Eric Johnson and Jimi Hendrix used their wah-wah first in line. Carlos Santana puts a Tube Screamer before his wah-wah. Many artists bend the \”rules\” to get different sounds. There is no set \”Rules\” for chaining your effects pedals, but there are some known standard pedal set-up.

The first standard set-up places the wah-wah first from the guitar, then the overdrive pedal, then chorus and delay. Another standard pedal set-up switches the overdrive and the chorus pedal.

There are also two standard pedal setup alternative\’s. The first one places the compressor first from the guitar, next the univibe or phaser, then the fuzz and lastly echo. The second alternative is first the wah-wah, compressor, univibe or phaser, fuzz and lastly echo.

The standard rule usually looks like this: put tone filters and equalizers first, boosters and overdrives second, modulation devices third, and delays fourth. With this order, the guitar sound is filtered or equalized before distorting and boosting it, and boosting it before wobbling it and then echo and reverberate all that has come before.

There really is no perfect order in which to chain the six effects. It has been said by many experts to play around with what you\’ve got, try every combination that you can, and go with what sounds best. One pedal may not yield it\’s best performance in a certain position, but it may yield the best performance with the chain as a whole.

With all the information that is so easily obtained, you can find the pedal line ups that many popular artists use. Having said this, many of these artists do not stick with the same set-up, religiously. Investigating popular artists pedal set-up may be a good place to start to develop your sound, but remember the goal. What many musicians say is to find your own style, try it out and go with what fits your style or a certain song. The best way to know what order to put your Effects Chain in, is to try out as many pedals as you can and explore their sound in many different positions and settings. Once you find something that fits your style, just go with it! Don\’t be afraid to try new things. After all, isn\’t that how we got the Effects Sound today that we so enjoy!

Next time you turn your radio on or pick your song off your playlist, listen for those effects that have made the music that we have come to love so great. Listen for the distortion, reverb, wah ffects, phaser effects and the mixtures between them. Can you imagine music witout those effects. To get those signature sounds, those famous artists had to start somewhere. Isn\’t that what \”signature\” sound means-a sound that is very personal to the person who created it. I would say trial and error is the best way to obtain that signature sound which leads to great music!!

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Category: Entertainment
Keywords: pedal, guitar effects, pedal power

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