Guitar Effect Pedals - Managing the Chain Gang

Most every guitarist employs at least one effect pedal in his or her tonal arsenal, be it a $30 beater or a high-end “boutique” stomp-box. And, much like all things guitar, effects can be addictive.  Many of us start with one and end up with a chain of effects we simply can’t live without.  And just like every component in your signal path — from your pick to your speaker cone — effects affect your tone.

If you arrange them correctly, your effects pedals can be a transparent ally in your quest for good tone.  In order to figure out what works best for you, it’s helpful to learn what each pedal in your chain does to your signal.

First, a disclaimer: we all know guitar tone is subjective. What sounds heavenly to me may not do it for you.  My advice is based on my many years of experience and my personal sonic preferences.  You may not agree with everything I suggest, but I know that if you try some of my suggestions, my experience tells me you will have good results.

Much of the strategy behind effects pedal arrangement has to do with the sound you are going for.  Are you seeking out vintage Fender tweed tube amp raunch?  Or big, classic British Marshall or Vox?  Maybe that dramatic, processed 1980s sound?  Clean jazz tone?  What you are hoping to achieve has a lot to do with how you arrange your effects pedals. The following is an overview of some of the most common pedals, their characteristics and signal path preferences.  Take a look and see if there aren’t some ideas in here for you to clean up your guitar signal and enhance your tone, regardless of what style you play.

Auto filters and other envelope devices love to be first in the signal path.  These are dynamic units that require an unprocessed signal at their input to operate properly.  They work best patched directly to your guitar. It just so happens that they also sound great when placed first in your effects chain.

Wah-wah pedals are band-pass filters that boost a narrow band of frequencies, allowing you to sweep them up and down the frequency spectrum.  For a wide sweeping, natural sound, your wah should be next in you chain (after your auto filter or envelope device), and before any overdrive, distortion, delay or modulation effect.  This arrangement also yields more of a vintage tone as well.  However, if you are going for a more mechanical sounding wah, place it after your distortion or overdrive effect.  Another interesting tone is to have a mild overdrive in front of your wah and distortion after it, which will allow you to experience elements of both tones.

Compressor-limiters have a couple of uses; as a sustainer they amplify weak signals and attenuate strong signals, thereby increasing your guitar’s sustain.  As a limiter, they limit the amount of signal entering your amp or subsequent effect, helping to avoid distortion. A combination of both features – sustain without distortion — can be achieved with the right control settings. Compressor-limiters can also be used as simple boosts. These devices do their best work early in the signal path — before distortion, modulation effects, delays and reverbs, as they are best utilized after all dynamically-sensitive units.

Distortion and overdrive units are the cornerstones of many players’ tone.  These effects sound best early in the signal path, before most modulation effects, delays, or reverbs.  Placing them early in your effects chain will also cut down on unwanted noise, as it will amplify any and all noise generated by a previous device.  Distortion and overdrive pedals placed late in the chain may take that tiny bit of hiss from your delay pedal or reverb unit and turn it into a wall of white noise, and your echo and reverb effects will be hard to tame as well.  Another way to use a distortion or overdrive unit is to plug into the high gain channel of your amplifier rather than an external pedal, and treat the effects loop send of the amp (if so equipped) as your distortion effect output.

Volume pedals are great after distortion or overdrive units because you can increase and decrease your volume without altering grind level, just like the master volume in your amp (ummm, well…allegedly! I’ve yet to find a truly 100% useful master volume. Ed.).  They’re also very useful to have before any reverb and/or delay units, allowing you to create volume swells without cutting off reverb or echo trails.  Quite a few players gravitate toward putting volume pedals first in the chain, which is somewhat wasteful, as the volume control on your guitar serves the very same function.  But it is useful to have your volume pedal first if you want a hands free, pre-distortion volume control.  However, auto filters and envelope devices should not have a volume pedal before them in the signal chain, as they prefer a signal as raw as possible to do their job correctly.

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Author's biography:

Rick Hamel leads a dual life as a guitar player and audio electronics designer / manufacture. From the late 70s though the 90s he as played in a number of bands throughout Southern California, making music through effects and amps of his own creation. In 1986 Rick began manufacturing his own line of effect pedals through his company called SIB -(Something I built) and more recently The Jerk Brothers. He also customizes amps and effects for top "well known" musicians. Rick focuses much of his attention to tube circuity, however, his electronic knowledge covers solid state equipment as well.