Effects - joined in any particular order?

[Paul S]

I am just putting together a mini-pedal board, having drifted away from my multi-effect Zoom thingy.

I now have:

Boss LS-2, mainly so I can use the effects mixed with the clean sound, so everything will go through one loop.

EBS Unichorus
Dunlop 105Q Wah
EHX Big Muff

I will add, when I get one, a Korg Pitchblack tuner (anyone got one they want to sell?)

Possibly a daft question but do these need to be attached in any particular order in the loop?

Ta!

[Bankai]

Whichever order you like.

I would have thought they'd work best in this order though:
Wah
Chorus
Fuzz

[pantherairsoft]

As above, try everything an see what works best for you. The different orders create different sounds when you use then together.

For me, Fuzz always comes before modulation. But as the answer above shows - everyone is different!

Shep

[Ian Savage]

Thirded on the 'experiment' recommendation; the rule of thumb for effects order is usually gain, then modulation, then time-based (reverb, delay etc), but you can get awesome sounds by doing it 'wrong'. Since you're using a wah, though, one thing to remember is that if you run wah into distortion the frequency peak created by the wah will be distorted MORE, which tends to give quite a strident, boosted sound; put it the other way around (distortion then wah) for a more subtle effect.

For guitar, at least, it's often worth trying out chorus/reverb/delay/flanger/phaser etc in the effects loop, but if you're not using drive from your amp it's probably not worth the bother.

[Paul S]

Thank you! trial and error it is.

[xgsjx]

Yup. Play about until your heart's content & then you'll change the order again within a month!
Just now I'm running Fuzz > Flangy EQ (Bass Murf) > Filter (Wah) > Chorus. Every now & again I juggle things about & then revert back to this again.
More pedals = More fun

I'd stick the [s]Tuna in a sandwich[/s] tuner at the start.

[Mog]

Pretty much agree with whats been said. just make sure you dont have some low quality unit after the Wah as it can bleed the signal too much.

[Paul S]

again, ta all. Not had a chance to fiddle yet but am looking forward to getting it sorted.

[Walker]

Do you guys try different pedals before the amp and in the loop? Some of my pedals run with far less noise in the loop, but some of the dirt pedals sound like crap if they are not before the amp. It means a lot of cables running from my board!

Is this the usual way of doing it? Bit of both?

[pantherairsoft]

I don't use any in the amps loop. A few pedals do sound better in the loop, but slight alteration in tone does not seem worth the effort to me. I also like to ensure pedals can interact which mens is need to have 2 well thought out signal chains or I find I have a pedal in 1 chain that I then want to mix with the pedal in the other chain.

Each to their own as with everything - but everything before works for me.

[mike257]

I've always gone pitch -> tone -> time but as its been said there's no hard and fast rules. On guitar I always stick my wah right at the front before any drive pedals, but on bass always preferred it after my ODB-3/Hyperdrive.

[Ian Savage]

[quote name='Walker' timestamp='1320172396' post='1423344']
Do you guys try different pedals before the amp and in the loop? Some of my pedals run with far less noise in the loop, but some of the dirt pedals sound like crap if they are not before the amp. It means a lot of cables running from my board!

Is this the usual way of doing it? Bit of both?
[/quote]

Like I say, the usual way is to have modulation and time-based stuff after gain/distortion as that's where they tend to sound better, hence with guitar amps where you're tending to get distortion from the amp those kinda pedals often sound better (and quieter) in the loop.
'Course, even with a bass amp any noise you get from the pedals will be further amplified by the amp's preamp stage, so as you've noticed some will be quieter in the loop (as long as the loop's set at the right level, which is a whole other can of worms).

[Walker]

[quote name='Ian Savage' timestamp='1320177181' post='1423455']

...as long as the loop's set at the right level, which is a whole other can of worms).[/quote]

Yes, just been read an ovnilab article about this. Now I'm really confused!

[xgsjx]

This might be of interest...

Click this dot [url="http://pedalboardplanner.com/blog/pedal-order/"].[/url]

[concretebadger]

I've never used an amp's effects loop either (and I use a lot of reverb and delay effects, which are traditionally used that way!) because it would bypass the amp's eq controls and add to the amount of cable the signal would have to run through. If I made use of the amp's preamp distortion I'd try it but it's never felt necessary. That's what I've always done with guitar.

Chorus before distortion sounds a bit muddy to me and I'd expect a wah post-distortion to be particularly sensitive and hard to control since the Big Muff is so drastically scooped in the highs and lows. A tuner is supposed to be first in line though, so it has the pure and uneffected sound to work with,

Using the LS-2 as a wet/dry mix box for the effects is a neat idea though... I'd personally go tuner -> LS-2 -> *split signal* wah -> fuzz -> chorus but experimentation really is the best plan!

[Paul S]

Thanks guys, appreciate the input.

I've had a fiddle and actually settled on wah>fuzz>chorus!... for now, anyway...

Cheers