Pedal Order

Ah the old debate: ”In which order do I put my pedal on my pedalboard?”

There is no right and wrong way and in this article I will attempt to clarify a few questions I have been asked on how to order your pedalboard, and why.

Tuners
I guess there is no steadfast rule on tuners but I like to have mine as close to the front as possible so your tuner can read you guitar correctly, through as few effects as possible. On my personal pedalboard the tuner is second in line, simply because it was easier for me to have my Wah pedal first in my layout, having the tuner first was giving me a few routing/wiring headaches.

Filtering Effects (Wah, Auto-Wah, Filter etc…)
I like to have any filter effects  I use as close to the front as possible. Since these effects are (the automated ones anyway) are triggered by the signal attack it makes sense to have them near the front where they are not limited by the attack coming from other effects. Of course experimentation is the key and place your wah pedal after your distortion will yield a very different sound. As you can see in the picture I prefer to have my wah at the front, I think it has a greater dynamic response and a more aggressive sound.

Compression
Compressors can go anywhere you like but they often increase the noise a lot and since distortions are noisy effects there will be a LOT more noise placing your compressor after your distortion than there will be feeding it a relatively clean signal. Again though, experiment! I have created some pretty cool tones by running my compressor after my distortion, it really squashes the dynamics of the distortion and you can get some liquid smooth, fusiony tones, but be prepared for a lot of excess noise.

Dirt Boxes (Boosts, Overdrives, Distotions, Fuzzes)
Generally the idea here is to go from lowest gain to highest gain so that the low gain pedals can push the high gain pedals into further drive. This would mean Boost > Overdrive > Distortion > Fuzz, but you can achieve different sounds by combining these in different orders.

Fuzzes may give you a headache here as some classic fuzzes sound awful unless they are at the very front of your signal path, ahead of everything else. This is to do with the way the buffers in certain other pedals affect the input of the fuzz circuit. If you are using all true bypass effects then you might get away with it, but experimentation is key.

Modulation (Chorus, Flange, Tremelo, Phaser etc…)
This is one that really divides guitarists right down the middle, modulation before, or after dirt boxes? Placing your modulation effects AFTER your dirt boxes generally yields a smooth, more natural sound that allows the modulation to ‘breathe’ more. However, as you can see on the picture my pedalboard has all of its modulation effects front end, before the distortions. Why?

Well for a start I rarely use any modulation on distorted settings anyway, I prefer to use them only on clean sounds, but I have also found that running my distortion effects after my modulation effects allows for more unusual, unnatural sounds and running my chorus into a light overdrive gives me that sought after ‘leslie’ effect.

Ultimately it is up to you on this one, so experiment and find out which works best for you.

Delay & Reverb
Finally comes your delay and then your reverb. Ideally you would have these effects running in your amp’s effects loop but if that is not an option for you then running these last should give you the most natural sound. Putting a delay or reverb unit before your distortion effects can be a real nightmare as this will increase the volume of said effects a LOT and cause unnatural volume spikes, and the delay repeats will also sound harsh. Again though, some people like this sound and a lot of ‘shoegazers’ run delays early on and they create some massive, unusual pad sounds that way.

The Oddballs
Effects like EQ and Noise Suppression can go anywhere in the signal path. If a particular pedal is sucking tone it is a good idea to add an EQ after it to correct those issues. Distortions are noisy so it makes sense to run the noise supressor after your distortions, if not at the very end of the chain.

My Pedalboard
As you can see in the picture my board is actually a really simple right to left layout with no complex routing of any kind. The signal path is:
Dunlop Crybaby Wah
Artec ‘Big Dots’ Tuner
Carl Martin Classic Chorus + Vibrato
Boss CS-3 Compressor
Boss HF-2 Hi-Band Flanger
Valvette Custom Drive
Xotic BB Preamp MB
MadeByMike Centaur (K)lone
B.K Butler Tube Driver

This is how it works. It follows the signal path through the pedalboard and then into my amp. In the effects loop of the amp I am running my delay and reverbs and finally a noise suppression unit.

As I keep saying throughout this article, experimentation really is key. What works for one does not always work for another so jumble your pedals up, throw caution to the wind, and just have fun ordering your effects.