1322 Posts and finally getting a pedalboard...signal routing suggestions?

[jamison162]

I've been "collecting" pedals for the past few years and finally need a board to put it all together. I'm either going Pumaboard or may end up having to build it myself. I'm by no means through with buying pedals, but I think I have ne of everything I'll need on my board.

Give me some ideas on how the signal chain should go....I'll not complicate things now with loopers, etc. Here's my idea, but I have some questions to follow....

Guitar > EB Jr. Volume > Area 51 Wah > Diamond Comp. > OD1 > OD2 > OD3 > OD4 > Empress Trem > Maxon PH-350 > Maxon CS-550 > Boss DD-20 > Verbzilla > RC Booster > Amp

Tune/Mute > Strobostomp somewhere up front.

OD Choices (what I currently own):
- Barber DD
- Barber LTD SR
- BB Preamp
- Crunch Box
- Tim/Timmy (Just got the call as I was typing this.)
- OCD V3

Questions:
- Vol/Wah/Comp ok out front? All are truebypass excelt for the passive volume pedal.
- Comp Before OD's ok?
- Not Sure about Empress Trem, Chorus, Phaser locations
- Delay > Reverb or Reverb > Delay
- I'd like to run RC Booster last but I'm now thinking about the slight DD20 hiss, I defintely don't wanna boost that....may be an issue.

Thanks

[jamison162]

C'mon guys you know you've all been here before....

[guildchild]

I'll chime in since i just went through this while ordering my new board. Here's my chain and I'll give you an explanation of the differences between our setups at the end.

WAH - COMP - PHASE - OD1 - OD2 - OD3 - (OD4) - EB VOL - DD-5 - DD-20 - CHORUS - FLANGE - TREM

i would assert that the wah should go first, but this is a matter of taste. i've debated the phase / comp combo and found that comp pushes the phase effect a bit and i like that. then i go straight into od land. you'll notice that i have the volume AFTER od. i have treble bleeds on all my guitars and that helps out with controlling the drive from the guitar, but i want to use the volume pedal as a true volume control. therefore, i want to maintain the current tone from guitar to od and simply raise or lower the volume with the pedal. this will also allow you to do more realistic volume swells into the dd-20, and you don't have to have a boost pedal for solos. i just stomp the volume to the max for solos.
as for the modulation section, i'm sure i'll use terms that aren't correct, and someone will nab me for it, but this is what sounds best to me. i view chorus, flange, and trem as comb filters and put them in order of small to large. in other words, the chorus is more subtle than the flange and flange to trem etc. so, i find that the "smaller" comb filters feed into the larger ones better.

i also run delay prior to all of the modulation. i find that i prefer the delay to be happening and dump into the modulation. for an exaggerated example, if you put a trem prior to the delay, the consistent tempo of the trem will overlap in the delay and get out of time. the same is true of the other 'comb' type of effects. although cool sounds can be created, for a standard live setting i prefer to have the filters lined up in this way.

as for the rc...i think you won't be utilizing this pedal to it's max potential if you don't run it in the od section. use it to drive something or boost a signal immediately after a drive pedal.

that's my 2 cents...

[jamison162]

Thanks gc...

I'm thinking it's gonna be trial and error basically. I lot of suggestions you have don't apply to me since I don't ever see using say trem and delay at the same time - but who knows.

Guess my main question now is phase and trem before or after od's. Again, trial and error I suspect.

[guildchild]

Originally Posted by jamison162

Guess my main question now is phase and trem before or after od's. Again, trial and error I suspect.

phase will be fairly self-evident. There are 2 very different sounds you will get from having phase pre or post od. i found that for my rig, the post od phase basically killed the effect entirely, while the pre od phase let it come through as clearly as when running clean.

the trem issue is similar to my results with the phase, but i found the pre od trem to be really odd sounding....and the playability was greatly affected. depeding on the trem, it will play with the amount of drive you get from the pedals. it's like quickly rotating the volume knob on the guitar itself.

whenever i start from scratch like this, i start out with my foundation....which is OD. once i decide on that arrangement and how to stack them, i start adding the "not so foundation" fx. i put them in front, behind etc until it finds it's home. once you get a bunch of pedals running, it'll take some time as you may have to place an additional pedal in 4 or 5 slots until you find where it works.

scott henderson has notebooks full of nothing but different tones. he writes down the exact signal chain and all the settings of each pedal, guitar, and amp. i started doing this whenever i'm messing with signal path like this. i might not like a given combination since it won't work easily in live situations, but it DOES create a certain sound. i've been documenting all of those (sometimes total bizarre) sounds and it comes in handy during any studio work.

[guildchild]

btw, i recently ordered a board from www.nycpedalboards.com they were really great to work with.

there is a thread that i started about them here: http://www.thegearpage.net/board/sho...d.php?t=266907

of course, i'm not associated with them at all...i just wanted a nice board that works well for me. i gig 2-3 times per week and needed something that is completely useful, strong and clean.