Pedal Board

[Jera Woden]

im building a pedalboard to keep things clean. i have a few effects pedals and some multieffect suff but im not sure of everything i need to make a great gear setup and how to plug everything in so it will sound great.

first do i need a compressor? if so where do i put it? effects like a wah or distortion pedal how do i route these into it with out causeing the other effects to get lost? im looking into a pedal tuner a volume pedal and a 10 band eq do i really need them and where do they go in the circuit?

also how do you guys route these things? what order should i put all of these things in?

thanks in advance

[thegarehanman]

You should probably mention what pedals you have. As for the board itself, just make a board with handles and maybe a cover. Make it from whatever you see fit. I made mine from aluminum. Don't build a power supply into it, that's just an unneccessary amount of work. Get a daisy chain power supply. I use Liquid Sound's daisy chain and it works like a champ.

[feylya]

Or you could do what a local guitarist did and get an old square guitar case, take out the division inside it, modify the hinges so you can remove the top and you're done.

[thegarehanman]

My homemade pedal board:

[Thoughtless 7]

thegarehanman, I love that!! If only had enough pedals to build a pedal board =/

[haggardguy]

I'd say you'd probably want the eq,its always good to be able to shape your sound. IF you have a standard trem or something then a pedal tuner might be a good idea and I personally have no use for volume pedals so i say stay away. As to the order it goes in you can switch wah and distortion depending on the way you prefer it. AFter those then it should be compressor if you have one,if you don't have an effects return loop then put your eq in now,if you have an effects return put your eq there,it'll sound much better. After that put in you chorus/flange/whammy/phaser etc, then put in your delay then your reverb.

I think thats the best order someone correct me if i messed up.

[thegarehanman]

Not everyone feels like they need an eq pedal. I'm perfectly happy with the tone shaping my amp gives me, and don't be so quick to put down a volume pedal. You're obviously into metal, so maybe this doesn't apply to you, but a lot of people use volume swell. Personally, I think it's silly to have a volume swell pedal when I can just have a volume pedal. I like to be able to change my volume on the fly without fiddling with my guitar. As for a pedal tuner goes. I keep a boss tuner off stage. I've never had the need for a pedal tuner; I don't use guitars with tremelo or anything like that.

One way or another, that setup does wonders for me. And I can't say enough good thinks about those Liquid Sound pedals. They are just amazing, and they are a bargain too.

[Jera Woden]

im into old metal (iron maiden old metallica anthrax queensryche) and hard rock and classic rock (i hate the slipknot/linkin park/ system of a down crap). i have a marshal jack hammer and i love to over drive and i hardly ever turn the gain up past about 3/4s of full.

i dont have all the pedals yet and im going to be getting them soon but heres what im after.

guitar ---> wah ---> big muff pi ----> jackhammer ----> DoD grunge -----> a chorus (not sure which one yet) -----> delay (havent found one i really like)---> pedal tuner (hope fully with stero output) ----> j-station (for amp and cab models its great) ----> eq----> volume pedal ----> amp

now can you guys tell me if i should switch some things around? take some things off? or just scrap the setup idea and start over with some fat chewed off?

also im thinking about buying a godlyke power supply and daisy chaining everything together.

[thegarehanman]

That blue pedal in my pic is a Visual Sound Liquid Chorus/Delay pedal. It has two buttons, one for chorus one for delay. I got a local guitar shop to sell it to me for 120 new(an oustanding bargain). It won't color your tone whatsoever. I stand behind their products 100%.

Edited July 29, 2005 by thegarehanman

[Mr.Churchyard]

big muff pi ----> jackhammer

←

A Bif Muff Pi AND a Jackhammer???

[Strange Fruit]

big muff pi ----> jackhammer

←

A Bif Muff Pi AND a Jackhammer???

←

Cant understand this need either.

and a DoD Grunge too.

I would personally go

Guitar-tuner- A.B.Y Box-stereo volume- J station- P.A

                                         -stereo volume- Wah - Big Muff- chorus- delay- amp

Just me

[thegarehanman]

noooooo, not a J station! processors eat tone for breakfast. i used a g major for a month once, I hate what those things do to tube tone.

[thegarehanman]

noooooo, not a J station! processors eat tone for breakfast. i used a g major for a month once, I hate what those things do to tube tone.

and why do you have your volume at the beginning of the line? To get a dry mix to your amp? I always put my volume at the end of the line up just in case I leave say, a chorus pedal, on and I get that subtle (swoosh) and I want to quick kill my sound if I can't figure out where it's coming from.

[lovekraft]

...processors eat tone for breakfast. i used a g major for a month once, I hate what those things do to tube tone...

This is not a personal attack, so please don't take it as one.

<rant>No offense, but ..., well, that's nonsense! Any processor between the guitar and the amp input simply cannot, under any circumstances, affect tube tone, because the tube tone hasn't happened yet! I'm not deying that some digital processors have presets that don't necessarily work well with some tube amps (although it's usually not that difficult, given sufficient motivation, to program a decent set of sounds with something the quality of a G-Major, provided you pass on the digital distortion), but the amp's tone remains the same - only the input signal is affected, and unless you're playing one of those cold tube Takamines, there's not even a hint of tube tone in your guitar's output signal. If you don't like 'em, don't use 'em, say that they sound horrid, whatever, but please don't add to the already heroic burden of misinformation about tubes and tone that makes it almost impossible to sort fact from fiction. </rant>

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming, which is already in progress.

[feylya]

http://www.alamotrophy.com/Art/SoapBox.gif

*Edit: Would put it inline but not sure on the rules

Edited July 31, 2005 by feylya

[thegarehanman]

It can't destroy tube(when I say "tube," I mean the warm tone associaed with tubes) tone unless...you put it in your effects loop after your preamp and before your power amp. That is the only way I would run a processor. And that is not a personal attack either.

Also, when I started playing guitar, I owned a digitech processor. The G-major was worlds better than digitech, but both gave me nothing but trouble as far as tone and general backround noise. I have a friend who owns a j-station and it really isn't much better. In my opinion it's easier to find a good, non-tone coloring analog pedal than it is to find a pocessor of the like.

Edited July 31, 2005 by thegarehanman

[lovekraft]

No, I understand what you were trying to say - my only objection was that it's not valid in this particular instance.

It can't destroy tube [...] tone unless...you put it in your effects loop after your preamp and before your power amp.

That's probably true, but the posted signal chain doesn't have any mention of any F/X loop - he has the J-Station in the input chain before the amp. So basically, I was commenting on one situation (ie, the signal chain as posted), while you were evidently writing about another. My point was only that this kind of confusion doesn't serve the question as asked, and simply adds to the tube mythos that already confounds so many inexperienced players. Now I'll shut up before feylya slams me again!

[GregP]

Lots of world-class tone can be had without a tube, dude. Tube voodoo is like wood voodoo... if the neo-mystic powers of a tube make you feel better, that's all well and good; however, you can get great tone without one and sucky tone WITH one. The J-Station is considered one of the most natural-sounding of the digital processors, and something like the Tech21 SansAmp is solid-state and yet full of awesome character.

Regarding the thread topic, though-- pedal boards scare me. If you think an amp modeler robs a signal chain of tone, imagine running your signal through 10 pedals? Your SNR will be just horrible.

That said, let me address a few of your specific concerns: regarding compressor placement, you should almost always put your compressor right at the beginning of the chain. Although this isn't strictly accurate, think of it as a pedal that makes your quiet parts loud and your loud parts quieter. The dynamics get all squished, which is sometimes a good thing. Why at the beginning, then? After your signal has gone through distortion pedals and the like, it will already be naturally compressed. Your compressor isn't doing anything particularly useful if you put it at the end. Furthermore, effects like phasers, flangers, and tremolo will contribute to nasty-sounding artifacts in the signal chain as the compressor tries to level their signals out. Even worse, any residual hiss (and with stompboxes, believe me there will be hiss) will be accentuated and amplified by a compressor if you put it after a bunch of effects.

On the other hand, if you put it first, it's as though only your 'clean' playing is affected. Only the purest form of the signal is being 'levelled out', at which point in time the other effects can begin to work their magic on it.

Now, I say "almost always" because happy accidents happen all the time, and compressing a flanger could produce an unexpected effect that ends up being exactly what you want!

I personally WOULD consider an EQ pedal. There's far more magic in knowing how to change EQ settings than there is in buying multiple distortion pedals. OK, so if you're happy with the one tone you get from your amp, you don't need one. But if you want to alternate between 2 tones, the EQ pedal is your friend. Even if you set all the faders at below unity, you get a reduction in signal which might 'clean up' your amp. Or, if you set a mid boost, it might drive your amp in a way that it wouldn't otherwise drive it. It's probably the most versatile and underrated pedal out there, but it's a real secret weapon that'll change your approach to the way your amp and guitar interact.

Greg

[Jera Woden]

im still looking into what all pedals to get.

yes a big muff a jackhammer and a grunge. not all at the same time. thats three very different sounds without having to rewire any thing.

let me say this loud and clear right now for all to hear I DO NOT LIKE DIGITAL PROCESSORS OR SIMULATED MULTIEFFECT PEDALS.

that said the j-station is there to only give me some cab and head models i cant afford. i want a very good old tube amp id sell my left leg for one. the j-station gives me a chace to hear some sounds of them with out shelling $1000 on an old marshall set up. plus i can un plug the amp and listen to my self as loud as i want through head phones.

still alot of thinking to do before i get this set up.

[GregP]

Personally for a compressor I would stay away from anything that calls itself a Sustainer. The ones I've tried (Ibanez which I sold, Boss which wasn't mine) give an overly-compressed tone even on gentle settings. I'd be tempted to go with an actual compressor of some sort, but that wouldn't be something that would be on your actual pedal board.

Something like this: Diamond Pedal Compressor looks the business and matches a description of what you'd like to hear in a guitar compressor, but I have absolutely no personal experience with it and nor have I seen one in my city's Long and McQuade.

I think a compressor and an EQ are 2 of the pedals you should strongly consider adding to your arsenal. For EQ, nobody's ever faulted the good ol' Boss EQ. If you're not totally sold on EQ as a pedal 'effect' but want to give it a try, you could wait a little while for the Behringer version to come out (click me) which will save you coin that you could put toward a nice compressor or distortion.

For wah, their new "Hellbabe" wah looks pretty good, too... it's a Dimebag Crybaby rip-off, so if you have the money it's better to go for the real deal; however, sometimes it doesn't hurt to give the budget alternatives a try. Heck, Boss started off as the budget alternative!

Greg