Stomp box board line-up

[Jim Coash]

Greetings:  I now have my stomp box board largely completed.  After reading all of the suggestions from you folks I am trying to get a handle on just how to set it up.  My son will have the ultimate say, of course, and it is designed so that future changes won't be very difficult.  Most of the advice was extremely valuable.  To start, we bought 4 new boxes, beginning with the most highly recommended unit and brand; the Hardwire HT-2 tuner, which we assume should go first.  We think the BuzzBoy by ModTone next, then the Rogue Analog Delay, Hardwire SP-7 Phaser and finally the DOD FX-70 Flanger and/or the Korg Toneworks 105OD Overdrive.  Question; some of these units are stereo, some not, so that leaves additional options.  We may decide to keep one or more separate along with the Dan-O-Wah for flexibility.  Much of the time the new board will be used with one of our amps, sometimes two and occasionally patched into the PA.  We do have a mixer/blender too.  We have quite a selection of amps, some with multiple inputs.  Just to refresh, the main amps are a Fender Twin Reverb w/dual EV-12G speakers, a Fender Princeton Reverb w/single Celestion AP-4 10", an Ampeg BA-150 (stock speaker), A Hafler Hellraiser driving one of several solid state power amps, (E/V 1.5, Carver PM-600 or PM-1.5), A Sovtek MIG-50 and an Ampeg B-15S head w/EV-15G.  We also have several other cabinets loaded with E/Vs, SRO-15, EVM-15 X 2, EV-12G and a Boston Acoustic 4 X 10".  Jim

[alerich]

My clean rig:

Guitar (usually a Strat) >
Thomas Organ Cry Baby (true bypassed) >
BOSS TU-2 Tuner >
BOSS CS-3 Compressor >
Jetter Red² >
Electra Stereo Chorus >
BOSS DD-7 Digital Delay >
Dunlop Rotovibe >
Fender Princeton Reverb RI

I never use the amp's reverb opting for a slap back delay. The DD-7 is always on. I rarely use the amp's tremolo.

My dirty rig:

Guitar (usually a Les Paul)>
Mammoth Electronics Weeping Willow Wah (built from kit) >
BOSS TU-2 Tuner >
BOSS NS-2 Noise Suppressor (BOSS GE-7 EQ and a BOSS CE-2 Chorus in the loop of the NS-2 for quieter operation) >
BOSS DD-5 Digital Delay >
Soldano Hot Rod 50 and/or Marshall JCM 800 50W clone.

I don't use the DD-5 often. I primarily use it since it has two outputs and can feed two amps simultaneously.
Running a dual rig with a Soldano Hot Rod 50 and Marshall JCM 800 50W each into their own 4x12 cabinet is as close to a religious experience as I can imagine.
This is one of the perks of living in a 100 year old farmhouse with no neighbors close by.

I have a third pedal board that I use with my Splawn modified Sovtek Mig60 but it is very similar to the dirty rig above and it has been collecting dust ever since I bought my Soldano.

[MakerDP]

There's a really good video on YouTube with Steve Vai talking about pedal boards. It's kinda long but it's well worth watching. He gives a lot of insight into selection, ordering, how to use stereo output pedals and some philosophical stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djA3ZG3dHj0

[jojokeo]

There's no hard and fast rules but generally people go wah > compressor > distortion/fuzz > overdrives > tremolo/vibrato > phaser/flanger/chorus > delay > reverb.
Exceptions are to put a compressor/limitor after distortion/fuzz & overdrives to limit the output from the vol boost you get with these and some like a wah afterwards too as they feel & sound different when used after distortion. I'm sure Vai covers this stuff in that video as I've seen him say these things in others also.

Why do I have heavier fuzz/disortions listed prior to overdrives? Because an overdrive can usually take-on that signal and give an additional boost and color but the other way around and many times you can't tell another pedal has been stacked in front of it since they're already so highly compressed in the first place.

As anyone will tell you, experimentation is always the best when deciding on pedal order because different pedals don't always go together or react the same as others in their same category. Either because of the type of transistors or op-amps and some may or may not have buffers before or after their circuit, they have different input and output impedances, etc...

Hope this gives a bit more of an explanation you don't hear very often in youtube suggestions...

[Ritchie200]

I've always done the fuzz/boosters last in line.  I never really played with a whole ton of distortion (except for the Sabbath tunes) and I liked the way the wah (always first) pushed the rotovibe and the way the rotovibe or phaser or flanger or chorus gave different textures and overtones to the fuzz/booster.  I do think it is a balancing act and I always tweaked depending on volume and venue.  Back when I had my big noisy radio, I mean pedalboard, with a sustainer always running wide open on the front end, I had a volume pedal last in line so I could kill the noise between songs.  I don't know, I've always liked to have my pedals hit the amp pretty hard.  I've never thought about how all the SS parts interact, only what sounded good to my ears.  I built my tube preamp/driver back in the 80's and that pretty much replaced any fuzz I ever used. 

My Boston/Scholz setup runs a sustainer into the distortion into a treble boost into a graphic eq into another preamp into another preamp into the chorus into the echo into another preamp.  This TOTALY violates my years and ears of experience!  However, I think I'll take Tom Scholz's sonic achievements over mine any day!

YMMV!  That's why this is so much fun!
Jim