pedal order revelations!

samzadgan

so, for the last 6 months or so i've really been annoyed at how flat my rig sounds and how much high end i lose going through my pedal board. Now, the pedals i use are nearly all true bypass and i got the thought that i need a buffer, but I was advised that if you have pedal that's always on, then you don't need a buffer...in my case, my comp pedal (beginning of the chain) is always on, and reverb pedal (end of the chain) is also always on. So i thought that maybe a boost in the middle or an eq is what i needed...or even swapping out my tone/volume pots on my guitar will work.

Recently i was in NY, and i bought 4 more pedals, a Fat Boost which gives me some EQ controls, an OCD to boost some highs when i need it on my dirt pedals, a Hummingbird for some more clean mod option and an MXR Super Badass Distortion just for the hell of it (all of which i will discuss in a different thread).

I also bought a second hand ISP decimator to put after dirt pedals for some noise issues that i have playing high gain with P90's. Also, i thought that these ISP's had buffer bypass, so maybe it could even serve as a buffer pedal too.

I put the board together, with this order:

-> Comp - Boost - Tuner - OCD - Dist - Fuzz - ISP - Phase - Trem - Delay - Reverb ->

I had to take my wah off the board due to space...

But in the end although i love these new pedals, the flatness in the sound was still there, even with the fat boost being always on, and having treble all the way up and bass rolled back.

another week went by and i really missed not having my wah pedal on there...so I reconfigured the order to accomodate space and putting my wah pedal back on...so changed the order to:

-> ISP - Comp - Boost - Tuner - Wah - OCD - Dist - Fuzz - Phase - Trem - Delay - Reverb ->

Now...I'm not sure what the technical reasons could be...but OMG! (as he young kids would say)...my rig just came alive...the highs have come back to the point that i have roll back some of the treble on the amp and on the boost...but its still there with a thick bottom end...basically it now sounds exactly the way i want it to and its a pleasure to play the rig!

I am sure it has to do with something in the order of the pedals - maybe the ISP being first and buffer being triggered in a different way. What ever the reason is...something about the order works.

Anyway, i was thinking this is a good topic to raise and see if others have had a similar experience where tweaking the order of some pedals has made such a difference in their base tone...

randomhandclaps

Any improvement is down to the ISP being before the comp.  With comp > ISP you are worsening the noise problem before trying to defeat it - this would give you a flat sound because you are increasing noise then trying to clamp down on it.  Very few people would run a noise gate and a comp on their board as by-and-large when you get to gain levels 'requiring' gating then you don't want to add any more compression.  As you are using the gate to cut out noise directly from the guitar the way you now have it makes more sense.

PolarityMan

Yeah sticking the noise gate right after the guitar is the best place if you are only using one, much more effective than trying to reduce pre-distorted noise You can also be a lot more gentle with the setting meaning your note tails dont get cut off as much either.

Drew_TNBD

I reckon you'll find that it'll be some weird impedance or buffering mismatch. I know if I put my OCD in a certain place in my chain with *certain* patch cables, I lose a shit ton of high end. If I move it elsewhere or use different cables, it goes away.

ICBM

Sounds like the compressor might have been sucking tone by loading the guitar, too. Putting the ISP before it will stop that.

DannyP

Wow, OK. I also have a an ISP Decimator and use my comp most of the time. I'd never even thought of having the ISP anywhere but last in the chain - but I'm going to try this now.

PolarityMan

It depends what you're trying to kill, at to a certain extent if you are playing at stage volume or not, the best option is to have one right after the guitar and one in the fx loop.

The one out front of the guitar will kill the squeal at high gain and the normal hum you get from the systems as a whole and the one in the loop will tame the hiss from and high gain.

Trying to use one in the loop, or after distortion is far less effective and youll need to set the threshold much more savagely than running it out in front of the guitar.

samzadgan

late reply...but got around to reading this...thanks for all the feedback...it completely makes sense now why everything sounds better!