Employee Review

In what order should my effect pedals go?

A common question we get here in the Rainbow Guitar department is, "what order should I put my pedals in?" There are many roads to creative expression, but there are a couple of good guidelines to get started. Pedals typically interact with one another depending on their position and order. If you have a wah pedal, it's a good idea to put that one first. Next, a compressor (putting the compressor before a wah sounds pretty funky). After compression, try your overdrive/distortion, followed by any eq type of pedal. Following overdrives and eq should be vibrato/pitch changing pedals (also a good place for a Digitech Whammy Pedal). Are you with me so far? After the pitch pedals, modulation (chorus, phaser, flanger, u-vibe) should come next, followed at the end of your chain by the delay/echo pedals. Once again, expression knows no limits. MANY amazing tones have been discovered by throwing out the rulebook. Try these guidelines to get started, and modify as you see fit!