Just spent the past 2 hours playing around with pedal order, completely rearranging my board thanks to this. Well done guys, you seriously inspired me!
Yeah well Neil Young can afford those AND he has a tech to take care of it so....there’s that! I used to own one back in the early 99’s and I got lucky my girlfriends dad gave it to me but it crapped out big time
@@johnbeloe reverb/ delay / reverb 2; same goes with drive,- beginning and end, - or just buy the bulky ,expensive, switcher.The difference is, using different ,specific verbs or drives is always going to vary results.
After watching this episode I was inspired to put my original Marshall The Guv'nor right at the end of the signal chain on my board with just a tiny bit of gain dialed in and my amp set clean. Then all delays and modulation, plus another gain stage and a germanium fuzz running into The Guv'nor. It has been giving me loads of tonal and harmonic options and goodness at living room volumes and subsequently opened my eyes to 'breaking the rules' with signal chain... Thanks TPS! Brilliant episode!
I thought my pedals were in the right order, until I spent 50 minutes being educated by Dan, so that now I know why my pedals were in the right order. Thanks guys.
Delay + modulation into major crankage reminds me of classic Hawkwind. Love these episodes that make me want to experiment with the gear I already have rather than buy new stuff 👍
Thanks gents for showing these different pedal orders so well and effectively, it’s all about experimenting with the gear you have and finding the sounds that you prefer, there is no hard fast rule where you have got to put your pedals, just break the suggested set order and be creative, much more fun. I really need to get myself one of your Gigrig switchers, makes it so easy to swap round the order of your effects, a brilliant idea.
This is what makes a great TPS vid, there is an "accepted order" but this is what it sounds like when you ignore orders, ie experiment and be suprised like Mick was.
Tape saturation, along with studio compressors and other wizardry, is a major component on the old recordings we all have in mind for classic guitar tones. It makes sense that putting a low gain OD at the end of the signal chain would mimic part of that sound. I'm gassing for a Strymon Deco now....
keith faust - you’re absolutely right. These guys convinced me to buy the deco years ago and it’s the best pedal on my board. It gives you a great drive option at the end of the chain. Also I use a favourite switch for the chorus effect - holding down the footswitch gives you a tape flange effect and Stetting for a slap back or dotted eighth delay is a doddle. Also means I get drive after all my other mods should I need. Perfect. Just get one!
I know I'm super late on this, and maybe you guys have covered this in another episode of unforgetting, but I think the one thing that you could add about putting delay before drive is that if you set the delay with the mix very low so that the delay almost sounds like a "normal" delay after drive, then as I hear it when you play you get basically a ducking effect, where the delay is so quiet that it disappears when you're playing because the overall signal is getting compressed a lot because the dry signal is pretty loud, but when you stop playing the delay tails become much louder because the overall signal is less compressed, and they sort of jump out into the foreground. To me that's the real magic sound of delay before drive, it sounds way more organic to me than a ducking delay. All usual qualifiers apply, ymmv, may not work for everyone, I obviously have the IQ of a hamster, etc :-)
I've always loved a fuzz or dirt or even a dirty amp at the end of the chain when using tons of reverb and delay to almost glue it all together. Makes the effects almost act like an instrument unto themselves in a way I can't control that I like.
For the past week I’ve been debating and testing this topic with my pedals, then “lo and behold”, I open up youtube and this is the first thing I see. You guys rock!
I would like to say a gargantuan Thank you for the fulfilment TPS has brought to my life and for your intelligent, insightful, and informative contribution to the world of music. Within every TPS episode you pair of excellent gentlemen impart your knowledge, perspective, and curiosity to open minds and ears. I was once a sculptor but I am a now a mental health nurse. This is indeed a highly rewarding vocation but I need a release from the daily mayhem and distress and so submerge myself in creative pursuits mostly in the form of song writing and music making. I am creative and inquisitive but I am, on the whole, an appalling musician with poor technique, minimal musical understanding, and my machine will never kill fascists with these lousy damn fingers. For several years I enjoyed making 3 string acoustic oddities but moved progressively towards electric guitar and pedals. I instinctively knew the sound I wanted but did not have a basic idea of how to do this. Then I discovered TPS with the awesome Dan and Mick whom gave in every episode depth, frame, and means. Thanks to your efforts my efforts are now reaping rewards and I’m actually getting better and certainly understand more. Although I remain terrible my creativity is now supported by knowledge and a means of asking better questions and responding more judiciously to answers received. Champion! Furthermore, my amp is beautifully silent until I wish it to make a noise. No hum. Mmmmmmm: splendid! One day due to your help I will complete that one great (mediocre) song that ascends with glorious and complete tones. Thank you again for your time and efforts and the difference you make. P.S the episodes are not too long and you don’t need to bend to commercial determination. This said, you have most likely led towards far more sales that those shows that covertly attempt to sell. My wife would agree, although she is far less fond of you fellas than I.
Wow....I feel all nostalgic with this video....haven’t seen this setup with amp since you guys were in the old location. HRD with AC15. Love it. And thank you for showing ‘whatever sound you like as a player’ approach. So many opinions....and opinions are like...well you know. Great show!
Awesome sauce guys! Being a “retired” live player and mostly playing at home nowadays. Learning songs and figuring tones out from recordings the order seems to constantly flip flop. Certain players do have tendencies (I.e Hendrix vs Trower with where they put the Univibe). However even those guys didn’t do it the same way every time. Find the sound so the thing!
This is why I love this channel. Don't ever change, guys. I came here to catch some pedal-order goodness and wound up buying "Consolers of the Lonely". Tangents and digressions are ALWAYS a good thing.
Gemma Thompson's delay before drive sound rules. Y'all should give Savages some love. I find lately I'm digging a little OD before delays, modulation and reverb, followed by a mostly-clean boost (for more louderifying) followed by another delay with gain control for the repeats. I get most of the smear of drive after that stuff but keep a little clarity when I need it.
Great show guys. I’ve always run my Phase 90 into a crunchy amp but have recently added a Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay and manage to get two usable sounds for me using the one pedal. I set it for a short delay, when I turn my guitars volume down the amount of delay reduces giving me a reverb like delay for cleans. When I turn up my volume for crunch tones or add a boost for leads the amount of delay increases for that big delayed lead sound. Two delay sounds for the price of one. 😊👍
Wow. Back on form with this video guys. This answers so many questions for the gigging and recording musician looking to hone sound. Thank you. And Mick, its Brendan Benson that makes the Raconteurs so good. Listen to his some albums, you'll love him. Keep it up fellas! Cheers from Connecticut USA!
i put an overdrive before and after my modulation but not after delay reverb definatly before and after vibe-flange-phaser for diferent sounds and both ods on sounds great but vibe is almost always before the od
Wow this is probably my fave episode so far. Pretty eye opening in terms of how to approach tone variation with pedal order and blend. Makes me want to make a pedal patch bay just for experimentations, or get a G2!! I can also see how the wetter pedal would factor into this approach quite significantly. I loved the idea of throwing a nice gain pedal at the end of the chain too. 🤘👍
This is the sort of thing That Pedal Show was made for! Such cool & unorthodox sounds doing in this. So much so that the next time I plug into my board I'm going to plug in backwards just to hear how weird it can get, how inspiring it can be, and if I discover a "better" tone for myself.
Interesting topic for this show... I always found that I liked most (not all) of my modulation in front of my drives or in front of a high gain amp with the exception of Reverb, but that Reverb sounded great in front of your high gain drive.
You 2 have taught me to: dial-back my Overdrive (OCD) & Fuzz (Fallout Cloud). I am getting Better Tone, Note Articulation, Modulation pedals sound more detailed, and my guitar is cutting better in the Band Mix. - Thanks TPS & Happy Holidays to all of you, who make this phenomenal-show happen. - Michael NYC -
This episode (plus a growing Neil young obsession) inspired me to pickup a verb to throw at the front of my chain. I picked up a 60's Reverb from Lovepedal during their last sale, it turned up this week and I have been loving it - especially as its got the option to add in some pre-delay which is really fun for some spaced out inspired lead tones! Cheers!
I like to think of the 1st pedal as 'modifying' the 2nd pedal, almost like it is a parameter of the second pedal rather than a separate pedal. It just helps me to visualize more clearly, the way the pedals interact. Having a waveform diagram helps even more! Thanks guys, always love Dans explanations!
This show has now and forever fundamentally shifted my view of this topic. I was a staunch advocate for using fx loops to get my delay after my drive. Now I’m totally rethinking this and considering that certain time-based and modulation pedals may have equally favourable results in front of my drive channel. Which means, there is a good case for having a two channel amp with a drive channel and running those effects into that.
When you started to delve into Swervedriver slash My Bloody Valentine territory around the 38:30 mark up to about 43:00, it reminded me so much of how important bass and drums are in that style of music, because the guitar becomes less of a rhythmic instrument. It made me want to pick up my bass and play along. The trick, though, with shoegaze, is contrasting the ugly with the pretty. Get those chaotic sounds going, but then break into some maj7, sus4 chords and unusual voicings. If you haven't seen it yet, watch Howard Gee's video on Instagram where he plays MBV's "Soon", through the new fuzz circuit he's working on. It's bliss. Thank you, gentlemen, for another wonderful episode!
Man I'm late to this and can't believe i missed it. Might be my favorite episode so far. Been on this journey for the past 2 years or so after I stuck my Mr. Black Eterna (with the shimmer down) into a Catalinbread SFT with the gain about 1/2 to 3/4 up, which is something I'd wanted to try ever since seeing Jason Martin from Starfyler 59 put his RV-5 before his gain many years ago and he was getting this fabulous retro-esque sound. I've doubled and tripled up on my reverbs and choruses and delays. To Mick's point about the 34:30 point about Fender Reverb circuitry, that's what I've always wondered as well, and was my reasoning as to why doing a verb into something with a slight bit of hair sounded more 'true' to that sound of rocking surf rock (like Man or Astroman). And then I read up on Neil Young and his reverb unit being first into his cranked amps... again it's that sound. Also comes into play with psychobilly rock as well. Reverend Horton Heat have a version of We Three Kings and the tone is GORGEOUS. I looked him up.. yup tape delay into driven amps -- the filtertons of course help... but man amazing sound). As for the Shoegaze sound. I think the sounds were set kind of close (reverb should have been slightly quicker).... but the playing styles were off. Way too many notes and way too much 'wanky' trem bar action from Mick, it should be slow shallow dives. Dan had the chord use right, just no trem to subtlely dive with every now and then. Search on RU-vid for "Glide Guitar" and you'll see the technique. At it's heart it's actually similar to some of the limited tremolo technique you see in surf rock. A couple points I think that were missed about the delay. 1) Is that the type of delay matters and impacts the sound DRAMATICALLY because of the nature of the repeats (ie if the repeats are cutting off lows like a tape delay vs cutting off highs like an analog style). Which ties into the fact that 2) The delay repeats are providing less and less input signal going into the drive and so how each repeat is distorted is going to be slightly different, with them getting cleaner with each repeat. Think about that it makes perfect sense, how touch sensitive your OD is to picking dynamics... the delayed repeats are acting like lighter and lighter picked notes. To me though that sound of the delay into the drive can just sound massive and dramatic. Pretty sure the first time i heard a tone like that (but didn't know how it was happening) was U2 live at red rocks VHS, in particular Edge's sound on "I Through a Brick Through a Window"... he has two VERY different delayed sounds going on during different parts of the song and the one in the verse just screams out compared to what he's got going in the chorus. For the chorus thing... to me the difference is almost akin to the tonal differences Alex Lifeson has between Signals and Grace Under Pressure. I know there are probably other gear differences there, but there's a fatness in the chorusy OD tones of Signals that aren't there with GUP. To me that difference in sound of the chorus before vs after the distortion is almost an early 80s sound vs later 80s sound, with the chorus after gain being the sleaker snottier sound you'd find in the mid/late 80s after effects loops came more in vogue.
Always enjoy seeing the lightbulb go off on Mick’s head. Makes me feel less silly when I’m also astounded by the results. Fantastic stuff as usual! Keep up the excellent work gents!
Great ep gents. Messing with the order of pedals reveals magical sounds. Signal path is part of the skill set! Ive noticed you can reach almost synth sounds by putting gain in weird places! 🙏
When it comes to delay, I think the answer is... if you want the delay to add *support* to what you're playing, run it after your drive. If you want to accentuate the delay and make *it* the focus of what you're doing, run it before your drive.
Oh yes, there will be some experimentation going on with my board tonight. Much fun shall surely ensue. Be well, you better-question-asking gentlemen, and have Schwang.
And now introducing the new member of the Jack White Band....Mick! Fantastic episode gentlemen, but now i must spend the next few days switching all my pedals around to see what wonders I can hear.
Great discussion. I had to keep backing up portions and re-listening several times, so it's taking me awhile to listen to the entire show, which indicates how much excellent content is within. Also, I'm very happy the horn is no longer muted.
You've just opened a new door for my sound today. I play bass in a metal band and use quite an amount of distortion. I love delay and normally use a Flashback 2 at the end of my pedal chain. You made me place the Flashback before the distortion and before the compression pedal. The result was a more pronounced delays and the possibility to go crazy with the mash oscillation of the delays without clipping the shit out of my amp and putting an obnoxious blanket over the sound of the band! Thanx!
As I am a happy owner of Catalinbread BED, I shuffled the OD boxes on my pedalboard right after this episode ended; I put my Vemuram Jan Ray after the BED with a shorth delay to achieve the naughty Jack White/Black Keys sound. But, meh... I restored it to the original order. HOWEVER, the next day I realized that since I'm playing through my UAD OX at home anyway (and 99% time with headphones), how about diming the amp (a Fender Brownface Super Amp clone) instead? I did that and my soul rejoiced. THE sound was there (the slap back echo hitting the dimed Fender amp!) I doubt I'll be able to use this sound live but for recording (through the OX), it's hard to beat. I tried to replicate it with all my dirt boxes, but to no avail. So, hail to the Echoplex goodness saucing up the front end of an angry (low gain) amp (or overdrive, if you can't play loud).
@@robcerasuolo9207 Agreed they were closer. Dan had the playing style down better with the simple chords going on. Mick was too heavy and wrong technique with the trem arm.... he was a bit too "wanky" with it. Glide guitar actually is very similar to the subtle trem techniques you see in surf music.
I used to use chorus in front of the gain until I got into crazy wet dry setups. Now I run 3 amps, one of which is a Peavey with stereo chorus, and one amp gets a CE1 style chorus set full wet
I personally prefer having reverb and delays after drives, but most of my modulations are before drives, although, I do use my Strymon Deco as an after-drive flange/chorus. I particularly love chorus and phaser before drives because although it doesn’t sounds as pristine as after drives, I love the way it plays with the harmonics of the sound. Running a good analog chorus in front of an overdrive gives you that old school Rush sound, which I live for chord work. Then there are some exceptions... I run an EQD Rainbow Machine between my main drive and my boost drive because that gives me the pre-drive benefits I like, but boosting into it helps it go a little more crazy when I kick on the “magic” side. I always recommend people just play around with both pre and post and see what suits your style best.
Very educational as always, and some of those unorthodox combinations sound amazing. The drive pedals were really well selected. The Page and of course the D&M Drive were known quantities to me, but the FTT Fire Mist is something special. Those of us without great switching systems can at least play around with pedal order for modulation effects with the Strymon Mobius and its pre/post capabilities. Of course, it’s not the same since you quite correctly pointed out that certain individual pedals of the same type respond differently, but at least it’s possible to get an idea of how changing the order works without constantly plugging and unplugging cables. In any case, you gave us a great deal of information to consider.
I quite like my chorus, delay, and reverb after my drives, especially the heavier gains. Because I run them into the effects loop of my amplifier {Bugera V22}, I think it makes it sound truer.
I have my board set up with the Chorus/Vibrato (Julia) before all my dirt (I have a low-gain OD, then fuzz, then high-gain OD). I prefer it before, because I like that it muddles/makes the chorus a bit darker. Otherwise, I find whenever I turn the Julia on, my tone becomes much brighter. It doesn't do that when it's in full vibrato mode, but once it splits the signal (choruses the signal), it becomes too trebly for my ears. So I put it before. I also have an EQD Dispatch Master which I used to put before some of my drives, but I learned quickly that I really dislike delay before drives. I do, however, put my Boss RV-6 before 2 of my heavier drives so I can do shoegaze sounds. So, signal chain is Tuner -> Julia -> Plumes -> RV-6 -> Synth -> Hoof (fuzz) -> Talons (high-gain OD) -> Pitch Fork -> Canyon Delay (for longer, intricate delays) -> Dispatch Master (set to basic reverb and slap delay). That tends to work best for what I do. Great video!
Hi guys, I am happy to see you talking about and showing how to use the effects intelligently, with really good gear. I have always had trouble with modulation with individual pedals and tube amp, instead of some digital preset that is already dialed in. This is really helpful thanks guys!
Thank you for making this show! I know it's almost 1½ years later, but December is always a very busy month for me, thus I missed this one. As to why I didn't get around earlier? You know the drill: so much to do, so much to see, not so much to go at this time, but still: it's finally saturdaynight and it's time for this interest of mine! Something I can really admire, since I do have an engineer's degree. To some extend that's all about details. Okay, it's about problem solving, but you have to know how you can make / break / solve things first. And now you see what I mean, hopefully...
I like switching it up. I have my delay and modulation pedals after my overdrive pedals, but I also run all pedals into the front of the amp, using both clean and overdrive channels. Plus the amp has reverb, delay and modulation built into it after the preamp as well so I get the best of both worlds. Both ways sound good and I like the options.
Great episode guys. It’s a good example to understand effects pre and post distortion, whether that be a distortion pedal or a gainy amp. I run my Friedman Smallbox dirty. Belle Poch Deluxe into the front end,. Reverb and trem into the effects loop.
You guys are revolutionary! Just when i get comfortable with my rig you give new ways of thinking. I currently run a wet/dry rig with all modulation, delay and reverb into my JC40 (love its chorus) and boosts, drives & compression into a fairly clean tube amp (either a Laney Cub12r or a Peavey Classic 30, both modded). I'm going to try a moderate gain pedal in the loop of my wet side and see what happens from there. I too feel a pedal board change coming on...thanks and cheers!
I love all of your videos but this one was the best in a long time. At least for me! Thank you for all your work and all those interesting topics after all those years. It's pretty hard stay at that level of quality content but you guys nailed it again ;-) Regards from germany! Franz
Just catching up on old episodes BPA (before pedal addiction) and could not agree more about the Raconteurs Consolers of the Lonely. Such great tone and feel.
Cheers guys, nice episode, that Jack White-esqe short delay into drive sounded spectacular. One of my fave unusual combos is reverb into autowah, for rhythmic pad sounds . I have a suggestion for a change to VCQ in its current live format, based on what someone else does on a podcast I watch. They leave the Superchat open for the first, say, half to 3/4 of the cast while they chat about matters at hand, then close Superchat. Then go through the Superchats one by one answering questions etc. , I believe there is an option on your end to just see these. It gives a better flow and structure to their cast and a better sense of value to Superchatees. Just a thought, please feel free to tell me to get stuffed and you'll run your own show how you damn well want. :)
I just put on Dan’s set of Curt Mangan strings onto my Reverend double agent, and I gotta say, best strings I’ve ever played! I barely even had to stretch them in and the dynamics are practically divine! I can play them in standard or in drop c and they sound incredible no matter what! I’m converted!
Great show! I would really like to hear what happens when you put a harmonic tremolo before the drive. How the gain would react with the frequency shift.
I tried it a couple days before this show. It’s pretty cool. I don’t prefer one over the other. Just different. My HT pedal is an EQD Night Wire which allows you to adjust the frequency at which it splits the high and low. I found if I turn rate all the way down, it gave me a filter like effect and gave my dirt sound a killer push when it was before the dirt
I do love that shoegazey delay-into-crunch sound, but I didn't realise how much I'd also love the short delay Jack White sound you got - just sounds explosive!
@@ThatPedalShow Same here, I'll have to try to move my Deluxe Memory Man before my drives and compressor and leave the other delay units towars the end before trem and reverb. I'm really satisfied with my setup as is at the moment, but I have a feeling it's worth trying out seeing the DMM also has a damn good preamp, so maybe it makes good sense to run it that way in terms of gain staging since you're also hitting/overdriving DMM's preamp less? And I'm very interested now how's it gonna handle longer delay times and oscillations when placed before. But maybe not before the fuzzes though :D I have a Polara reverb before them dedicated for the reverse whammy glide style, and it's also great for the splashy spring/plate/hall sounds before OD when I want to go that route.
Man, I've been GAS free for a bit but it's coming back. I really really want a G2, but it will be awhile before I can afford one, ho hum. Don't have time to watch this just now but I will watch it in a couple of hours when I get home. :)
There's something about chorus before drive that just sounds more... rock n roll. Maybe it's because it makes the chorus a bit dirty. If you put the modulation after the distortion, it sounds like an effect, but if before, it sounds more like part of the whole sound (to me). Love your work.
Agreed. Varies a bit with different pedals, I recon, but absolutely something worth trying! If you have several drive pedals maybe put the mod-pedal in between, so you have both options :)
Wah is a more interesting question in my opinion. A lot of the color from modulation is lost when you put it in front of a drive pedal, but with a wah there are equally good sounds in front of AND behind a drive pedal. In front of one, to me it seems more like a filter you move, and behind a drive it really accentuates the frequencies getting through the wah
This was interesting to hear how the modulation in particular the delay blended nicely before the gain...I couldn’t help but think in a band context you need it to cut through the mix more hence the standard rule gain the modulation.
When I set up my board I had a hard time finding a place for my Keely Monterey. I set it up in the very front but I hated the way the modulation was affected by the overdrives after. The fuzz side sounded great but the modulation wasn’t good. So I moved it around to be after my boost, angry driver, and mini tube screamer. It goes before my delay, chorus, and reverb. Not sure if that is how it should be set up but it really works for my sound.
Definitely an eye-opening episode for sure. Many sounds here are ones that when I've heard in recordings, I always assumed were more begotten to the studio/mixing phase, so it's really fascinating to see them be created right at the source within a rig. Related tidbit: Pete Thorn keeps his main delay in the loop, but always has an Echoplex style pedal in front of his amps to recreate those sounds too. After this episode, I think we all will be experimenting... :)
Been excited for this episode since you previously announced it was coming out, and was worth the hype! ;) Opened a few doors for me, especially the short delay before the drive bit, and I really enjoyed you having a blast with reverse reverb and whammy, love that stuff for days!
