Best Effects Pedal Order

What is the best order to place your pedals in the signal chain?
Find out in this video about this somewhat contraversial subject.
We go over all of popular classes of pedals that you will encounter.
From fuzz pedals to overdrive and distortion. From wah wah to delay generally all effects are covered.
The order of your effects pedal can dramatically alter your tone and noise floor of your guitar rig. In this video I not only discuss the generally accepted best order to lay your pedals out but also alternatives to the norm.
At the end of the day do what your ears tell you and try different configurations so YOU know what you like.

[kevinpaul]

Great explosion Paul! I have three pedal boards, one for studio work, one for work or gigs as they say and the last is testing pedals and my own crazy moods. I do work for two studies owned by the same people. I change it for what ever I am called to do. I even have a stupid sitar pedal that works best with my Resonator. My work board is up dated a lot. Like every one else I am never happy with my boards. Thank you!

[MrPopalosus]

Ahhh, Wah after the distortion?! Could be why I never had much luck with the wah !

[RandyFricke]

The quality of a pedal chain is also dependent on whether you are running true bypass or non-true bypass pedals. Best to have a buffer at the beginning of the chain. I'd adhere to the Pete Cornish Pedal Board 101 concept of placing a compressor or buffer first in line. BOSS pedals are buffered so my trusty ol' BOSS CS-2 Buffered Compressor is first on my board.

[mattgilbert]

Wah after Fuzz? That can get a little wacky, imho. I tend to go wah first then fuzz. If you have a loop switcher, some of them have buffers that can be turned on or off. So if you put a fuzz into a loop, you turn the buffer off.
Germanium Fuzz pedals *hate* buffers, they should always go first.
I have tried putting my hi-gain OD before my lo-gain and put a treble boost before both. It's counter-intuitive but interesting!
Tremolo between delay and reverb works really well. I agree with you about mods but a phaser before OD/distortion can work well if you don't want a heavily effected sound, and the same applies for chorus. I would never put a flanger before an OD or any other gain pedal.
My chain ends with those same two pedals as yours, and an extra delay sometimes for some wacky dotted eighths with other delays adding a massive ambient swirl. Cool pedals!

Compression! Before OD for sustain, after for volume boost AND a comp after OD just sounds really damn cool, especially if you go:
Fuzz>Boost>comp.

Wah before fuzz! It's better. If you place the wah after the fuzz you lose the fuzz, get a big level boost and the wah tends to lose all those great squealing tops. You want to put the filter into the Fuzz. Afterwards = more accentuated wah but way less fuzz.

Just my opinions, there are no right answers!

[Mcsteveberry]

another reason why reverb should always be at the end is in reality, reverberation is the last thing that occurs in the effect at screaming at a wall

[dalepal]

Thanks for sharing your guidelines for pedal placement. If the amp has an effects loop would you put the tremolo, chorus, delay, and reverb pedals in the loop?

[ricklavigne]

You forgot the compressor and noise gate. The two most important pedals in your board