Understanding Pedal Order

What's the best order to place guitar effects on your guitar pedalboard? Why would you want to place one type of effect before another? Mitch Gallagher and Don Carr join forces to explain the thought process behind setting up your pedalboard.

Skip to video segments with the links below:

Intro - 0:00
Conventional Pedal Order - :44
Pedalboard Overview – 1:20
Wah and Overdrive Placement – 2:54
Wah/Overdrive Playing Examples – 3:05
Compressor Placement – 3:39
Compressor Playing Examples – 4:21
Modulation and Overdrive – 5:08
Modulation and Overdrive Playing Examples – 5:23
Time-based Effects and Overdrive – 5:58
Time-based Effects and Overdrive Playing Examples – 6:21
Volume Pedal and Overdrive Order – 7:28
Volume Pedal and Overdrive Playing Examples – 8:10
Volume Pedal and Time-based Effects Order – 9:06
Volume Pedal and Time-based Effects Playing Examples – 9:42
Wrap Up – 10:51

[pieterbc]

Note to self: Wah, compressor, gains, volume, modulations, time based stuff. 👍🏻

[MostlyTorso]

Very scientific, very professional. No showing off with useless guitar riffs, and everything is straight to the point. I love videos like this when I'm searching for information. Most people mean well, but are frustrating to watch. The guys/gals that made this video are pros--not just at guitars, but at making videos. Thanks, you guys.

[runlarryrun]

Love this. "There's no wrong way to do this". That's the best way to approach pedalboards. A few people have seen pics of mine & been pretty pissy about my set up. I realised pretty quickly what they were effectively saying was "That's not set up like mine. You should set it up like mine". It works for me so it stays as it is until I want or need to change something.

[Nightdog]

Excellent info indeed. I'm a 67 year old professional musician and it's always good to look at how you do it and how somebody else does. No absolute right or wrong way! I also really appreciate the guitar player just showing us the sounds and not doing a happy dance all over the neck for us to show us what he can do. High praise to Sweetwater for this very informative video without any ego going on here! Thank You!

[relevantinformation]

I love rediscovering pedals I bought in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s that have been off the board and in storage, & dropping them back in- “hey, that’s why I bought that, must have been in my Robin Trower phase “ :)

[ernestbuckley]

Mitch is amazing. Time & time again he teaches me something in a clear, no fuss matter. Don is also excellent. I saved this and will watch it several times as I build my first board. Thanks guys.

[NdleBandit]

Never heard the phrase "extra harmonic content" before, but I'm gonna start using it for everything I use now.

[Astronomater]

miku pedal always goes last in the chain.

[patrickcarroll]

Both Mitch and Don are great. Thanks for being awesome, guys.

[paulopris-sirca]

This types of videos for beginner/intermediate guitar players are great super helpful! Thanks Sweetwater!

[Elem]

Let me do the math for You: There are 40320 possibilitys to place 8 pedals on a board.

[maxduvall]

what I liked about this is you didn't talk forever but you explained what happened, you played the type of music you might hear with the proper effects, and you you didn't randomly play some pedals with the others, you did the ones that match so that you can hear the effect in its clearest form. very well done, very informative, thank you guys.

[TAkahashiryu]

One of the best, most useful, straight to the point and helpful videos I’ve ever seen.

A lot of information, well placed and well explained.

You guys are amazing professors!

[smatlanta]

This was the best and clearest treatment of this topic that I've ever seen. Thanks!

[LarryMar]

I wonder if people really appreciate the awesome reviews and advice Sweetwater gives?? I sure do, and they could easily do much less, but they don't and won't!!!

[marsmediapro]

I absolutely LOVE Sweet Water's videos! This video is one your best! It really shows pretty much most of the parameters. Thanks, guys!

[garthosborn]

This is excellent. I took notes! I love how Don and Mitch do their demo videos. No excessive noodling - like Sgt. Joe Friday used to say..."Just the facts." This is just one of Sweetwater videos I have found to be clear and helpful. I'm a 65-year-old dude putting together my first serious pedalboard. I'll be referring to this and my notes often.

[cpamiseso]

So, before or after is a consideration what you're trying to "effect" after all. To get this right, you need to understand the nature of your pedals so you can experiment effectively (what you had in mind = what it turns out). For example, that vol pedal before = guitar knob like, yet putting it after = master volume; and vol pedal is basically opens up or limiting the amount of signal coming in to the input of a device (amp, pedals, you name it).


This video is really giving me that conclusion I can't get by watching other videos. Thanks Mitch, Don, and the video crews!

[waynepalumbo]

I like that they are giving us an A/B and letting us hear what it sounds like, with a technical description of what happens to the sound vs saying "this is bad and sounds bad, this is good and sounds good". They give us a fairly objective description which is cool.

[nazmoking]

This was a really good and educational video – much appreciated! I'm going to need to listen to it a couple more times to get the full understanding of what was happening. I wish there were more videos on this topic and I'd like to see more from you guys going into a little more detail if you're up to it.