STACKING DRIVE PEDALS 101 | Gear Corner | Kris Barocsi

Have you ever wondered how stacking drive pedals work? What kind of overdrives should you use? In which order? How should you set them up?
Lots of questions but don't worry: you'll get some answers in this video. :)
Have fun and welcome to my Gear Corner series!

Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro PLAYING | Coppersound Foxcatcher into Analogman King of Tone
00:33 - Introduction
01:00 - What do you want to achieve with stacking pedals?
01:16 - PLAYING | still Foxcatcher into King of Tone
01:41 - What will the pedals do to your sound?
02:09 - Bypass signal - REVV Dynamis 7/40 head | clean channel
02:22 - King of Tone boosted with the Antares Overdrive and with the Foxcatcher
05:44 - Why should I even consider stacking pedals?
06:19 - What if I stack pedals for boosting solos?
07:12 - What kind of pedals should I stack?
08:33 - How does it sound if I don't get the pedal order right
10:18 - The classic pedal that pretty much started it all
12:27 - Can I stack pedals for metal?

Gear used in this video:

-Fender Telecaster Custom Shop '53 reissue

Other gear used in my videos:

-Gibson ES-335 Traditional
-Barocsi "Frankenstrat" (2000 Fender American Standard body + Warmoth neck)
-Gibson Les Paul CM 2015 - heavily modified (thin nitro refin; Lollar Dog Ear P90; Emerson electronics)
-Barocsi Exploder - with a Gibson 498T in the bridge and a Gibson 57 Classic in the neck position
-Barocsi Troublecaster - Custom built T-style guitar with Gretsch Filtertrons

The speech mic:
- Rode SmartLav+

Check out the Thomann Music channel for some wicked guitar videos:

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Cheers,
Kris Barocsi

[EytschPi]

Brilliant Video! I learned something today!

[thomasmullin]

Kris knows his stuff, folks - his “808 into aTriple Rectifier” video from a few years ago was a game changer for a LOT of players I know.

[Jaysteenn]

I just watched this video again and something huge I got from it is, the last pedal in the chain is your core tone and the pedals before it can help sculpt the sound of your core tone. This is awesome, I never really thought of it like this before!

[thisdyingsoul]

I have been stacking pedals for years and a lot of this info is very helpful for beginners. Great video.

Recently I saw a video by Tim Pierce where he explained his approach. 3 drives, set to low gain with a slight volume boost.

The first pedal alone is basically an edge of breakup tone. The 2nd pedal added to this gives a nice crunch tone or a lead sound to use over a clean rhythm part. The 3rd added to this is a nice, thick lead tone with clarity that is still responisve to pick dynamics and cleans up with a volume knob.

My stack from guitar to amp is a Visual Sound Route 808, klone, TrueTone VSXO. The VSXO is the first one I switch on, then the klone, then the TS. I play a Gibson SG and found the TS at the directly before the amp was too muddy. By putting it last and the Klon in the middle with the tone knob at about 3 o'clock, the muddiness is solved. I mostly use the right side of the VSXO, which is I believe is the side based on an ODR-1.

[vikingoreilly]

Great tone, very informative. Thankyou so much.

[sullym]

Due to YouTube I caught a case of GAS for a few months and ended up buying a KOT, TS-808, Keeley BD2, Strymon Timeline, Vertex SSS, Katana clean boost, a JHS mid EQ/Boost and a Blues Jr amp... I don’t know what I was thinking, I don’t even own a guitar.

[harrybee]

I think as important as the order of the pedals is the speaker you use. Same order of the pedals, but another speaker and you get a complete other sound.

[yorckmusic]

Great video! And thanks for showing the Foxcatcher ... just ordered one, and boy oh boy, what an aaawesome pedal!

[drjorgedr]

Very informative video. Thank you. Subscribed and looking forward to watching all your other videos.

[tomdameek]

Thank you very much Kris. You have sorted out an issue of tone for me on this video. One simple change in my chain has made a huge difference.👍👍👍

[albuquerque]

Great video, the only thing I disagree with is that the super phat can not be used to boost the revv2, the super phatt is also quiet versatile and can be setup like a blues breaker to boost what comes after it in the chain . Great vid, thank you

[jimamsden]

I use a Helix, but basically use it like a clean amp pedal platform. I stack 4 pedals in front: 1) Fuzz (AWB) for occasional use almost always with Minotaur, 2) tone shaper (Prince of Tone or Heir Apparent) on all the time, used to shape the tone for different guitars, 3) mid boost (Klon or Minotaur) low drive, used to add mid boost and more saturation when needed, and 4) Timmy (Teemah!) for final tone shaping and to produce the "amp distortion". I like use pedals instead of the amp drive for distortion because I can stack them for different tones and saturation levels, and I have more control over the distortion tone. With all these drives, I try to use the minimum amount of distortion needed for the song.

[syllogic]

Great and useful video, thanks a lot ! :D
My first step into the world of stacking drive pedals was a Visual Sound Double Trouble, which is basically 2 Tubescreamers in a single box (blew my mind at the time, such a thick sound !), which i quickly began to use to boost a Wampler Triple Wreck, offering me the metal tone i was searching for a long time.
As of now, my favorite is probably the Boss Waza Blues Driver into the Boss Waza Metal Zone into Gain 1 of the Victory VX Kraken, all 3 with fairly few gain, but the result is way more than the sum of the 3.
Cheers and keep on the great content, watching you talk gear is always a pleasant moment ! :)

[boivarj]

My base tone is a Marshall-type crunch (prefer amp drive over pedal) similar to Malcolm Young's rhythm tone so not gainy at all. When I need more saturation, I boost it with an MXR Super Badass. When I'm plugged into an amp that cannot give me the Marshall crunch, I will use my Lovepedal Jubilee for said base tone, and again I boost it with the Super Badass. I know it's more typical to stack a lower gain pedal into a higher gain pedal, but for me, this works well, especially with the 3-band EQ on the SB.

[julianwiner]

Your videos are so well done and so useful! You deserve a lot of attention Kris. I thought I had a lot of concepts acquired but I’m always learning something new and understanding issues I’m
Having with tone. Cheers from Argentina

[AronTal]

1. DOD Looking Glass - a sparkling dumble
2. Amp11 - creamy goodness
3. Phat Mod - you know it :)
Amazing vintage sounds!
What I miss is a good high gain sound :/

[thewalterscottproject]

I use a spark mini booster into my od/distortion. I control the level of overall gain with the guitar volume for base tone then for leads I use my effects loop jumped with input and output volume matched around 11:00 to 12:00 for leads. I use the Bassman channel of my fender super sonic and get monstrous tones.

[kostischaveles]

Very very informative thank you very i use affordable pedals for my VOX AC15C1 like the Boss DS-2, Boss OD-3, GE-7 EQ, EHX Double muff, Rat etc and i get an endless palette of sounds just by changing their order. I rarely use all of them together but i almost always use my eq pedal. EQ pedals are the swiss army knife for tone shaping....

[goldie]

Great video! I stack my ts808 into the KOT and love it. Id also love to see a demo of your favourite gear and pedalboard? Thanks.

[fraenkiboii]

Great video! I basically do the exact same thing. I like to put full-range or amp-emulating pedals at the end of the chain and then push them with overdrives having a specific EQ characteristic, like a mid hump, for instance. I've got three ODs in my chain: Mythos Mjolnir (Klone) => Thorpy The Dane (Boost with Low Control + medium OD) => Snouse BlackBox (Bluesbreaker). Its gives me so many working combinations. Most of the time I leave the Dane-Boost on, because it fattens a strat sound significantly.