For many guitarists and bassists, the ability to modify the sound of the instrument becomes part of the joy of being a player. We try different things to get the pickups that we like the sound of, and the amp that we find gives us the kinds of tones that we like. And then, you hear in the back of your brain a deep mellifluous voice inviting you into the world of pedals.

Danger Will Robinson!

It’s ok if that phrase means nothing to you, it’s an old memory of warning. You see pedals seem simple, but they really aren’t not because there are so many different things that they do, but there are so many that do the same thing. We have overdrives, distortions, fuzzes, boosts, compressors, delays, choruses, flangers, phasers, envelope filters, ring modulators, rotary speakers, vibratos, tremolos and probably a long list that I have not put down here. It’s easy to get deep into the pedal zone.

This article is not about how to pick a pedal. That’s a longer piece. This about connecting them together to get started and have some initial quick success. Let’s look at some criteria.

Power Requirements

While there are still some pedals that run on batteries, and a few that still ONLY run on batteries, the majority will run on DC voltage via a power supply. Most run on nine volts, while others will require more voltage, and yet others will run at 9v but deliver greater headroom at higher voltage. Most but not all use a common power interface that is a barrel connector with the centre being negative. Connect the wrong kind of power and you kill the pedal.

I know that most players never even look at the documentation with the pedal, if there even is any documentation. So get a piece of paper and write down the name of the pedal and then by looking at the pedal power input, write down what voltage it wants and what kind of connector and what polarity it is. If you had a generic Tube Screamer or clone, you might write

Tube Screamer - 9V - Barrel - Centre Negative -100mA

Rat - 9V - 1/8 TR - Centre Negative - 100mA

but specifically write what is written right on the pedal box. If a pedal can take more voltage, it may say something like 9v-18v on the case. For this scenario on your page you would right 9v - 18v and then use a highlighter to highlight the 18v part. The mA rating is REALLY important by the way.

Power

Some pedals come with power supplies in the form of a wall wart type thing. Nice to receive but a real pain if you use lots of pedals. If everything you own is 9V and does not need more than 100mA, you can get by with a device like a OneSpot Daisy Chain supply. They work, but that’s about it. If your pedal wants more than 9V or more than about 100mA, you are not going to be happy. Remember that most online sellers fail to list the power requirements fully and unless you are in a really good guitar shop, the sales person may not know either. Better sales people will find out for you and show you the source of their information.

As I do with most things, I am going to suggest buying your last pedal power supply first. It saves a drawer or closet full of abandoned power supplies. I will ALWAYS recommend a power supply that plugs into AC without a wall wart meaning the transformer is in the box and where every outlet is fully isolated. I also want to ensure that each outlet can deliver different voltage and milliampere outputs. You may find a pedal here or there that will have to use its dedicated supply, but this is not the norm. I have tried the clone supplies from China, and while they are better than a OneSpot daisy chain, I wouldn’t go further than that. OneSpot, Fender, MXR, Strymon and CIOKS amongst others do dedicated pedal power supplies. I’ve tried most of them in building boards for myself and for others and I have personally standardized on the CIOKS products. They are now pretty widely available and I find them to be built tough, easy to attach to the underside of popular pedalboards and have a very reliable cabling system that is colour coded for specific pinouts. Not the cheapest out there, but a CIOKS DC7 will drive 7 pedals completely isolated from each other with each offering a choice of voltage and current delivery. The DC7 is also extendable if you need to power more pedals with the DC8 or DC4 expanders. Obviously, it’s your money and so your choice. If you are just starting out and only have a couple of pedals, that OneSpot daisy chain is probably a good place to start with one plug to support multiple 9V pedals (centre negative) for around $30.

The Pedalboard

Next you want a place to put your pedals. Some people leave them loose on the floor. Ok if that works for you. If you want to be able to transport your pedal board or even just pick it up to get it out of the way, a good route is the Pedaltrain family of boards. They come in multiple row counts and widths from small to extra large. They also include rolls of hook and loop fastener tape to keep your pedals in place and a carry case that everything can fit in. There are others, but for reliability and value, I do recommend Pedaltrain. By the way, use the loop tape on the board and the hook tape on the pedals. A small square on each corner of the pedal is about all you need unless you will be carrying a thin spatula whenever you want to take a pedal off the board.

Connecting Cables

Probably the greatest frustration for musicians in using pedals is getting to a place where you have a lot of noise be it hum, or crackling or a deadening of the overall tone. Loss of tonality can be effected by pedal order but also by cheap cables. Let’s say you are spending $150 per pedal. Does $15 sound like too much for the connector cable? If so, you may be ok with a few pedals, but the more connections, the more important the quality of the cable. I have two recommendations. The first are premade cables. Ernie Ball Ribbon cables are tough, acoustically excellent, use flat connectors so they take up little space and are easy to route. I recommend buying a set from your guitar shop or Amazon. They come in black or white. The white ones are easier to see, but cost more. The second option are cables you make yourself. I have tried a number of the different kits and been most pleased with the kits from BOSS. You get a spool of flexible noisefree cable, and a number of TR plugs that use a screw lock and are low profile. If I am build a board that is not going to change all the time, I go this route and only make the cables as long as they need to be, to keep the board neat. If I’m going to be changing things up a lot, such as on my own boards, I am more inclined to use the EB cables or to make a number of standard length cables from the Ernie Ball kit. Not nearly so neat but convenient especially if you are like me and trying different routes and pedals all the time.

Pedal Order

Finally to the point of the article. Your first pedals are likely to be your overdrive, distortion and fuzz pedals. Fuzz pedals are particularly notorious for sucking if they are not the first pedal in the chain. If you use a dirty boost, you will have to try where it sounds best, before or after the fuzz. This will depend a lot on the pickups, the cable length and what sound you like best.

Then if you use a volume pedal insert it here, and take the tap off the volume pedal for the tuner. I put the volume pedal here because fuzzes are generally very noisy critters and this way, I can mute their native noise when not playing.

Next put your distortion pedal. If you use more than one, put them in declining order of distortion delivery.

Then will come your overdrive(s). I see it more than less where a player will have multiple gain pedals and use them either individually or stacked. If idle noise is an issue, move the volume pedal until after the last overdrive. If you do use a volume pedal, make sure it has a tuner out and that it uses an audio taper potentiometer.

Next will come your compressor if you use one. While there are those who like to compress before distortion, the real control comes after. It can take a bit of time to find the settings that work best for you but it can absolutely be done. Try to avoid over compression because then you will need to increase the makeup volume and that is typically very noisy unless it is a really good compressor.

Next is where I will put a clean boost if there is one. A clean boost can be set to increase volume without adding distortion or drive in the line, but may drive the amp input, or set to unity gain to open up the signal and give it some air. This is my preferred use of the clean boost, and if used it is always on.

Here you make a decision depending on your amp and your desire for complexity. Some amps have an effects loop with jacks labeled SEND and RETURN. This loop is where you can place pedals so they enter the signal chain AFTER the amplifier preamp and before the amplifier power amp. If your amp does not have SEND/RETURN, at this point you will go the more common route of all pedals into the front of the amplifier meaning before the preamp section.

Regardless of which route you choose, your next pedals will be your delay pedals. Delay and reverb are different, so if you have a combo pedal, you will have to do some trials yourself. Whether it is a tape delay, analog delay or digital delay, it goes here in the chain.

The next pedal set are your modulation pedals. These are pedals that modulate the signal and include chorus, flanger, phaser, vibrato, tremolo, harmonic tremolo and rotary types. Typically we want modulation to apply to all the signals in front of them and not to delay a modulated effect or worse fuzz up a modulated effect, although there are some who think that a fuzzed up vibe sounds awesome a la Univibe.

Your final pedal is your reverb pedal. Since many amps have very decent reverb built in, we find reverb pedals mostly used with amps that have no native reverb, or a really bad built in reverb. There are now many different reverb styles beyond the classic spring reverb and we find them in pedals that go here. Use a high quality cable to connect your pedal chain to your amplifier.

Summary

Now you’ve got your pedals mounted, powered and connected in a reliable and manageable layout and its time to play. Not just play music, but also play with the pedals. All those knobs and switches are there for you so have some fun trying different settings and getting comfortable with each pedal. Do this for each pedal independently and then start combining the different pedals to make tones that are yours alone.

Thank you for reading and until next time, peace.