PedalBoard 101

#1 Signal Chain

What's the signal chain

Where better to start a discussion about guitar pedals, if not talking about signal chains?

We commonly call " signal chain" the sequence of devices on which the path of an electric audio signal runs before (or while...) being amplified.

Pretty simple, right? The application though, due to the countless number of combinations, can be overwhelming to say the least.

How many times I heard ''can I put a delay pedal before a boost pedal?'' or ''can I put my reverb in front of my amp instead of in the FX loop?''. The problem is that the answer to all of this question can be ''yes'', can be ''no'' and can be ''it depends'' at the same time.

We're slowly entering to the point of this first post of mine, the coherence of the content that I'd like to share.

Changing the order of your effect pedals will affect the signal chain of your guitar sound, and so your guitar tone. That's a fact.

Now, in the past I've been a firm believer that the ones saying ''you MUST put your overdrive there, and your fuzz there...'' where some kind of Messiah that had the Holy Knowledge, and that everyone must follow those rules. In reality ,the beauty of being a guitar player is all about the creation process, and indeed breaking the ‘’rules’’ help creating new and inspiring sound!

Imagine, for example, having the following:

The signal goes: Guitar into Boss OD-200 into CryBaby Mini into Okko Diablo. With the OD-200 in bypass, the clean signal of the guitar would go into the CryBaby and then it would be distorted by the Diablo: that’s, my dear reader, is the classical way to do things. The sweeps of the CryBaby will be on a clean signal, therefore keeping all the clarity and giving a great classical sound. But, if we imagine bypassing the Diablo, and engage the OD-200, the sound activating the Wah pedal will be very very different. The CryBaby will have to work on an already distorted signal, which will give the impression that the frequency sweeps are opening and closing the distortion as well (Which in fact is exactly what’s happening), therefore giving as outcome a very unique and inspiring sound!

At the end, the goal of every journey is experimenting with things! Breaking rules and being curious, pick and mix, change the order of everything just because we can and, finally, just play the way that sounds the best to you!!

Because at the end of the day, the reward it's just play.

(Dave Grohl on the ‘’Play’’ videoclip)