Pedal order

[zeronyne]

I"m used to the more 'traditional' effect order of the rock and roll 70s and beyond: overdrive/fuzz/distortion -> modulation -> time-based effects and ambience. And I know volume and eq pedals can sit in various places.

 

But for bass, what is the recommended order of octave, filter, and overdrive/distortion? I"ve always thought it was octave to overdrive to filter, but is anyone running the beginning of the chain differently?

[KuruPrionz]

Octave first, no two ways about it

What sort of filter? It will provide different tones before the overdrive/distortion than it does after it. Try them both and see which way you prefer, that one is not set in stone.

[butcherNburn]

KuruPrionz is spot on but I'd like to add that if the effects are not cranked, you may have better results moving them around. Your don't seem to be juggling many pedals so just try different placement. You never know, you may find a type of weird you never new you wanted in quick amount of time. What do you have to loose? Harming your equipment is the only "wrong".

 

Now, are you considering the existential ramifications of what pedals go into the instrument input and what goes in the effects loop?

[zeronyne]

I already use the 5 cable method. Lol

[Danzilla]

I was just watching a video about pedal order earlier today. I think he spends too much time talking about buffers, but he gives some good ideas.

[video:youtube]

I usually put my wah after the overdrive; but I might switch it around, if I ever get enough energy to do it...

[Winston Psmith]

I"m used to the more 'traditional' effect order of the rock and roll 70s and beyond: overdrive/fuzz/distortion -> modulation -> time-based effects and ambience. And I know volume and eq pedals can sit in various places.

 

But for bass, what is the recommended order of octave, filter, and overdrive/distortion? I"ve always thought it was octave to overdrive to filter, but is anyone running the beginning of the chain differently?

 

It's a "chicken-&-egg" situation, really.

 

Octave into Filter can give you some great Synth-like tones, or deep Funk grooves. Ring Mod into Filter can get pretty crazy, too.

 

As I understand it, most OD/Distortion pedals, whether for Guitar or Bass, rely on some degree of signal clipping, which alters the signal dynamics. In "The Boss Book", which as you might expect is all about Boss pedals, there's a series of graphs showing the waveforms generated by all of the various Boss OD/Dist/Fuzz pedals at the time of publication, and all of them rely on some form of signal clipping, in some cases applied to specific frequency bands.

 

Envelope Filters are driven by signal dynamics, and generally want to be as close to your input source as possible. Will using a Distortion pedal before your Filter significantly alter the response of your Filter pedal? It depends; try switching the order, and turning them on and off to find which combination gives you the sound that you want. That's pretty much the "right" order, the one that works for you.

 

I tend to put anything that I might treat as an Instrument voice (Octaver, Pitch-Shifter, Ring Mod, Bit Crusher, Synth Pedal) at or near the front of my signal chain, followed by Filter effects, then the Big 3, Distortion - Modulation - Delay/Reverb. I also have my OD/Distortion effects arranged as a Gain Stack: Transparent OD -> Mid-Gain OD -> High-Gain Distortion -> Fuzz.

 

IDK if any of that helps, it's just one pedal geek's approach.