Guitar Tone Using Pedal Effects Within a Multi Pedal Board

PART 2 of 2
Let's dive right into Part 2 of building your own multi pedal effects board. Have you actually built a pedal effects board only to discover that your guitar tone has changed drastically? Believe me, you are not the first to run across this problem. In fact the majority of pedal effects boards will change your tone, and most of the time is it not for the better.
There are many things to consider when designing and building your pedal board. If you're careful to address these critical issues during this process you'll end up with a great guitar tone. If you're not careful, you may end up with a guitar tone that is less than desirable.
Here's a few more things that will affect your guitar tone when designing your pedal board.

• Types of Pickups
• Batteries
• Power Supplies
• Pedal Order
• Hum & Noise Testing

There are still more things to examine when it come to guitar using pedal effects, but for now this will get you on the right track to killer guitar tone when designing your effects pedal board.

1. Types of pickups - If you are using passive pickups, you'll need to design your pedal board with those pickups in mind. If you're using active pickups, then design your effects pedal board according to those. The reason being that these different pickup types will react differently throughout the entire signal chain. If you designed your pedal board to be used with a vintage stratocaster, it will not react or sound the same if you plug a Les Paul with EMG's into it.
2. Batteries - Make sure that all of your pedals are equipped with fresh batteries with correct voltages. This may not seem like a big deal but it is. In fact, you can experiment with this and see the results immediately. I know of some big name artists that prefer to use old batteries in certain effects to get a bogged down sound on purpose. I'm not recommending this, I'm only letting you know that it does alter your sound and it's usually not to your advantage.
3. Power Supplies - This is another option instead of batteries and can work well if you do it right. The trick is to avoid any ground loops. This can be done by using a regulated power supply that can handle all of your pedals, and isolated power taps. This will allow you to use all sorts of different types of pedals from different manufacturers including the old vintage ones as well. Power supplies such as Voodoo Lab's pedal power have isolated taps with no common ground. It's like have multiple individual power supplies.
4. Pedal Order - This is another personal preference, but a critical step in your pedal board design. You must know that all pedals will react different and sound different depending on where they are placed in the chain. Example: Try using a wah pedal in the first position of the effects pedal board chain. Then try using it in the last position of the effects pedal board chain. You should notice a night and day difference in the response and the tone. You'll need to do this with all of your pedal to find the best combination for you. Keep in mind where you put your delay, because the effects before it will effect the delayed sound after it.
5. Hum & Noise Testing - If you've done all the above steps properly, you should not have any hum or noise issues. However when you are testing for hum and noise issues be sure to test into a really high gain amp. This makes it easier detect any problems and track them down much quicker.

Hopefully this will give you some great insight when building your personal guitar effects pedal board. If you carefully design and construct your pedal board, your pedal effects will sound great every time you plug in for years and years to come.
If you have any questions or comments see details below.
Thanks, Bob Molton