How to Arrange the Order of Effects Pedals for Your Guitar and Amp

There is however a very general consensus on the best ordering. You can use this as a guide to start you off, and if you feel like rearranging things a bit from there, go ahead!
The Chain

• Actually the first one here is easy. If you have a tuner pedal, this should go first in the chain, i.e. the first one after your guitar, for the simple reason that you want it to receive the cleanest signal possible to obtain the most accurate reading.


• Patch a lead from the output of your tuner to the input of your next pedal. Next in line should be, EQ, volume and wah pedals, and compression. There's a bit of debate on placing compressors here as opposed to at the end of the chain. Here they'll have an effect on both the tone and volume of every following effect (which can be more desirable than you might imagine). Alternatively, placing them at the end will act as a volume boost only.


• Next up place your distortion and overdrive type effects. Again, there is some suggestion of a different placement for these - right at the front of the chain. If you like having your tone permanently distorted (i.e. no 'clean' parts) you might want to try this.


• Delay should probably go next, as you want to avoid the modulation effects that come next 'modulating' the delay echoes...or maybe you don't! Place it here for now anyway.


• Modulation effects - you may remember from one of my previous articles this includes things like chorus, flangers and phasers - should go next.


• Finally, if you have a reverb pedal this should go last, although one thing I would say here is, ask yourself how necessary a reverb pedal is. If you're setting up to record, fair enough. If you're setting up a live rig, stop and think about what a reverb pedal does. It emulates the reverberations within various different sizes of space. But if you're playing in a club or hall, that reverb is already naturally provided for you by the room. Add additional reverb and you're in danger of seriously muddying up your sound. Of course it is sometimes necessary even in a live context to achieve a certain desired effect, but tread carefully.


• The output from the final effect in the chain goes into your amp input, and then you're good to go!

At this point it's worth writing down a diagram of the arrangement you've just made, particularly as if you decide to experiment a bit, but end up getting muddled, you can come back to this layout as your default starting position. If you're doing this with the assembly of a pedal board in mind it's very important you get your desired arrangement right before you commit it to the board, as undoing this later will be trickier once the pedals have been fastened down and patch cords laid.
The above advice can also be applied to the stompbox sections of virtual guitar FX such as AmpliTube and Guitar Rig. The joy here is you can rearrange the pedals to your heart's content with the click and drag of a mouse, avoiding spaghetti junction with your patch cords, and never having to worry about your supply of 9V batteries running out...or maybe that's all part of the fun?