GETTING YOUR FX IN ORDER PART 1

As modern synths and cheap high quality recording equipment become more standard, guitarist are under increasing pressure to match the 'quality' of sound. While the quality of amps and guitars have improved in some ways, the basic sounds have not progressed much in the last 20 years. The major advances in DSP chips have meant that the main step forward for guitarist has been via the effect's. This can be seen quite plainly in the fact that a lot of contemporary guitar sounds rely a fair bit on common FX's from distortion boxes, chorus and delays, to heavy compression and high quality harmonisers/reverbs etc. With so many cool and clean sounding FX units around, more guitarist are turning to these as a source of inspiration. Unfortunately the majority of guitarist don't use the full potential of these units because they either place these in the wrong order (including multi FX boards), or use pedals inefficiently. In this article we are going to look at some typical layouts that work well.

The basic system that applies to all the following examples have five stages.

1) The guitar :)

2) The FX's (between the guitar and the pre amp).

3) The pre amp

4) The FX's loop (between the pre amp and the power amp).

5) The power amp/s

The following methods need an amp with an FX loop. If your amp doesn't have one, think about getting your local guitar workshop to fit one.

If you have a stereo amp like the Jazz chorus, think of it as just the (stereo) power amp stage (stage5: using the front inputs of the JC as the inputs of stage 5), and get some thing else (i.e. a Boogie, Marshall, Groove Tube, pedal or rack unit) for the pre amp stage (stage 3) to use even on clean sounds.

If you use a transistor amp I would advise getting a VALVE distortion pedal, compressor or separate pre amp.

The key to getting your FX to work well is in matching the levels from one pedal to the next. Each pedal will have an optimum input level that it will work best at. Go above that and you will get digital distortion, go below that optimum level and you will raise your noise level and make the sound weak and lacking in treble.

You can also achieve different effects by just adjusting the levels of the pedals. i.e. you can get a lot of compression by raising the input of (any) pedal and lowering it's output by an equal amount. You could also apply this to the whole FX stage by raising the input on the first pedal and lowering the output of the last pedal.

PEDAL POWER (Example 1)

The pedals in stage 2 (between the guitar and pre amp) often react better with the level and dynamic range from the guitars pick-ups and act as a boosters (both tonally and in volume).

A pedal compressor at the front can help to even out volume (of differant strings and frett's) and increase the sustain, While a distortion/overdrive pedal can boost the gain and add harmonic's. A good wha pedal can boost the treble (and volume) and allow you to adjust your phase. A mono enhancer (at this stage) can also boost the treble to a point where old strings sound like new.

The FX's in stage four (between the pre-amp and the power amps) are more refined and need the smoother dynamic response that the pre-amp puts offer.

Try placing the delay before the modulation unit (chorus/flanger etc.). This way the echo's will continue to modulate, sounding subtly different with each repeat, but still in line with the track. The delay after the modulation can cause phase cancellations that can create ugly side effects, such as making your signal weaker and stronger on its own at all the wrong times. The reveb unit should always come last in stage four.

The output of the reverb unit goes back into the amps FX loop 'return' (the power amp in). Use the mix output of the last unit in stage 4 if your amp's FX loop 'return' is mono.

If you have two power amps (or a stereo power amp) you can take the left output from the last unit (reverb) to one power amp and the right output to the other power amp.

You may find that one good multi-FX unit in the loop is all you need for stage 4. As multi FX unit's (like the Lexicon LXP 15, or the digitech GSP, Zoom etc.) have internal (digital) connections, they are well suited as the modulation, delay/reverb sections in Stage 4.

ON THE RACK (Example 2)

Here we use one channel of the compressor straight after the guitar, this helps even out any dull sounding fret's, and allows you to control the output with a high amount of flexibility. It also stops/'Limits' volume peaks caused by aggressive picking or strumming from suddenly overloading the pre-amp or other pedals in stage 2 (between the guitar and pre amp).

The noise gate at the front of each channel can also really help to shut the noise up from noisy pick-ups etc when you are not playing. Set the threshold just above the hum while still allowing played note's to fade naturally.

The output of the first compressor would come out to your distortion/overdive/wha etc pedals.

The output of the last pedal in this section goes into the pre-amp (the main front input of the amp).

The second channel on the (stereo) compressor is used as the first thing in the amps FX loop, this also gives you a greater level of control over the output of the pre-amp before it hit's the other FX's in the loop. Again the noise gate on the channel can silence the pre-amp when you are not playing.

Stereo (2 channel) compressors to look at are:

A: Alesis 3630

A: Soundtech ST200CL

A: Yamaha CL2000

A: Drawmer MX30

A: Drawmer M500 (digital)

B: Drawmer 1960 (valve)

B: Digitech (valve)

B: Groove tube (Valve)

The ones with the B: prefix would need a separate stereo Noise gate just before the compressor.

If you have any special mono FX (i.e. a mono harmoniser etc) that you want to use insert them in the chain here (between the second compressor and the first stereo unit in the FX loop).

DELAY

The mono output from the compressor (or special FX) would go into the input of the next FX unit. (I would recommend putting the delay unit here).

Set the ms (delay time) to match the BPM of the track (it should either be in half notes, quarter notes, eight's or sixteenths). but you can lean this a bit faster or slower to get it to swing.

The stereo output (if your delay unit is stereo) goes to the stereo input of the next unit.

MODULATION

I would recommend putting the modulation unit next (i.e. chorus/flangers etc). Try and keep the signal stereo if possible via stereo inputs to this unit and stereo outputs from this unit (even if you are going to mix back down to mono when you go back into the FX loop return). Don't forget that modulation is a rhythmical FX make sure that the envelopes (the rising and falling) match the groove of the track.

REVERB

The next unit which will probably be the reverb (which should be the last one in this stage). Be sparing with the reverb, remember that the room/venue you play in will also add more (real) reverb. Try differant types of reverb on the FX unit that emulate older studio and amp reverbs like plates, spring reverbs, early reflections etc, as they will add an extra dimmention.

Again a good multi effect unit can combine the modulation/delay and reverb stage into one unit, with the advantages of midi control and programmable memories for settings.

The output of the last FX unit in stage 4 goes back to the power amp (into the amps fx loop 'return').

Use the mix output of the last FX unit in stage 4 if your amp's FX loop 'return' is mono. If you have two power amps (or a stereo power amp) you can take the left output from the last unit (reverb) to one power amp and the right output to the other power amp.

By Kevin De Souza