Re: Got some pedals. Now What?
Suggestions please on the best way to hook these pedals up. My blackstar ht-20 head has an efx loop. Not sure what order and location to put these pedals in. below are the pedals i have.
Blackstar HT-Distx
Deltalabs Digital Delay
Boss NS-2
MXR ZW-44 Zakk Wylde Overdrive
MXR ZW-38 Zakk Wylde Chorus
Fish n Chips Eq pedal
DigiTech Bad Monkey Overdrive
Use 2 pedalboards, and patch the pedal is this order:
Pedalboard 1 (into the input of the amp)
1. DigiTech Bad Monkey Overdrive
2. MXR ZW-44 Zakk Wylde Overdrive
3. Blackstar HT-Distx
Pedalbaord 2 (into the fX loop)
1. MXR ZW-38 Zakk Wylde Chorus
2. Boss NS-2
3. Deltalabs Digital Delay
Put it anywhere: Fish n Chips Eq pedal
My reasons for this setup:
The Bad Monkey and the Zakk Wylde Overdrive can boost each other and/or the HT-Distx. I've never had much luck letting the high-gain pedal push a low-gain pedal, but low-gains pushing high-gains works great for me. It's very rare that an O/D or Dist pedal would work in an effects loop.
In my experience, putting modulation effects (your chorus pedal) in the effects loop will generate less noise than putting into the front end of an amp because now you have no preamp amplifying the noise of the pedal.
Putting the noise gate in the loop will stop the noise from the guitar, pedals, and preamp. Putting it in the front end will only stop the noise from the guitar and pedals, allowing the noise from the preamp to be heard. I put my gate in the loop and you would never know the amp is own, even at earth-shattering volumes.
Putting the delay pedal in the loop is will also generate less noise than in the front end for the same reason as the chorus pedal. The other difference is that in the loop you will be able to have high gain repeats sounds like you would expect from a delay pedal. Putting the delay pedal in front of high gain amp will cause the repeats to just be distorted and making the sound very messy, you might not even hear the repeats, just an audible mess.
Putting the noise gate before the delay is important, this will allow all your repeats to to come through, and be heard over complete silence (since the gate is muting the preamp). If you make the gate last, the delay pedals repeats will eventually become so quiet that the gate will silence them, and it will 'chop off' your sound, and may even 'stutter' your sound while the deals with the level of the repeats.
Experiment with the eq pedal, it doesnt matter where it goes, just remmeber there should be less noise if you put it in the loop.
The bad monkey is a tone sucker, consider a true-bypass mod.
