What pedals would you plug in the front of the amp?

Ahh...this is one of those questions I could go on for days about.

Guitar effects basically fall into one of three categories:

- Gain modifiers: This would be your overdrives, fuzz boxes, and distortion. Compressors and limiters would also fall into this category. Anything that affects the amplitude of the signal.

- Frequency modifiers: This is where you affect the tone of your signal. Equalizers, envelope followers, and wah pedals belong to this family.

- Time modifiers: This would cover anything that affects the phase of the signal or adds time based effects. Chorus pedals, phasers, flangers, delays, and reverb would all come under this heading.

The are a few odd-balls that don't fit neatly into one category. Pitch shifters and octave dividers could be thought of as frequency or time modifiers...so I king of leave them out there on their own. You'll see why in a minute.

The generally accepted way to hook up effects is like this:

Guitar ---> Gain Modifiers ---> Frequency Modifiers ---> Time Modifiers.

There are exceptions to everything though!

If you have a compressor, put it before the pitch shifter. You always want the compressor first. Putting it downstream will exaggerate any noise present in the pedals.

If you have a pitch shifter or octave divider, put it after the compressor and before anything else. Those type of devices need a clean signal to process correctly. A distorted or heavily effected tone will confuse them.

Some people flip the order of the tone and gain modifiers. Hendrix used his wah before his fuzz box. That's a completely different tone than the other way around.

Time based effects work best when they're not being distorted, so the effects loop is the ideal location for them. Again, rules were meant to be broken, but there's the guidelines.

So, how should you set up your rig? Here's what I would do:

Guitar ---> Distortion ---> Tremolo ---> Amp In ---> FX Send ---> Chorus ---> Delay ---> FX Return.

Try that.

Good luck.

Greetings from Austin, TX

Ken

Line 6....its called POD XT. pretty much amazing