If you have a huge collection of pedals that you never use, it’s time to pare things down. A clean, streamlined pedalboard will inspire you to dig in and take your playing to new creative heights.
Achieving the perfect pedal order is a big part of what makes a great rig. Pedal order is not only important, but it can also make or break your tone.
Power
While it’s widely accepted that effects pedals work best with electric guitars, acoustic guitars can be shaped as fluidly with a good selection of pedals. Whether it’s a reverb, chorus, or something else, a good pedal can help sculpt acoustic guitar tone and add dimension so that you can heed the muse’s call in any performance situation.
Acoustic pedal board often requires multiple pedals to function correctly and a power supply to keep everything powered. While many pedals can run on 9V center-negative power, some may require 12V or 18V for optimal operation. This is why it’s best to map out your pedalboard beforehand, ensuring you have an isolated power supply that can handle all your pedals’ voltage requirements.
Cables
Whether you’re using a pedalboard with mains power or batteries, a quality set of cables is essential. You want to avoid risking your entire pedalboard setup by connecting cables of poor quality.
Adding a compression pedal to your acoustic guitar board is essential for adding sustain and twang, especially for country music players.
Pedal Layout
The order of pedals in your rig can be vital to the tone you end up with. Conventional wisdom suggests placing effects such as wahs and filters before compression and overdrive (which can rein in some of the harsh, speaker-blowing frequencies these pedals can produce at extreme settings). Modulation and pitch-based effects after, but experimentation is critical, and every rig differs.
Loopers demand their place in the chain as they function more like a real-time multi-tracking device and can be used to create dynamic time-shifting tones. They should be placed before overdrive and delay.
When designing a pedalboard on paper before it goes to the board, ensure you account for the space between each pedal for patch cables and power supply connections. Leave space for any pedals you may want to add later on.
Pedal Selection
When it comes to pedals, there is no shortage of options. But, to ensure you have everything you need for your gigs (or practice sessions), you should carefully select and arrange your pedals.
Gain-staging pedals (which range from clean gain boosts to overdrive and distortion) should be placed at the beginning of your chain as they shape the overall tone of your signal. They can add a rock-n-roll edge to your sound and give you that extra volume needed for feedback avoidance in larger venues.
It’s also important to remember while your pedals will be securely mounted on a pedalboard, you have to carry them home after each gig. So, choose a pedalboard that’s just a little small (but still offers plenty of room for all your pedals) to minimize the weight you need to lift and carry. Especially if you plan on traveling long distances or flying, opt for a soft, lightweight case that protects your pedals and can be easily folded into a small travel size.
