Yet another stoopid effects-order thread.

[Rich_S]

I have my Phase 95 first in line, before my BB Preamp, which supplies much of my drive, the rest comes from the pushed input stage of my Marshall 18 Watter clone. Everybody knows that the phaser come before OD, because that's how Eddie did it.

But now I'm adding a Nano Big Muff Pi to my board. The BMP generates a lot of harmonic information for the phaser to process. Or maybe that's too much and the Muff should go between the P95 and BB Preamp. What would you do, and why.

Yes, I know this thread is stupid and it will take me about half an hour to try it both ways and decide which way I like. But discuss anyway.

 

[Killing Floor]

Tuner(?)
Preamp(?)
Dirt
Synth(octave or other)
Modulation(chorus, phaser, envelope)
Time based (reverb delay)

 

[Swirling Snow]

I'm going to talk about reverbs, because it's easier to describe, but the principle remains the same.

The BMP has so much distortion it becomes the sonic source. You can run it through an amp, but that amp just acts as a mild filter.

So, if you put a reverb after the BMP, then it sounds like the source is in a big, reverberant room. If you put the reverb before the BMP, then it sounds like your source (guitar) is more resonant.

Yet another way of thinking about is, before the Muff sounds like a stompbox, afterwards sounds like a studio effect.

 

[Len058]

You will only be happy after testing it for yourself.

My experience is that it depends on the level of dirt you run and what type of modulation you use. Dirt before modulation can 'flaten' the tone to a point the modulation has not enough to work with. But sometimes dirt into modulation just works.

 

[Vegetable Man]

No right answer, but I would put the BMP first.

Fuzz > OD > Distortion > Modulation > Delay > Reverb

 

[Peegoo]

It all comes down to whether you want to apply phase to the pre, or whether you want to drive the phase with the pre. One will sound better than the other, based on your guitar and your amp and your playing style and the phase of the moon and whether the wind is in the east...

 

[Festofish]

No effects loop?

 

[1 21 gigawatts]

I bought a Nano Big Muff Pi on Saturday and spent a few hour this weekend experimenting on where to put it. Similar to you, my dirt comes from an overdrive pedal (I use my amp at low volume). I tried the BMP both before and after my OD, and in both cases it sounded worse.

After a lot of knob tweaking, I found settings that sound good running the OD into the BMP. I had to lower the gain and increase the treble on the OD while lowering the sustain and adding bass on the BMP. It sounds like a Muff that isn't so scooped. My base tone (with the OD) is a bit cleaner and more sparkly than previous, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I could not get a pleasing sound with the BMP going into the OD. No matter how I tweaked the knobs, it sounded extremely muffled compared to just the BMP.

Can't help at all with the phaser, but I've always heard that modulation goes last.

 

[middy]

Whatever sounds best to you is correct.

 

[Rich_S]

I rarely run the BMP and the BB Preamp together, it's usually one or the other.

 

[Rich_S]

So, a decision was made today, but first... a detour.

My first Big Muff was a DIY pedal I built on a MadBean PC board. IIRC, I built it to plain NYC specs and just by dumb luck, got it right. AS that as "that Big Muff sound" goes, that pedal nails it. Sadly, as my pedalboard has gotten more crowded, I only have room for a "Nano" pedal. So, I bought myself the standard white Nano Big Muff Pi, which is supposedly the shrunken version of the NYC Muff.

Over the weekend, I A/Bed it against my DIY pedal, and much preferred mine. Alas, due to the size constraint, I thought I'd have to settle for the Nano.

However, when I was at GC buying the Nano, I noticed they had a used Nano Ram's Head in the display case, marked that it was on hold until today. So, today I went back, bought it, and brought it home to A/B against the white Nano. NO CONTEST. It took about 90 seconds to realize that the Ram's Head is the one that's going on my board. The white one is going back to GC tomorrow.

Now, back to the question at hand.

Going in, I was leaning toward Muff->Phase 95->BB Preamp->Stratoblaster->{assorted modulation and delay}-> amp. But I tried it both ways and immediately realized I like Phaser->Muff->BB better. It's much less intense but gives nice psychedelic swoosh to the sound. And, it's easier to wire up given the layout of the board. So, here's my latest.

 

[TokyoPortrait]

Hi.

Looks nice. Clean too.

Pax/
Dean

 

[1 21 gigawatts]

I rarely run the BMP and the BB Preamp together, it's usually one or the other.

I think that is where I'm at after some more experimenting. With the settings that I had to make on the BM to get it to play nice with my OD, the combo ended up sounding very similar to my silicon fuzz face. I might as well just use the BM as a BM and use the fuzz face and guitar volume knob when I need to go from crunch to fuzz during a song.