Effect order in multi effects units

[tbonepete]

Hi folks,
A question for you (silly maybe?),
I gather that it's preferable when chaining effects together that they are placed in a certain order for best effect, but if one is using a multi effects unit (in my case either a zoom b3, or a zoom ms60b) does this still apply?
Please and thank you,

Cheers Pete

[elephantgrey]

There is no objective best order for effects, its all subjective. There is orders and rules of thumb to follow, but generally the only rule is to try all combinations and decide which order you prefer, that fits the music you play, and sits well in your band(s). If your asking for others opinions on what they would do, as a jumping off point, it depends heavily on what effects you choose to use with your multi effects, if you use 4 dirt pedals in a row, its going to be a different place to 4 modulation pedals.

I personaly use my MS60b as BDDI>HRT 350>noise gate, so im my chain i go:
compressor > bitcrusher > distortion > ms60b > delay > loopstation.

[JapanAxe]

Some multi-FX units allow you to change the order of effects. Some don't, but they are usually in a sensible order.

[tbonepete]

[quote name='elephantgrey' timestamp='1401736160' post='2466397']
There is no objective best order for effects, its all subjective. There is orders and rules of thumb to follow, but generally the only rule is to try all combinations and decide which order you prefer, that fits the music you play, and sits well in your band(s). If your asking for others opinions on what they would do, as a jumping off point, it depends heavily on what effects you choose to use with your multi effects, if you use 4 dirt pedals in a row, its going to be a different place to 4 modulation pedals.

I personaly use my MS60b as BDDI>HRT 350>noise gate, so im my chain i go:
compressor > bitcrusher > distortion > ms60b > delay > loopstation.
[/quote]hi elephantgrey, I'm not asking for others opinions on what they would do as there's a plethora of threads on what chain order etc. but I am asking if the order matters in the same way when using a multi effects as opposed to separate pedals because of the more integrated nature of multi fx. Also I appreciate that it's subjective with regard to your answer hence the word preferable in my question.
I'm not wishing to come across as terse here, but rather to re state the question.
Please and thank you,

Cheers Pete

[HowieBass]

From what I know of my Zoom unit there's only a certain amount of flexibility in how to chain effects and as already noted most multi-effects units offer the individual modules in what's regarded as a conventional order. If you can re-arrange them however you like then I reckon the chaining order will sound just as if you were using physically separate stomp boxes so it is indeed about personal preference.

[tbonepete]

Hmmm,
I'm not explaining my question well enough clearly.
If we leave personal preference out of the equation, and to a certain extent the chain order, what I'm asking is because a mfx is more integrated than say four (for example) separate fx pedals that may or may not use different styles and types of chipsets to acheive the desired effects, will the same chain order on both mfx and separate fx units yield the same results or be different.
Just navel gazing really, and definitely not a question about personal preferences.

Cheers Pete

[JapanAxe]

[quote name='tbonepete' timestamp='1401818944' post='2467246']
Hmmm,
I'm not explaining my question well enough clearly.
If we leave personal preference out of the equation, and to a certain extent the chain order, what I'm asking is because a mfx is more integrated than say four (for example) separate fx pedals that may or may not use different styles and types of chipsets to acheive the desired effects, will the same chain order on both mfx and separate fx units yield the same results or be different.
Just navel gazing really, and definitely not a question about personal preferences.

Cheers Pete
[/quote]
The same. The odd one out is fuzz - particularly germanium fuzz, which tends to sound bad after other pedals. There's a big article on the subject in this month's guitarist. This issue is unlikely to affect the 'fuzz' in a multi-fx, as it's often just a high-gain distortion (or model thereof), and there will be a input buffer on the multi-fx unit anyway.

[xgsjx]

Like he above says.

A multi fx unit doesn't put all the effects parallel, they still go one after the other & should in theory have similar results to their pedalboard counterparts.

[tbonepete]

Thanks for that,
So four individual pedals chained together with their four individual chipsets capable of operating with their respective pedals set at any control position will behave and operate exactly the same as one multifx using the same effects, albeit virtual effects with the same control positions through it's single chipset? Do I get this right?
Thanks for the replies so far.

Cheers Pete

[Dad3353]

[quote name='tbonepete' timestamp='1401882539' post='2467772']...Do I get this right?...[/quote]

Essentially, yes, insofar as the FX of the multi are of the same 'family' as the stomp boxes. A fuzz after a delay will sound differently to a delay after a fuzz, be they individual or multi pedals. The actual sound will differ, as each unit or multi has its own 'signature', but the chaining will react in the same fashion with either technology.
There is a 'normal' way of chaining, but, as has been stated, there are also valid reasons for chaining differently. This 'logic' of sequence follows, whether as boxes or a multi pedal.

[xgsjx]

What Doug says.

If you were to have the fx in parallel, that would mean the signal would be split X amount of times, each one sent to individual effects & then all summed back together. This would sound like X amount of basses all playing the same bassline & each having a different effect on it.
I do this with 2 channels myself, so the low end signal gets split from everything above 110hz, so when I dirty up the tops, the low end remains solid.

[gadgie]

I reckon OD/Dist before modulation pedals. It works for me as I've found that a . modulated (ie delay etc) distorted sound, sounds better then a distorted sound modulated.

Gee that sounds confusing. Dist > Modulated is better than mod > dististored.

Usually delay before chorus as well. But that's just me

Oh man I have a sore head now.

[elephantgrey]

[quote name='gadgie' timestamp='1401888161' post='2467866']
Dist > Modulated is better than mod > dististored.

Usually delay before chorus as well. But that's just me
[/quote]

See i love chorus going into dirt pedals, especially a fuzz. That said i like delay afterwards, like a clean digital delay after a warm tube overdrive.
Things like positioning between filters/dirt/octaves have had a lot of discussion, so has dynamic effects (compressor/gate) goes at the end or start of the chain, and before or after things like delay/verb.

A lot of this is personal preference, and the interaction between the specific individual pedals, which give the whole set-up its own characteristics. I recently went back to having my compressor at the start of my chain for example. Now whilst i still get a reasonably even tone at the end for having a compressor in the chain, my preamp is more evenly driven more of the time. Another example is that i keep switching my dist and bitcrusher pedals around. Having my bitcrusher into the dist lets me soften out the harshness of the bitcrusher a little, but the other way, the signal into the bircrusher is louder, so it crushes it less.

This kind of thing leads me to illiterate what others on this site have said before me, try EVERY order of your pedals. Ditching the preconceptions that effects should go in one order leads to interesting discoveries, and interesting properties that you wouldn't have thought of before.

[tbonepete]

I'm just not able to get this so one last try at explaining the original question, which in hindsight was the wrong wording, so its not really surprising I'm not getting the answers.
Ok, so you've got 4 blokes who are each good at doing one thing, bloke one pats his head, bloke two rubs his tummy, bloke three juggles tennis balls, and bloke four spins plates. Then there's one really clever bloke that says he can do all four of these things at the same time. (Please note this is not a question about the order of spinning plates/juggling/etc etc). The question is, can the really clever bloke actually do all four things as well as the four separate blokes, or does something have to give in order to acheive this seeming miracle? (ie maybe the number of plates spun, or times per minute that the tummy is rubbed/ head patted).
I'm not concerned whether or not the chain goes head pat first or plate spinning first etc etc, but rather what has to give, and why with regard to the processing power of four individual pedals as opposed to the processing power of a single mfx unit being pulled in four directions at once? blimey, I'm knackered just thinking about how to word the question so it's easily understood, and not mistaken for another what order should my pedals go in type thread.
Anyhoo, that's my last attempt at asking

Cheers Pete

[Dad3353]

[quote name='tbonepete' timestamp='1401898099' post='2468045']I'm just not able to get this so one last try at explaining the original question...[/quote]

Original Question...

[color=#800080]Hi folks,
A question for you (silly maybe?),
I gather that it's preferable when chaining effects together that they are placed in a certain order for best effect, but if one is using a multi effects unit (in my case either a zoom b3, or a zoom ms60b) does this still apply?
Please and thank you,

Cheers Pete[/color]

Just sayin'.

As to this new question: No FX or multis are comparable in that way. Each have, individually and collectively, their character. Nothing has to 'give' in a multi pedal, it's just a different result.
The first pedals were not very sophisticated; simply a handful of passive components and a couple of transistors. No magic. As electronics evolved, so did the circuitry in the pedals. Once one reaches the stage where the circuit in a stomp box is in fact a processor, it matters little, electronically, that it be mono or multi; it's the same technology. In that sense, there's no difference in having several modern pedales linked, or one multi box. The main difference would be that the multi would be highly unlikely to contain exactly the same series of processors as the separate boxes, and will therefore sound differently.
Some mono pedals are awful, some multis don't cut the mustard. I have multis which have a few good FX, but mostly duff'uns. My ART, for instance, only has distos which sound like a JC-120 (yes, that bad..!). The advantage of separate boxes, in that respect, is that one doesn't have to suffer a weak one in the chain. One may tailor-make the pedal board to one's ideal There are few multis that have everything right (although that, too, is a matter of taste...).
Does this come somewhere near answering the question, or is this, again, the wrong tack..?

[HowieBass]

Without knowing the technology of how a multi-fx unit works it's hard for me to say exactly what's going on inside of it with regard to how individual effects are applied to the incoming signal, however I know that my Zoom unit converts if from analogue to digital, then applies whatever processing it's asked to do to that signal in the order you tell it to, within the constraints of what can be done with the chain and it obviously converts back from digital to analogue and spits out the effected signal (it's actually a hybrid device because it has a valve pre-amp stage too). Individual stomp box boxes may be purely analogue and others are digital or possibly even hybrids. As far as I can tell a multi-fx unit replicates exactly the same as a string of stomp boxes in terms of how effects are applied to the signal, in stages, one process at a time, even though they are likely handled by the same processing chip. If the multi-fx processor is well engineered then it will have a very low latency, or minimal delay between receiving the input and producing an output and I can't see how this would make it any different in performance to a string of separate signal processors, assuming the multi-fx chip is fast enough. I've read that some Boss multi-fx units are poor with regard to switching from one stored patch to another so in that regard latency is an issue; my Zoom unit is supposed to be pretty good with switching speed. There are many who will argue that separate stomp boxes are better, because they're engineered to do mainly one thing at a time and obviously there's still the argument of digital vs analogue but what you do gain with a multi-fx unit is reduced cost and the ability to have many different patches where each patch equates to a different pedalboard.

Edited June 4, 2014 by HowieBass

[xgsjx]

So is your question really "is a multi fx unit as good as stomp boxes?"?

The answer to that is "it depends".

Most multi fx units don't do a great job of dirt, but can do some things better.

[elephantgrey]

The MS60b (in my experience) has some nice preamps and amp/cab sims, and the modulation sounds good (i only dont use because of lack of midi tempo sync with my other time based pedals). Im not that big of a fan of the dirt on it, but they do tend to have mix and mid controls, a step up of most of the analogue versions.

The B1Xon seams like it would be a great option if your curious, 5 effects at once, and an expression pedal for £~70. At that price, it would even serve as a decent stop-gap if you do decide to get individual pedals.

Edited June 4, 2014 by elephantgrey

[gadgie]

No Multi's are not as good are single pedals because the multi's are usually built to a price and don;t use the best components. However, Multi's have been improving over the years, and the prices don;t seem to rise if you know what I mean. I seem to remember a Boss GT5 costing as much if not more than later 'improved' models but don't quote me on that. Plus although you can do weird and wonderful things with multis these days, I tend to think it is easier to 'dial in' the sound you need from singles better. Saying that I've just started my shift and I may be talking rubbish....

[JapanAxe]

Many individual pedals are 'made to a price' these days - surface mount components, pots not secured to chassis, trim pots with tiny plastic twiddly bits poking through the case - pretty much unfixable if they go wrong. Even Boss have downgraded the quality, so today's DS1 is a very different beast from the original.

Edited June 5, 2014 by JapanAxe