Order! Order! Actually just wondering if this is the best order?

[Cat Burrito]

I'm afraid I am something of a Luddite when it comes to effects but I have dusted down and am revamping my effects pedal. Before I commit to casting my decision in heavy duty Velcro I just wanted to gauge opinions on if I have the best order. This sounded pretty good to me (I didn't fully realise just how much difference order can make) but open to thoughts from any of you who are more experienced.

So I have bass guitar > tuner > pure boost > distortion > compression > chorus > flanger > amp. 

[Jonse]

There's no right or wrong order, but I tend to follow convention when it comes to pedals. 

I would order it:

Tuner - compressor - boost - distortion - chorus - flanger - amp. 

Not too different from yours but in my experience the compressors I have used have worked better when fed a cleaner signal I.e. before distortion.  

[DiMarco]

I'm with Jonse on this one. You can also utilize the compressor to raise the sound level a bit if you want your dirtboxes to get really raunchy.

[paul_5]

Mine runs compressor, octave, envelope filter, then various dirt boxes and finally chorus and phaser.

[Salt on your Bass?]

There's a good "that pedal show" YouTube vid on pedal order if you fancy delving in (it is guitar based though).

I think it was this one: 

 

Just to add to the above, placement of your boost depends how you want to manage your gain staging and will have a bit of a difference running pre or post dirt. I've preferred boost after dirt historically so my dirt sound gets louder rather than boosting the gain on my dirts.

I typically run compression early to smooth my playing, and I understand that putting it after dirt can cancel a bit of dirt to a degree. Ovnilab is a good resource about compressor placement if you fancy a read.

http://www.ovnilab.com/faq.shtml 

Edited June 2, 2020 by Salt on your Bass?
Added some links

[dave_bass5]

23 hours ago, Jonse said:

There's no right or wrong order, but I tend to follow convention when it comes to pedals. 

I would order it:

Tuner - compressor - boost - distortion - chorus - flanger - amp. 

Not too different from yours but in my experience the compressors I have used have worked better when fed a cleaner signal I.e. before distortion.  

Same here, but as stated, what sounds good is the correct order. 

[BassThing]

There used to be a very general rule of thumb - Filters>Gain>EQ>Modulation>Delays>Reverb. It was only a starting point and had a few quirks when people described it e.g. a phaser would often be classed as a filter rather than modulation. However, as you play around with pedal order you find you can get different effects so a phaser might sound good after your gain stages (e.g. distortion/od)

As an alternative to Jonse's order of Tuner - compressor - boost - distortion - chorus - flanger - amp, you could also try Tuner - compressor - distortion - boost - chorus - flanger - amp. the former would make your dirt dirty when kicking boost, the latter just making everything a bit louder. Experimentation is the name of the game.

Rule 1: There are no rules.

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

In the words of Joe Meek, "if it sounds right, it is right"

[Cat Burrito]

53 minutes ago, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

In the words of Joe Meek, "if it sounds right, it is right"

I've spent 30yrs plus of playing with that exact approach. I just figured some folk on here know a lot more about pedals than me so I was looking for options to try. So far my original order (narrowly) sounds best to my ears but it's fun to gauge views of others.