How to Stack Pedals
Okay, let’s get down to business. And before you ask, no, we’re not defeating the Huns.
Today, we’re putting together some truly great pedal stacking combinations. Obviously, there are endless ways to stack guitar pedals. Literally, you could spend the rest of your life trying combinations. Maybe you should. Maybe you will. That's part of the fun of it.
What I'm going to show you today are some stacking combos that I personally have used for a long time. These are my tried-and-true pedal stacking combinations, but I want to make it clear that these are not hard, fast rules. These are just things that I stumbled into, things that I was inspired to do by artists that I love. That's what I'm sharing.
Light Gain Overdrive + Medium Gain Overdrive = Heavy Overdrive
The first and most important stacking method that I use and have always used is taking a light gain overdrive, like the Morning Glory, and stacking it with a Tube Screamer.
The reason I use the light gain overdrive is because I like having my first stage overdrive with no mid peak in it. Basically, that means the bass, mid, and treble are even across the board (also called transparent overdrive), so it makes your guitar a bit more broken up without coloring the actual sound. On any pedal board I have, I set this pedal to a light breakup and never turn it off; I keep it as a stage one overdrive, almost a natural part of my amp’s sound. Some good alternatives to a Morning Glory, which is a Bluesbreaker-style circuit, would be something like Paul Cochran's Timmy and the Xotic RC Booster, which are both great transparent pedals that don't color your sound.
Now, here's the trick. We take that first stage that's clean, transparent, no mids, and add something with a ton of mids. Some people use a Tube Screamer. Now, this is obvious because companies like myself have made pedals that combine these into one, like my Double Barrel that has the Morning Glory and a Tube Screamer. You have all kinds of builders doing that nowadays.
So you can use a Tube Screamer, but I personally use a Klon Centaur when I’m jamming at my office. If I’m taking my pedals on the road, then I’ll probably leave my Klon Centaur at home so it doesn’t get stolen. In that case, I switch over to the KTR Overdrive instead. There are some other options that are affordable and awesome: the Tumnus by Wampler, the Archer by Rockett Pedals, and the Sacred Cow by Mojo Hand FX. All of these are great versions of the Klon circuit, and for what I'm using it for, you can't tell a difference.
If you want to see the reason this is cool, turn the drive knob up. Everyone gets a Klon because it's mystical and hard to get, and they use it as a clean boost, which I don't understand. I hate it as a clean boost. So I crank the drive knob up to 75%, I put the treble/tone control at noon, and then I adjust the volume accordingly, and I have a beautiful second stage breakup that's rich and full of mids. Then I can stack it with the Morning Glory and get a heavy mid range boosted overdrive that's rich, it's thick, and works great on any pickup, neck bridge, or middle. I can't say enough about it.
If you have this setup, try it. Also, get a Klon and try it as a heavy overdrive. Not enough people do it, and I think you'll be really surprised.
Boost + Boost = DIY Overdrive
Next up, take two boost pedals-- doesn't matter what they are --and combine them. Boom. Congratulations. You just made a DIY overdrive.
A lot of you guys might not realize that some overdrive circuits are simply gain stages cascading into each other. When you combine two boost pedals, in a sense it does the same thing, but you get infinite tweakability. I could have taken one of any 40 boosts and put it somewhere in this two pedal setup and change the entire overdrive sound for this setup.
I like to use the ZVex Super Hard On and the EarthQuaker Arrows, but you could literally use any two boosts on the planet and this would work. If you try this, you'll be really, really surprised. It's fantastic and infinitely tweakable and great for people who like to try different styles of overdrive sounds, and who really want to try something other than a Tube Screamer.
Some pedal companies actually sell the set of two boosts. ZVex actually has to have this in one case for this reason. I even made a double boost/overdrive pedal, the Kirkland Signature Boost, which John Mayer has had on his pedalboard forever. I get asked about it a bunch but I plead the fifth.
Quarter Note + Dotted Eighth = Rhythmic Dual Delay
Next up is a fun one. Basically, you take two delay pedals and you sync them together. You let one run quarter notes, and the one after it runs dotted eighth notes. Now this is big. Guys like the Edge and U2 have done stuff like this for years. I prefer an analog delay as the quarter note front, and then I like a nice digital delay for the dotted eighth repeats.
When I tested this out at the studio, I used the Walrus ARP-87 and my Panther Cub. When they combine, you hear the quarter note hit the dotted eight, like a rhythmic punch into each other. It's really, really fantastic. Both the pedals I used in the demo have tap tempo, which I feel is necessary because it lets me chain these together. Both pedals have an external tab jack. The best part is that when I play these pedals together, they're going to be syncopated. When I tap the tempo on one, both of them sync up, with quarter notes and dotted eighths. Beautiful.
Reverb + Tremolo = Clean Ambient Bliss
This next one has been around for a while, since before people even started stacking pedals. It started through guitar amplifiers. For example, a blackface ’65 Fender Princeton already has the reverb and tremolo effects built in. Now what's particularly interesting is that in an amplifier like this, the tremolo is after the reverb. But you have people-- even me --telling you to put your tremolo after your overdrive and before your delays and reverbs. That’s a rule.
But rules are made to be broken, right?
I typically break that rule every time I combine tremolo and reverb. So, just like the amp, the reverb is before the tremolo. That's what you need to try.
Now, what I like to do is take a big ol’ ambient reverb, like the Old Blood Noise Dark Star. It does a lot of crazy stuff, but I'm going to just set it as a big ambient wash. Then I'm going to take one of my Kodiak tremolos, and I'm just going to let it pulse and trim the decay of the reverb and the clean signal. It's really beautiful. It's awesome for clean tones.
It's something that you absolutely have to try: tremolo and reverb. They're made for each other, like peanut butter and jelly, or grilled cheese and strawberry jam**.
**Don’t knock it ‘till you try it. It sounds like Martian food. It tastes like heaven.
Fuzz + Tube Screamer = Fuzz That Cuts Through The Mix
Fuzz stacked into an overdrive pedal? Now, this one is really cool, and in some cases, it's a non-negotiable.
What I want to go over is the sound of a Big Muff, and the process of putting that into a Tube Screamer. I like to use a White Elk by Wren and Cuff, which is a really cool version of a weird Big Muff clone that existed back in the day. So, the Big Muff doesn't have any mid frequency peak at all. It kind of has a scoop and a lot of people complain, “Dude, I turned my Big Muff on, but we're in a band setting and I disappear out of the mix.” Which 100% makes sense, honestly, because mids are super important to make you stand out in that mix.
So to fix that problem, you need to add a Tube Screamer.
So, Big Muff into a Tube Screamer. I love using the JAM TubeDreamer, which is really a great version of a Screamer, but any of them will work. Since you already get a lot of the mids with this set up, turn the drive down low. You don't need any more distortion. The Big Muff has plenty. Turn the volume up, and turn the treble up so the mids comp a little bit with the treble.
And when you stack them, the fuzz suddenly peeks its head out from that crazy mix. It's rich, it's thick, it's all the things you love about the Big Muff, but it's just stronger and better. This is a really good go-to combo.
Delay + Modulated Reverb = Washy Ambience
So, it’s not a secret that I'm a big fan of ambient clean guitar tone. To explain this, I’ll paraphrase Jim Gaffigan, “Of course, cops like ambient clean guitar tone. They know right from wrong!”
Okay, in context he may have been talking about donuts, not guitars, but my point still stands.
So, here’s how I get it done: I take a delay (any delay will work, but I really like the Diamond Memory Lane Jr) and I set it to a faint, but almost strong quarter note echo. If that makes zero sense (which is reasonable), feel free to watch my JHS Show episode on this topic to listen to this demo around minute 14.
Basically, I hit a note and then it bounces back slowly. There’s a little bit of a longer delay time required in this, so you may want to tap in the tempo if your pedal allows that. You have this repeat falling with the rhythm of how you're playing, and then you add a modulated reverb. The BOSS RV-5 is a really, really great option here; it's on so many albums and so many great players still use this.
Now, when you combine the quarter note delay into the modulating reverb, I think it's one of the best sounds out there. You’ve got to keep the modulation and the effect level of this kind of low. You don't want to get all crazy and wash it out. But if you do it in a faint way, it's really, really special. And I think a lot of you guys would like it.
There's a few pedals you could use here. The Caverns by Robert Keely has a modulating reverb setting and a delay. The Quiet Theory Prelude is also a great pedal, since it has both settings. The EarthQuaker Dispatch Master doesn't say it has modulated reverb, but I swear it's there, plus it's a really simple pedal to use. I've often used this for big ambient slide parts with overdrive, and I have a knob setting that works great.
Octave + Fuzz = Massive Wall of Riff Rock
The last combination may be the best because it's the most rambunctious. It's the one that really frustrates your neighbors and makes everyone in your house hate you.
But that's why we play guitar, right? To be heard.
I think this is going to help you be heard. Take an octave pedal, like the Electro Harmonix Micro POG, the OT-10 Octave by Ibanez, or the BOSS OC2. I actually like octaves that are a little more glitchy that don't track as well, because the pedals that are technically bad sometimes sound really good. You take the octave pedal, and you put it before a big fuzz pedal. I like the Death by Audio Fuzz War, just because it sounds as big as the case looks.**
**For reference, the case is bigger than my head.
Set the octave up with about 50% dry signal, if you have that option. Use a lot of subs, like 75% sub octave and a little bit of high octave, which helps replicate the OT-10 setting. A whammy works well for this, too, if you want to use it. It's super glitchy and really fun. MXR also makes the Sub Machine and the MXR Blue Box, so you have plenty of options here.
Long story short, you put these two pedals together, and you get the one amp to rule them all. You can be a rowdy rocker again, and honestly, that alone is worth the price of admission for this pedal stacking combo.
Bonus Pedals
Before I wrap up, I want to show you a few more options for pedals that have some of these multiple effects already in them, kind of a two-in-one thing.
For the reverb and tremolo, the Strymon Flint is really great. It's honestly a modern staple; this thing is on a ton of boards for a reason. It has a lot of good reverbs: big and ambient or spring. Plus you can add in the tremolo.
Also, I explained how to sync two delays earlier, but there are a lot of pedals out there that have that multiple delay settings built in, like the DD-500 from BOSS. The Eventide H9 is another option that I actually have on my personal board. I use it as a catch-all for a lot of different effects, but it has settings and algorithms in it that let you kind of stack multiple delays, so it’s really useful.
And then of course, you can go with any of the fancy new Line 6 stuff, like HX Effects. This has gobs of delay options. Whatever you’re looking to experiment with, you can find that delay effect on here. Trust me. You may already own something that does this, so don't feel the need to run out and buy something new. Just be sure if you're using a multi-effect delay or reverb that it does let you stack multiple delays.
With overdrive pedals, there are some really good options: you have the JHS Double Barrel, which has the Morning Glory and the screamer already in it. Then there’s The Pearl by T1M and The Browne Amplification Protein, which has a Bluesbreaker-style circuit (similar to the Morning Glory) into a Nobles-style circuit, which is a type of Screamer Klon.
For rocking out your overdrive and distortion with the same pedal, you can always go back to the old classic: Jekyll and Hyde. It has some great stacking possibilities. You can make the screamer side of this cleaner and get kind of a transparent sound, and then the distortion side definitely has heavy mids. Another really affordable pedal that people forget about is the Fulltone GT-500, which you could get today for $50 - $75. Super reasonable pricing. The GT-500 is a great two-in-one, and like my Double Barrel or some of these others, you have an order toggle so you can choose which side comes first. Check those out.
At the end of the day, I just want you to get your pedalboard and start stacking stuff, have fun, change the order, try some things out. You’ll definitely have fun, and you might even find your new favorite sound.