Best place in chain to put EQ pedal?

[peavey_impact]

If I'm using a distortion pedal into the front of my tube amp, should I put the EQ:

 

Before the distortion?

 

After?

 

Or in the loop?

[thatmullingskid]

after distortion, unless you're using amp distortion.. then the loop.

 

 

just my personal preference, no real rules.

[maxn]

I was looking at this myself. I am guessing most people use the EQ right after the overdrive.

 

 

Here is some info from Wikipedia:

 

 

Placement of EQ in a distortion signal processing chain affects the basic guitar amp tone. Using a guitar's rotary tone control potentiometer is a form of pre-distortion EQ. Placing an EQ pedal before a distortion pedal or before a guitar amp's built-in preamp distortion provides preliminary control of the preamp distortion voicing.

 

For more complete control of preamp distortion voicing, an additional EQ pedal can be placed after a distortion pedal; or, equivalently, the guitar amp's tone controls, after the built-in preamp distortion, can be used. An EQ pedal in the amp's effects loop, or the amp's tone controls placed after preamp distortion, constitutes post-distortion EQ, which finishes shaping the preamp distortion and sets up the power-tube distortion voicing.

 

As an example of pre-distortion EQ, Eddie Van Halen places a 6-band MXR EQ pedal before the Marshall amplifier head (pre-distortion EQ). Slash places a Boss GE-7, a 7-band EQ pedal, before his Marshall amp. This technique is similar to placing a Wah pedal before the amp's preamp distortion and leaving the Wah pedal positioned part-way down, sometimes mentioned as "fixed wah," (pre-distortion EQ), along with adjusting the amp's tone controls (post-distortion EQ).

 

If a dummy load guitar-amp configuration is used, an additional EQ position becomes available, between the dummy load and the final amplifier that drives the guitar speaker. Van Halen used an additional EQ in this position. This configuration is commonly used with rackmount systems.

 

Finally, an EQ pedal such as a 10-band graphic EQ pedal can be placed in the Insert jack of a mixer to replace the mixer channel's EQ controls, providing graphical control over the miked guitar speaker signal.

[Geno_xl]

It depends on what your trying to get out of the pedal. If it was me I would try it in the effects loop and behind the distortion to see which way it sounds best. I have used one in the effects loop of my tube amp for years but I use the amps overdrive and not a pedal.

[peavey_impact]

I'm basically trying to eliminate some of the "fizz" that the pedal is giving off while also bumping up the low mids. I'll play around with it and see what works best for me.

[justintee]

yeah experiment.

 

what i do is i run my eq at the beginning of my fx loop. and if i'm too lazy to set up the loop, it's after my dirt pedals anyways.

[parrotheada1a]

I tried an experiment last night. I have a GE-7, and usually had it post distortion, last pedal before the amp. I'd always noticed a little background hiss when it was on. I figured it was boosting the highs out of other pedals like my wah. The nice thing is that my tone was pretty smooth. So I took it outta that position, and put it right before my crybaby and distortion. The hiss is gone, but the rest of it sounds a bit raw and fizzy if I crank up the distortion. Tweaking is kinda fun though.

[OldCrankyDouche]

I use my amp OD and have an effects loop, but I dont put my EQ there. Its first in my chain. I just recently realised that most people put it in the loop. I just dont have the cables to make that work at the moment.

[Kubenzi]

i like it after the dirt and the comp