If you are just getting into electric guitar it can be pretty tough to know which guitar pedals to buy, how to use them, what order to put them in, and how to lay them out on a pedalboard. Let’s face it, there are more pedal options out there than ever before and the snowball is just rolling down the hill getting bigger and bigger. That’s why I want to give you some tips on how to build a basic pedalboard that will serve as a great starting point if you are just getting into playing electric guitar. The simple board we will build in this video is great for church and cover gigs. You don’t have to spend a ton of money either. Just a few simple pedals can have you sounding great right out of the gate.
The basic pedals I recommend considering for your pedalboard are a volume pedal, a tuner pedal, an overdrive pedal or two, a delay pedal, a reverb pedal, and some sort of power supply. You don’t have to have all of these pedals to get started through. You can get going with just one pedal. If you don’t know anything about which pedals to buy, I have some recommendations below for each type of pedal mentioned above.
Volume Pedal - Ernie Ball Volume Pedal Jr.
Tuner - TC Electronic PolyTune
Tuner - Boss TU3
Overdrive - Ibanez Tube Screamer Mini
Overdrive - Fulltone OCD
Delay - TC Electronic Flashback
Reverb - TC Electronic Hall of Fame
Power Supply - 1Spot
Power Supply - 1Spot CS7
Power Supply - Temple Audio CIOKS
Power Supply - Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2
Pedalboard - Pedaltrain
Pedalboard - Temple Audio
A big chunk of which pedals you buy comes down to personal preference. You may know what you even like yet but experimenting with as many pedals as possible will help you develop your own personal taste and sound. The pedals mentioned here will serve as a great starting point for your mad scientist tone experiments!
Another topic that can be pretty confusing is pedal order. How in the world do you even know where to start or which pedal should go first or last? Well, part of it comes down to personal preference but there are some basic guidelines that you can use as a starting point. I’d recommend putting your pedals in this general order and tweaking to taste from there. Volume, Tuner, Drive Pedals, Time Based Pedals (Delay, Reverb, Chorus, etc.) Again, this is just a starting point. It's a good idea to play around with the order of your own specific pedals to see how they react and sound in your particular guitar rig.
The name of the game is experimentation. Play around with the gear you have and don’t let anyone tell you what should sound good to you. It may take a while to develop your own sound with the pedals you have but it’s a fun journey! If you have any questions about pedals or need to book a private lesson you can email me at nate@natesavage.com.
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Need advice on strings, picks, and other guitar gear? Here is the gear used in this video.