Chords for How to Set Volumes in an effect chain

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[G] _ _ _ _ _ [Am] Hi, [Gm] Travis [N] here from Whopper Pedals and the Chasing Tone Podcast.
I wanted to take some time today to talk to you about setting volumes throughout your
whole effects chain, how pedals will work with each other when stacked, and to boost
the front end of an amp as well.
So let me give you a quick breakdown of what we got going on.
So obviously we have my guitar, it's a Don Gross Retro Classic.
I get a lot of questions about the pickups, they're actually pickups that Don, they wind
there, they're called 60's Fats.
But then just a chord, and then I go down from my Wah pedal, and the wireless unit's
not in use, so it's going Wah to the Depths by Earthquaker, which is a vibe unit, then
the Maxon OD9, and then into a Love Pedal Eternity, _ then into the Wampler Velvet Fuzz.
The Orange Fuzz Proto is just a backup in case I need some type of dirt pedal on a pinch,
something goes down on my board, I just go into that and I can ride my volume with it.
But pretend that's not there.
Then the Wampler Faux Tape Echo, and then the Digital Reverb there.
Not using it because the amp I'm using has reverb, and it's a Hot Rod Deluxe, just stock
I think, even stock speaker, everything.
So what I do is I start with just your bass tone, your basic tone, and I've got it EQ'd
pretty [G] flat for that amp, I think everything is straight up and down, right in the middle
on 5, or I think it might go to 12, so it might be 6.
Anyways, it's right in the middle, and it sounds like this.
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_ [G] _ _ _ _ _ So, to me it's lacking in the mid-range a little bit, which I kind of like because I
use a Tube Screamer which bumps that mid-range.
So let's start basically at the beginning.
We're going to skip the Wah pedal because it really, it shouldn't, mine doesn't have
volume control, so it really can't do anything about it. _
So what I like to start with is my vibe first, I think it helps with the overall effect throughout
the signal chain.
So, oh, worth noting, I have everything here on a True Bypass programmable looper, [C] _ so it's
labeled pretty well.
So here's the vibe.
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_ _ _ _ _ _ So you'll notice I have it just a touch louder [C] than my original signal, and the reason being
is to my ear, when you hear the vibe, you almost, it's like a perceived loss of volume.
It's really not changing volume, but it's changing frequency, so it makes you feel like
the volume's dropping.
So I just boost that up to let it get a little bit over.
So here it is with just the clean tone, and then I'll kick on the vibe.
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So it's just a hair louder, and especially like that bass response, that's why I love
this pedal, because it has that throb control in it, it's just awesome.
So now let's kick that off and let's go to my first overdrive, which is the Maxon OD9.
Like I said, it's a Tube Screamer, so it's going to have the, it's going to have that
mid-range hump.
You'll notice this is quite a bit louder than my amp, because I just feel it sounds best
[A] that way, _ _ and I have it labeled the green one.
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So it's not crazy loud, but it is louder than my overall volume on my amp.
To be honest, I leave that pedal on all the time.
Normally I have my second overdrive, normally I have the Clarksdale from Wampler there,
_ but I took that off my board because I took it to an open jam, but now I've got another
great pedal on here, the Eternity from Love Pedal.
_ I never use that pedal by itself, because it's so similar to my first pedal, Overdrive.
I stack that as an additional gain sound.
So what I do is I set it way gainier and way darker, because it's going to basically introduce
more gain into your signal.
So let's hear that just after the clean tone.
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So you can hear it's really close to the same volume, but when I stack them together, it
kind of keeps it around the same volume, gives it a little bit of a boost, but it obviously
is going to introduce some compression and some gain.
So I'll start with clean tone, then I'll start with first overdrive, and then I'll stack
the second overdrive on that, so you can hear the different volume [C] levels.
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[Ab] _ So again, I'll go from the first overdrive to the second overdrive, so you can hear the
volume differences [A] there. _ _ _ _ _ _
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_ _ So to my ear, it's pretty similar volume, but you can definitely hear it gets gainy.
Okay, so moving along to the Wampler Velvet Fuzz, which is an awesome pedal.
[C] The only time I really use fuzz when I'm playing is when the music's really going, when it's really loud.
So it's going to be pretty loud, it's going to be way louder than everything, and I don't
stack any dirt pedals into this, I basically just use it as its own standalone dirt.
So you're going to notice it's my loudest pedal on my board, so here it is.
Here's clean tone, and then the fuzz.
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And _ _ then here's the clean tone [A] again.
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_ So really everything else doesn't have that much effect on volume.
I mean your echo can if you're running it to where the levels higher, the repeats are
higher, I don't.
_ That's basically how I run the volume through my effects chain.
If I'm using a distortion, I will use it standalone, I normally don't stack with that, so I will
kind of use that in the same sense as a fuzz pedal, in the sense that I will have it a
little louder than my overdrive since I'm not stacking it.
But I still won't have it as loud as my fuzz.
So hopefully that gives you an idea of how you can start setting volumes in your effects chain.
Thank you so much for watching. _ _ _ _ _ _