The Pedal Handbook

RigShed has 38 pedals in eight families. This isn’t a list of all 38 — the board itself tells you their names. This is the part that’s harder to work out on your own: what each family is for, which one to reach for, and why the order they sit in matters more than any single setting.

Every pedal is free. There is no paywalled tone.

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The order is fixed, and that’s the point

On a real pedalboard you choose the order and live with the consequences. RigShed fixes it, in the order a working board is almost always built:

gate → compressor → drive → amp → cabinet → EQ → modulation → delay → reverb

That’s not a limitation to work around, it’s the reason things sound right by default. Two rules fall out of it, and most tone problems are one of them:

• Everything before the amp changes how hard the amp is driven. A drive pedal doesn’t just add its own dirt, it pushes the amp further too.
• Everything after the amp is treating a finished sound. Reverb doesn’t get distorted, because the distortion already happened.

If you have ever wondered why a delay sounds like mush on a real board, it’s because it was in front of the amp and got distorted. Here it can’t be.

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Noise gates — five of them

First in the chain, before anything amplifies the hiss.

A gate shuts the signal off when you’re not playing. It fixes hum, single-coil buzz and the roar that high gain adds to silence. It fixes nothing you can hear while you’re actually playing.

Put it first because gating after a drive pedal means gating a signal that’s already been made noisy. Gate the quiet signal, then amplify it.

Which one: start with Silencer, the general-purpose one. If it’s cutting your sustain off, go to Whisper, which is deliberately shallow. If you’re palm-muting hard and want silence between chugs, Sentinel. Smart Cut is fast and tight for tighter playing; Flatline is the gentle, musical one.

Setting it: turn the threshold up until the noise stops, then back it off until your quietest notes ring properly. A gate set too hard is worse than no gate — you’ll hear notes get chopped at the end.

You may not need one at all. If you’re plugged into an interface and running clean, skip it.

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Compressors — five of them

Evening out what you play, before the drive gets hold of it.

A compressor makes quiet notes louder and loud notes quieter. What you actually hear is sustain, an even picking response, and a snappier attack. It’s the most misunderstood pedal on any board because at sensible settings it’s felt more than heard.

Which one: Red Squeeze for the obvious, audible squash — country and funk picking. Optical for a smooth, gradual response that stays out of the way. Golden State is fast and FET-style, good for taming aggressive picking. Studio Comp for long sustain. Duality blends compressed and clean in parallel, which is how you get the benefit without hearing the pedal — start here if you don’t know what you want.

Setting it: more compression means less dynamic range, and dynamics are most of what makes the amp respond to your hands. Use less than you think.

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Drives — six of them

Six ways into break-up, from a clean nudge to full fuzz.

This is where most people spend their time, and where the chain order pays off most. A drive pedal in front of the amp does two things at once: it distorts, and it drives the amp harder. That second part is often the bigger effect.

Which means a drive pedal with its gain almost off is still doing something — it’s pushing the amp. That’s the single most useful trick on the board.

Reach for	When you want
Golden Horse	A clean boost that tips into gentle break-up. The “push the amp” pedal
Sunrise	More gain without changing your tone’s character — transparent and low-colour
Green Scream	A mid-hump that cuts through a band. The classic lead-boost shape
Vermin	Hard, aggressive clipping. A distortion rather than an overdrive
Sputterbox	Spitty, gated fuzz — deliberately broken-sounding
Big Wool	Thick, scooped, endless sustain. Big chords and doom

Stacking two: put the lower-gain one first and use it as a boost into the higher-gain one. Two high-gain pedals together usually just sounds worse.

If it sounds fizzy: back off the pedal’s gain and turn the amp’s drive up instead. Fizz is usually too much gain in the wrong place.

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Equalisers — five of them

After the cabinet, treating the finished sound.

These are five genuinely different circuits, not one EQ with five presets, and they do different jobs. Sitting after the cab means an EQ here shapes your final tone rather than driving the amp — which is what you want for cutting through a mix, and the opposite of what the amp’s own bass knob does.

Reach for	When you want
Pure Boost	Just more level. No filters at all — one clean control
Parametric	To find and fix one problem frequency. Sweep Freq until the nasty bit gets worse, then cut it
Studio EQ	Two sweepable bells — cut a problem low and lift a presence peak
7-Band	Broad shaping across the guitar’s core range, 100 Hz to 6.4 kHz
10-Band	The same, wider, 31 Hz to 16 kHz — reaches below and above the guitar itself

Graphic or parametric? A graphic is for shaping a whole tone by feel. A parametric is for surgery on one frequency. If you can hum the problem, use a parametric. If you just want “brighter”, use a graphic.

Cut before you boost. Boosting everything is just volume.

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Modulation — six of them

After the cab, where modulation sits on a real board.

Movement. Used well it’s the difference between a chord that sits there and one that shimmers; used heavily it’s a sound in itself.

Reach for	When you want
Ensemble	Bright, classic chorus — clean arpeggios
Small Choir	Warmer, darker chorus that doesn’t add brightness
Four Stage	Phaser with feedback — sweeping and vocal
Jet Stream	Flanger. The jet sweep. More extreme than a phaser
Tremolo	Amplitude and pitch modulation — the oldest effect there is
Omnibus	Several modulations combined when you want something less ordinary

Setting it: depth and rate fight each other. Fast and deep is seasick. Pick one to push and keep the other modest.

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Delays — five of them

All five take tap tempo and BPM sync, in note divisions.

Delay in time with the song is a different instrument from delay that isn’t. Tap the tempo, pick a division — dotted eighths for the rhythmic thing, quarter notes for slapback and space.

Reach for	When you want
Digital Delay	Clean, precise repeats that stay as clear as the original
Carbon Dark	Bucket-brigade behaviour — each repeat darker than the last, so it sits behind you
Flashpoint	Modern and pristine
Skywriter	Tape-style, with wow and flutter. Character rather than accuracy
Fadeaway	Vintage memory-style echo

The clean/dark choice is the real one. Clean repeats stay present and can clutter a busy part. Darkening repeats get out of the way, which is why they suit lead playing.

Feedback: three or four repeats is usually plenty. Past that you’re building a texture, not an echo — which is fine, if that’s what you meant.

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Reverbs — five of them

Last before the looper — the room the whole rig sits in.

Reach for	When you want
Room Verb	A small natural space. The “sounds like it was recorded somewhere” setting
Spring Tank	Vintage spring — the drip and splash of an amp’s own tank
Skyline	Plate. Smooth and dense, flattering on leads
Hall of Sound	A large hall. Long and obvious
Basilica	Ethereal and ambient — a texture more than a room

Less than you think. Reverb sounds great alone and disappears in a mix, so people overdo it. Set it, then turn it down a third.

With delay: delay first, reverb after — which is the order here. Both at once needs both pulled back, or the whole thing turns to soup.

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A working order

1. Amp first. Get a sound you like with no pedals on at all.
2. Then drive, if you need more than the amp gives you.
3. Then compressor and gate, if the playing or the noise needs it.
4. Then EQ, to fix what’s left.
5. Modulation, delay and reverb last — these are seasoning, not the meal.

Adding effects to a bad amp sound never fixes it. It buries it.

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If something seems wrong

Symptom	Cause
Notes cut off early	Gate threshold too high, or a fast gate on sustained playing. Back it off, or switch to Whisper
Everything sounds squashed and lifeless	Too much compression. It’s removing the dynamics the amp responds to
Fizzy, thin distortion	Too much gain on the pedal. Back it off and drive the amp harder instead
Two drives sound worse than one	Two high-gain pedals stacked. Make the first one a boost with its gain almost off
Delay turns to mush	Too much feedback, or clean repeats on a busy part. Fewer repeats, or a darkening delay
Sounds huge alone, vanishes in a mix	Too much reverb and scooped mids. Cut the reverb, keep the mids
EQ isn’t fixing it	EQ can’t fix a bad amp sound. Go back to step one