Only one more pedal to get and then the pedal board is ready. There might be some changes after that one pedal but that one should make it “complete”. You can see from picture I made some changes. If you wonder why there is so much room on top row and bottom row is so tight, reason is the last pedal is bit bigger and it comes to top row. Another reason is bottom row has pedals which comes before amp and top row pedals which are in effects loop. Tuner is first pedal but it didn’t fit to bottom row.
Pedal order is bit unconventional and normal people wouldn’t have three reverbs and delays on same board. I will get to why I have these pedals and why they are in this order after I get “last pedal”. One unconventional placement is MXR Reverb as third pedal right after tuner and gate. Even when early chain reverb is unconventional having something like MXR Reverb in there is even more unconventional. It seems to be place for reverb that can go 100%. MXR Reverb can kill dry signal but it is not convenient to do. I won’t even try it. I have other pedal later in chain which can kill dry easily in case I want that effect.
I got MXR Reverb to early chain reverb because of few reasons. It felt like good before distortion reverb. My main problems with TC Electronic T2 and Digitech Supernatural was too much modulation. MXR Reverb has cleaner and less modulated sound. It sounded good to dirty amp on one demo video. It has simple controls. I don’t need too much control because I can use pedals later in chain for that. It has some sort of octave reverb which gives me octave effect when I need it. Not on level octave pedals but if I need something like that it is there.
Thing that made me get this and not some other pedal was analog dry-through. So no analog to digital and back to analog conversion for dry signal. I hated when Supernatural went silent when I changed reverb type. Maybe converting dry sound to digital was one reason why I didn’t like Supernatural’s sound that much. Thinking about having analog dry-through on all digital pedals. That would mean replacing R1 and not getting D1. Currently I am not planning to get D1. R1 can stay on board. I just got it and I like it too much to replace so soon. I tried to find if D1 and R1 have analog dry-through but couldn’t find anything. So I assume they convert dry signal to digital when turned on. Don’t know if this is such a big deal with these pedals. My amp convers sound to digital anyway as I use cab simulation. But I had plan to have all analog pedalboard at some point and I like to keep dry signal analog as much as possible.
I don’t think I would be happy with MXR Reverb as last in chain. I like to have more control there. It works better early in signal chain. It is like pedal is designed to be before dirty amp or it is not meant to color your tone too much. It is not meant to be first in chain. If it was dry-kill would have been behind switch or button. Now you have to take the power off and put it back on pressing correct buttons and do something when it has started. Tone and mix give enough control to make pedal to add more context to sound or turn it into chaotic mess when pedal is before distortion.
Still need to get better at using early chain reverb but I think this pedal does what I want it to do. Not sure how much of subtle early chain reverb does in context of song but it is fun when playing guitar by itself.