Anyone else do delay before gain?

[stevejamsecono]

I got inspired to start messing with my established pedal order after reading a few of the interviews in the Pedal Crush book. I've always waffled between having my modulations before and after my gains, but it had honestly never occurred to me to put any of my delay pedals before my gain stages.

WOW. To say the least that's quite the difference. Suddenly the delay sounds massive. Granted, a bit harder to dial in but it seems to make rhythmic stuff pop a bit better and it sounds more like some of my favorites (Andy Summers, VH) who ran echoplexes in front of cranked amps. When the day comes to play with other people again I'm definitely going to try it in practice.

Anyone else do this on the regular?

[soggy mittens]

Yeah I got into it ages ago from listening to Sparta and being like "how do they get that delay tone, it is so good", then sussed it out now I use it for my high gain slap back doubling kinda sound for leads and also for modulated eighth note delay for at least one song at the moment. I use post gain delay more for rhythm based stuff tho.

[seenoevil II]

My favorite is a single ping at like a doted quarter with just completely degenerate levels of gain. Even better with a bit crusher or octave fuzz, but i can only do that in DAW rn. It feels like there's a monkey strapped to your back and he's mocking you by copying all of your actions.

[Gavanti]

Yep. I have my RE20 sandwiched between fuzzes and other drives. It sounds pretty great there.

[Pacafeliz]

Yessir! I use a short kind room delay before od/dist pedals and a long one at the end. Sounds so good!!!

[fuzzjunkie]

If have an El Capistan before a fuzzy overdrive and a Timefactor after. I like that Echoplex into a cranked amp sound, as mentioned by the OP.

The El Capistan doesn’t have the Echoplex preamp that really drives that sound, so the overdrive fills that in and boosts the signal going to the amp. It’s a dual overdrive and has a second gain stage if I want to make things fuzzy, but usually the boost is enough.

[Shadoweclipse13]

I was always on the fence about having delay and reverb before gain because even though I love the sound, I have a big enough board and didn't want to make it bigger. I ended up getting an EQD Afterneath for exactly that purpose, which is sweet because it can be used as either delay or reverb.

My post-gain pedals don't change much (the pedals OR the order), but pre-gain I've been messing with quite a bit. I've got my phaser pre-gain because it sounds almost wah-like with gain on, and I've got my Afterneath before that so I can get some deep, droning phaser stuff when I want to.