The answer to the question of what order to put them in is… ‘it depends’.

You have to identify a few parts of your signal chain to really figure it out. What effects are you using in your multi effects and what are the other pedals that you want to use with it. Do you have a killer boutique overdrive pedal and a BOSS ME-50? Well chances are that you will be using the OD from your pedal rather than what is built into the ME-50. Since we usually want to put overdrive and distortion early in the chain, I would put the OD before the ME-50.

I know some people who have a POD LiveXT  on their pedalboad (I know big board) for the amp modelling and direct outputs, but most of their effects are in other pedals. So in this case their entire pedal chain ends with the POD, so that it can be jacked into the sound system directly rather than into an amp (or in addition to).  I know several guys in church settings who use a POD this way, for the flexibility they can get out of it.

If you have something like a visual sound volume pedal, I would probably put that after my multi effects (unless my multi-effects had a volume built in) so that it was after my gain pedals.  Also delay and reverb pedals can go well after a multi-effects unit since they usually come at the end of the chain.

Of course you would want to edit you multi-effects patches to work with your pedals so you didn’t have 2 delays or phasers or whatever fighting with each other.

So say you had an Effectrode Tube Drive, a BOSS ME-50 and a Line6 DL4 delay. I would put them in that order, leaving out the distortion and delay from my patches on the ME-50.

One last thing is that some multi-effects units have effects loops built in to them. You will want to look in the manual to see where in the signal chain the effects loop leaves the multi-effects unit. Is it after the gain stage (distortion) or after all the effects before amp modeling, or somewhere else? Some newer units (like the Digidesign Eleven) will let you move the physical effects loop to anywhere in the effects chain.

So the question is really what am I adding to or replacing in the multi-effects box and is it closer to the front or back of the signal chain that I want.

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Welcome to my first real gear review. I’m just learning the whole critiquing process, so hang in there with me as I get better at it. Also in future reviews, I hope to add audio samples in with the review as well.

I recently got the Seymour Duncan Shape Shifter Tremolo pedal via Dave Weiner of Steve Vai and Riff Of the Week fame. I had been playing a Boss TR-2 Tremolo on my pedalboard for a while but was always wanting easier control over the tempo.

Construction:

The Shape Shifter is a slightly larger pedal at 5.5 inches wide and 5 inches tall, but has a  sturdy metal construction that feels like it will last. The knobs are chickenhead style knobs and have a very smooth feel to them.

It runs off standard 9v power, my one-spot power supply is powering it with no problems.

The buttons are probably my only problem with this pedal. They have a louder than average click to them so while this is not usually a big deal on a on/off button, on a tempo button where you will need to click it several times in a row, its noticeable, if you are in-between songs.

Features:

The Shape Shifter is a mono pedal, with  4 knobs, 1 switch and 2 buttons and 2 LEDs.

The knobs are:

Tremolo Depth:

how far the signal is dropped on each pulse

Wave Shape:

This controls how the wave is balanced. Is the peak in the middle or does it peak early and fall off, or build slowly and then drop off fast. There are some interesting sounds to be had here.

Wave Type:

This knob lets you mix between Sine Wave, Saw Wave and Square wave for a variety of sounds from smooth to chop.

Speed:

This knob has 2 modes set by the switch (either in ratio or rate mode) Rate mode is a simple slow to fast as you turn the knob. If you tap the tempo in rate mode, you get 2 pulses per tap. In ratio mode the knob is split into 4 zones 1:1, 2:1, 3:1, 4:1 where you can get x amount of pulses per 1 tempo click. So if you are tapping quarter notes in your song, 1:1 gives you one pulse per beat, 2:1 gives you eighth note pulses, 3:1 gives you triplet pulses and 4:1 gives you sixteenth note pulses.

The left button is you on/off and features “true hardwire bypass” if that is your thing. The right button is the tap tempo button.

The red LED is your on/off indicator and the right yellow LED pulses with the settings.

Sound:

This pedal really sounds great. You can dial in a wide variety of tones and with the tap tempo feature make it fit very easily into whatever you are playing. The notes on the pedal say its audio path is 100% analog, but the timing is digital.  So far I have mostly used it set on sine wave, 2:1 to the tempo of the song I’m playing around 30% depth and it adds that little something extra.

Price:

MSRP for this pedal is $225 and at the time of this article it was selling for $158.97 on a popular music retailer’s web site.

Conclusion:

Pros:

Lots of control over tremolo settings, tap tempo, sturdy construction.

Cons:

Louder than average button clicks.

The Pedalboard Planner Take:

This pedal’s pros outweigh its cons by a long shot. The pedal sounds great and has found it’s spot on my pedalboard. What is your experience with the shapeshifter? Feel free to comment below!

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