Remember, introducing a distortion pedal into your rig is effectively a second preamp and power amp, so we've got to get them playing nice together.

The first thing you need to do is make sure the gain levels on your amp and pedal are matched up, or at least appreciably close. There's nothing wrong with that, because tons of guitar players still do it. Any pedal that you run through a loop in your switch should always be on, then you can use the bypass controls on the switch to engage them.īut let's say you do end up using a distortion pedal. Do I always leave pedals on when using the switcher? Yes.Just remember, if you don't have a pedal on a given loop, be sure to leave that loop off so it runs through the hard-wired path and skips over the disconnected loop. Since each loop is hard-wired into the switch, you don't need to have a pedal connected to every single one for the switch to work. You do not have to use every send/return in the switcher.

Most amplifier channel switchers are designed and purchased for a particular amp.

Pedal switchers are not the same thing as a channel selector on an amplifier.

Can these switch amp channels as well? In most cases, no.

If you engage a loop with no pedal in it, that will break the audio connection and you won't hear any sound

Most pedal switchers will give you automatic true bypass: With the connection that runs through the switcher itself, each loop can be cutoff which gives you true bypass around whatever pedal is in that loop.

Guitar rig setup