How to Start an Electric Guitar Rig in 8 Easy Steps

You want to get into electric guitar but where do you start?

What are the components you need to get going and how do you connect everything together? In this article, I'll show you how to start an electric guitar rig in eight easy steps, getting you from basic setup, all the way to your first pedals and effect processor connections.

Basically, it can be as simple or as involved as you want. So if you don't want to get into greater complexity, just stop at an earlier step.

Step 1 deals with the absolute basics, while later steps get into more advanced guitar rig topics.

Let's jump in.

1. Start with guitar, cable, and amplifier

The most basic form of a guitar rig comes in three parts

1. An electric guitar
2. Connecting instrument cable
3. An electric guitar amplifier

These are the three components you'll need on-hand before you start connecting your guitar rig.

Connections

To get started, connect your guitar to one side of the cable then connect the other side of that cable to the input on your amplifier. From there, plug the amplifier into an electrical three-pronged outlet.

Once everything is connected, turn your amplifier on and turn the volume on your electric guitar all the way up. Also make sure the volume and gain knobs (if you have both) on your amplifier are turned up slowly, until you can hear sound.

• Make sure volume on your guitar is all the way up
• Check that the instrument cable is plugged all the way in to both the guitar and amp
• Check whether you have volume, gain, or both on your amplifier
• Set volume and gain to about 20 percent
• Strum your guitar
• If you can't hear sound, turn volume up on your amplifier slowly until you do

2. Add a guitar pedal

There are a ton of different guitar pedals out there, though most of them connect to your guitar rig the same way. 

1. Guitar
2. Instrument cable
3. Pedal
4. Second instrument cable
5. Amplifier

While pedals aren't required to use an electric guitar, they are a fun and effective way of expanding the types of sounds that you're able to create. 

Read more: Best guitar pedals

Here's how the connection process would look:

Once your cables are connected you'll need a power source for your guitar pedal. This can be either a 9V battery or a guitar pedal power supply, like the following:

Use either your battery or a more permanent power supply to power your pedal and connect as follows:

Here's a checklist to run through when you're using a guitar pedal, without regard to the type of pedal you're using.

1. Check that volume on your guitar is all the way up.
2. Make sure all your cable connections are tight
3. Make sure your guitar pedal turns on (most have a red or blue indicator light)
4. Check to see if you can hear sound with the pedal off
5. Check to see if you can hear sound with the pedal on

3. Adding multiple pedals

If you want to add multiple pedals, you'll just need to make sure you have the following:

• Instrument cables for each connection (pedal to pedal)
• A power source for each additional pedal (batteries or power supply)

When you add a pedal, you'll need an instrument cable to carry the signal from one pedal to another, like this:

Adding more pedals also increases the need for a more permanent and sustainable power source, like the power supplies I mentioned earlier.

Read more: Best guitar pedal power supplies

4. Adding a pedalboard

As you compile pedals, you might want to consider adding a pedalboard to your guitar rig. Not only does this help protect your pedals, but it also allows you to carry and move them easily, all at once. 

Read more: Best pedalboards for guitar rigs

Velcro or hook/loop fasteners

How do you get your pedals to stay fixed to the pedalboard? The most common method is Velcro or a generic form of hook/loop fastener material. For any pedalboard user, this is a cheap and worthwhile investment to make as it's the only way to keep your pedals from moving around on the board.

This material pulls off into two parts, one with a sticky end which should be cut to fit on the bottom of your pedals. The other end should be fitted and stuck on your pedalboard. Now, when the material makes contact from the pedalboard and the pedals, it'll stick and stay in place. 

Ordering Effects

What about ordering your effects on your pedalboard? What are the best guitar pedal setup practices?

I've written a ton of material on this topic, much of which is outside the scope of this article, so I'll refer you to that piece for learning how to arrange and order your guitar pedals.

Read more: Guitar pedal setup guide

5. Setup a clean and dirty (distorted) channel

A more advanced step in setting up your guitar rig involves setting up a clean and distorted channel, which some might also call a "dirty" channel. This will depend somewhat on the type of gear your have, namely the type of amp and pedals at your disposal.

Many amplifiers have multiple channels, one for a clean tone and a second channel for a dirty tone.

Check your amplifier's front panel to see if you can tweak settings for multiple channels. If you aren't sure, consult the user manual for your amplifier.

If you don't have multiple channels on your amp, consider using a distortion pedal for your dirty tone. 

1. Check to see if your amplifier has a second channel for distortion
2. If so, set your preferred distortion levels (usually via a knob labeled "gain" or "distortion")
3. If your amp only has one channel, use a distortion pedal as your "distorted channel"
4. Set the volume of the amp's clean channel first, then set the volume of the distortion pedal
5. Check that the volume level of the pedal matches or slightly exceeds the volume level of the amplifier

6. Set additional amp channels or presets

Some amplifiers have more than two channels or multiple presets you can use to bank and save settings.

If your amplifier has three or four channels, set the volume levels and tone preferences for each of those channels. For example, if you have four channels, set them as follows:

1. Rhythm guitar (clean)
2. Rhythm guitar (distortion)
3. Lead guitar (clean)
4. Lead guitar (distortion)

In that example, lead tones will be slightly brighter and louder than rhythm tones, which will be a bit heavier but warmer.

7. Adjust settings for additional pedals (if you have them)

If you have additional pedals, you'll want to go through each one and adjust settings to whatever you use most often. For example, you might have a delay and chorus pedal, which should be set to a setting that you like and will use the most.

Some pedals - usually larger ones - actually have their own presets and banks.

If you have some of these, set a few presets that you really like so they're accessible to you later.

8. Additional Resources and Accessories

What are some additional resources and accessories you'll need to consider?

While accessories can be wider in scope (and somewhat overwhelming), there are really just two that I would recommend when it comes to getting your guitar rig off the ground.

In this section we'll focus on picks and tuners.

Picks

Guitar picks are what you use to "pick" the guitar strings, if you don't want to use your fingers. They come in a wide variety of sizes and thicknesses, though I'd recommend particularly a thicker pick that's easier to grip, like the Dunlop Gator Grip picks

Tuners

Tuners can come in a variety of different forms, though I typically recommend the chromatic pedal tuners, because they are a lot easier to use and more functional from a rig setup perspective.

Pedal tuners are a guitar pedal that allow you to tune your guitar and can slide right onto your pedalboard like any other guitar pedal.

The Boss TU-3 is my top recommendation in this category.

You're good to go

Once you've got all of these elements in place, you have the basic gist of the modern-day electric guitar rig. From here you can get into more advanced topics, but that'll depend on your own playing style and how you want to set your rig up. 

For example, I've written another piece on guitar rack systems that might be helpful for more advanced rig configurations.

Otherwise, you're good to go with your current electric guitar rig.

If you've got questions, drop them in the comments section and I'll be happy to answer as best I can.

See you there.

Related Articles