Unlocking Your Tone: Using Effect Pedals with Parallel Mixing in a Wet/Dry/Wet Setup
By Rich Cattell – Cosmic Loop FX
If you’re chasing huge, immersive guitar tones, few setups are as powerful—or misunderstood—as the wet/dry/wet (WDW) rig. When paired with parallel mixing, it offers incredible clarity, spatial width, and tonal flexibility.
What Is a Wet/Dry/Wet Guitar Setup?
A wet/dry/wet setup splits your guitar signal into three distinct outputs:
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Dry – Your clean guitar tone, sent to a dedicated amp or cab.
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Wet Left – A fully effected signal to the left side of a stereo field.
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Wet Right – The same wet signal to the right side, creating width and dimension.
🎸 The goal: preserve the integrity and dynamics of your dry tone while layering on lush, ambient stereo effects.
This setup is a favourite of ambient and progressive players, but it’s just as powerful for rock, pop, or studio use—any situation where you want clarity and atmosphere to coexist.
Why Parallel Mixing?
Most guitar pedalboards run effects in series—your signal passes through one pedal after another. This works fine for overdrive or modulation, but it can get muddy when time-based effects (like delay and reverb) smear your tone.
Parallel mixing keeps your dry tone pristine while blending in the processed signals separately.
Benefits of parallel mixing in a WDW rig:
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Clarity – Your dry tone never passes through any effect pedal.
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Punch – Pick attack and dynamics stay tight and responsive.
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Control – You decide exactly how much of each effect to blend in.
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Creativity – Experiment with effects that would normally dominate or muddy your signal.
What You Usually Need for a Parallel WDW Rig
Traditionally, building a WDW rig means cobbling together several devices:
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A signal splitter (preferably buffered)
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A parallel mixer with individual loop controls
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Phase correction tools to prevent signal cancellation
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Effects that support Kill Dry mode (100% wet output)
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Stereo outputs for the wet signal paths
It’s a lot of gear—expensive, bulky, and often confusing to wire up.
That’s why we created the Parallelarator.
Meet the Parallelarator: All-in-One Parallel Mixer & Signal Router
The Parallelarator by Cosmic Loop FX is designed to make building a high-quality parallel or WDW rig easy and intuitive. It combines everything you need into a single, compact, pedalboard-friendly unit.
✅ Features at a Glance:
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Buffered input and signal splitting to preserve tone
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Three parallel effect loops:
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Loop 1 and Loop 2: Always active
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Loop 3: Foot-switchable—perfect for shimmer, tremolo, rhythmic delays, or special effects
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Independent blend controls for each loop, so you can dial in the exact wet/dry ratio
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Phase correction switch on Loop 3 to fix phase issues when blending certain pedals
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Stereo wet outputs for expansive stereo imaging
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Always-on dry output, ideal for sending your clean signal to its own amp or path
🎛️ With the Parallelarator, everything is integrated into one powerful tool—no patchbays, no phase headaches, no tone loss.
Example WDW Setup Using the Parallelarator
Here’s a common way to use the Parallelarator in a WDW configuration:
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Guitar In → Parallelarator input
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Loop 1 → Delay pedal (Kill Dry enabled)
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Loop 2 → Reverb pedal (also 100% wet)
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Loop 3 (footswitchable) → Modulation, pitch, shimmer, or rhythmic effects
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Dry Out → Amp 1 (clean signal only)
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Wet L & R Outs → Amps 2 and 3 (wet stereo effects)
This gives you complete control and separation: your dry amp stays articulate and punchy, while the wet amps deliver space, width, and lushness.
Why Wet/Dry/Wet?
If you’ve ever felt like your effects “blur” your playing or that your guitar gets lost in the mix when reverb and delay are engaged, a WDW rig fixes that. Your dry tone cuts through with clarity, while your effects fill the space around it—beautifully layered but never overpowering.
Pair that with the Parallelarator and you get:
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🎧 Studio-style clarity and depth
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🎛️ On-the-fly control over wet effects
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⚡ Quick, clean setup with no signal degradation
It’s a rig that rewards both precision and creativity—ideal for live use, ambient loops, recording sessions, and more.
Final Thoughts
Building a parallel or wet/dry/wet guitar setup used to be the domain of pros with racks full of gear. But with the Parallelarator, you get:
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A high-headroom signal splitter
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A 3-loop parallel effects mixer
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Stereo wet outputs
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Onboard phase correction
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Foot-switchable loop control— all in one compact sized pedal.
Whether you’re layering ambient textures, creating massive stereo spreads, or just trying to keep your delay trails from eating your tone—the Parallelarator makes it simple, flexible, and inspiring.
💬 Have questions? Contact us — we’re always happy to help you build your dream rig.
