Fx Loop

timmysoft

Can somebody tell me if they've experienced the same or if its my fx loop acting all out of whack?

I have an Orange TH30, tried putting a micro amp in the loop the other night and just got reduced volume, in the loop of every other amp i've ever tried it in it gives a volume boost, so is my little Orange playing up?

Bidley

I had a similar thing with a modded JCA20H. It'll be something to do with the way the loop is designed, I think. I can't offer any tech reason though!

ICBM

Sounds like the loop operates at a higher signal level than the maximum output level of the MXR. Quite a lot do.

Basically it means that even though the pedal is still boosting the signal, it runs out of headroom before it can make the output any louder than the input, or even as loud in some cases.

timmysoft

Its not a headroom thing as far as i can tell, its more of it just drops the volume to a really low level and by really low i mean under the volume of talking.

I know the fx loop in these is valve driven, could a faulty valve be the cause of this.

I'd really like to run a rack fx processor in the loop, so that when i switch to the drive channel i can add additional EQ to the minimalist orange, but if by design the level drops that much then its not going to work and i'll have to move up to a Rockerverb50

viz

If you just put a lead from send to return, with no pedal, what happens?

timmysoft

I'm going to try that tonight, i'll report back my findings.

I have a feeling that the previous owner may have replaced the loops AT7 with an AX7, i dont know if that would make a huge difference though

Bidley

timmysoft said:

Its not a headroom thing as far as i can tell, its more of it just drops the volume to a really low level and by really low i mean under the volume of talking.

I know the fx loop in these is valve driven, could a faulty valve be the cause of this.

I'd really like to run a rack fx processor in the loop, so that when i switch to the drive channel i can add additional EQ to the minimalist orange, but if by design the level drops that much then its not going to work and i'll have to move up to a Rockerverb50

FWIW the Jet City I had this problem with had a valve-driven loop too. I think you need line-level pedals.

Drew_TNBD

Orange loops are a bit dodgy as well - they suck tone quite a bit. Well the one in my Rockerverb 100 MKI did.

timmysoft

The other guitarist in my band used to run a JCA100HDM and always got a solo boost from the micro amp in the loop,

I'm not too worried about "tone suck" i think with an additional EQ in the loop it'll be easy enough to dial in the top end sparkle. I'm thinking about running a Boss GT pro in the loop (through 4cm) but also having a spark booster (full size) to handle the extra EQ on the Oranges drive channel, it'll all be set up on midi so i can just switch to the drive sound with EQ on or clean with verb etc.

Si_

I've used a TH30 before (I've had a TH30 and a TH100) and used a Micro Amp in the exact same way, never had this issue with mine. Mine worked as expected and I never noticed any tone suck at all.

Have you tried other pedals? maybe it's a fault on the Micro Amp?

timmysoft

I'm pretty sure its down to the loop, the micro amp is behaving fine in the Gh50l's loop. I think the small bottle valves probably need changing. Going to order some new valves and hopefully once they're fitted it'll solve the problem.

Out of interest, how did you find the th100?