Hi folks.
I just got a new amp yesterday and for the first time in my short guitar playing life I've got an FX loop to play with.
Question... what goes in there and what shouldn't? I really have no idea what the benefits are and what works better or doesn't work at all. I have a few small pedals that I was using before and some of these might well be redundant now I have a drive channel, but what I have is as follows:-
Chorus, Reverb, Looper, three overdrive pedals (this will soon become one I'd imagine) and a Soul Food.
My understanding is that the chorus and reverb are better in the loop and the overdrives and Soul Food in the front... is this right? What about the looper?
This is probably a super-basic question but any advice would be a great help.
Andy
Comments
I prefer Chorus, phaser and flanger in front, but others like it after.
Be aware that not all fx loops are equal and some are just plain daft. so that might also have an impact. What's the amp.
It's a Marshall DSL 5.
Of course some people like reverb and delay into a dirty amp - sonic mayhem but can be good.
Depends what amp it is an how you play it. If you use a lot of distortion from the amp then definitely put delays, verbs and mods in the loop, if you don't or if you use the amp clean then there really is no point in using the loop just stick all pedals up front with the drives first.
That's the usual approach, butby no means written in stone
I had a simple, single channel, volume only amp before (home built) so all the pedals are in series and into the front of the old amp. I can get the level of gain I want now using the drive channel on the DSL so I think my overdrive pedals are pretty much redundant, but I'm going to experiment with them through the front and see what happens.
It was the likes of the looper that confused me, but I'll play with that too. The amp has a clean channel with volume only and a drive channel with gain and volume.
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I have my chorus infront of the amp purely because my amp's FX loop is foot switchable and I keep a delay and EQ always on in the loop to act as a solo boost. It sounds fine out front anyway.
I forgot, I have a Cry Baby Mini too, so I'll have a front and loop section on my board and work that way.
Thanks guys.
I don't bother with the effects loop anymore since I started gigging as it is too much pissing about with extra cables and I'm a lazy git. The only difference is that the delay and chorus seems to sound more "washy" in front of amp, but I remedy this by reducing the "mix" of the effect on them and then it behaves not too dissimilar to how it did in the loop.
Having said that, the delay and chorus pedals I have ideally sound better in the loop, but that difference isn't worth the hassle for 50 - 100 pissed up pub punters to muse over.
It also doesn't make it worthwhile for the volume I play at home, but in the right place and given the right freedom I probably make the effort.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.