I've read that 'effects loops' (effects in/out) in guitar amps are only for rack-type effects, and that pedals are designed to only work properly with lower voltage guitar pickup signals.
Is this true? A lot of the newer amp designs seem to incorporate effects in/out jacks, and I find it hard to believe that they are all being used with rack effects.
Is this true? A lot of the newer amp designs seem to incorporate effects in/out jacks, and I find it hard to believe that they are all being used with rack effects.
Simply no, not true. Any commercial piece of guitar equipment is designed everything ranging from one extreme of a low level high impedance signal of a vintage passive pickup to the other extreme of a line level output of another stompbox or preamp. If your theory was correct you could not series connect 2 stompboxes.
It's true that many choose to put their effects rack fully in upstream of the amp. Some reasons are that tuners work better with a completely dry signal, plus you can A/B/Y to multiple amps more easily.
Why? What are you trying to do?
It's true that many choose to put their effects rack fully in upstream of the amp. Some reasons are that tuners work better with a completely dry signal, plus you can A/B/Y to multiple amps more easily.
Why? What are you trying to do?
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I've been leaving out the effects out/in jacks even where the schematic showed them, thinking that they would be inappropriate for pedal use - and thus a waste of back panel space, 2 jacks, and more wire strung across the chassis.🙂
What's the advantage of putting a pedal into the signal chain halfway through the amp?
The biggest advantage is that you are buffering the guitar signal. If you put the effects in front of the amp, turning your guitar volume knob up or down will actually change not just volume but the intensity of the effect as well because the input signal level to the stompbox is being varied.
Lesser effects are: the buffering helps reduce noise pickup from the cables; convenience of 1 switch to silence your effects chain; many (most?) effects loops also add a blend control.
Lesser effects are: the buffering helps reduce noise pickup from the cables; convenience of 1 switch to silence your effects chain; many (most?) effects loops also add a blend control.
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Leadbelly:
Thanks for the input.
One of these days I may get a reverb pedal, so adding an out/in to amps makes sense, and is certainly easy enough to do.
I have to confess that I don't really understand your first point - turning the guitar volume knob down affects the signal strength right through the amp. Are you talking about a situation where I turn down the guitar volume but turn up the amp gain (early stages volume control before the effects out) to compensate?
Thanks for the input.
One of these days I may get a reverb pedal, so adding an out/in to amps makes sense, and is certainly easy enough to do.
I have to confess that I don't really understand your first point - turning the guitar volume knob down affects the signal strength right through the amp. Are you talking about a situation where I turn down the guitar volume but turn up the amp gain (early stages volume control before the effects out) to compensate?
An effects loop allows effects to be placed after internal preamp distortion. This allows reverbs and delays to function much better. Also allows a volume control/booster to act as merely a volume control/booster w/o also causing overdrive to the preamp on higher settings. Loops make more sense on amps that have a "master volume" since those allow preamp distortion at lower volumes and are thus more likely to have some preamp distorted setting on the agenda.
Guitarists want to use pedals so a loop on a guitar amp is almost certainly capable of driving pedals at the appropriate “lower” level. Some are adjustable.
I have seen many schematics where the drive to the loop would be way too strong for pedals and rack stuff too. But those schemes were just internet posts and not production amps.
Guitarists want to use pedals so a loop on a guitar amp is almost certainly capable of driving pedals at the appropriate “lower” level. Some are adjustable.
I have seen many schematics where the drive to the loop would be way too strong for pedals and rack stuff too. But those schemes were just internet posts and not production amps.
I had a Marshall TSL60 head with effects send/return and bought a Boss digital delay pedal to put in the effects loop. Unfortunately, even with the 'pad' switch on the 'send' engaged the output of the 'send' seemed to be too much for the Boss - causing it to clip (on any setting). So I had to use the pedal at the input jack instead, which means that with the pre-amp on 'crunch' or 'lead' I got 'distorted delay' instead of 'delayed distortion' which is quite different (and not so good).
Think of a typical distortion/overdrive pedal. They are using some form of a diode in one of a few possible locations to either soft or hard clip the signal. In fact the "overdrive" or "distortion" knob is just a gain control ahead of the clipping stage. With these pedals if you turn down your guitar volume knob you actually reduce signal clipping as well if the stompbox is before the amp. This is true of many other types of analog pedals as well.
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