School me on fx loop

[Hsb]

Re: School me on fx loop

So just sat down and put my eq in the loop after my reverb and for the first Im getting a decent tone out of my Jackson as well as my Dracarys. May leave it that way for a bit to see how I like it. The gain is more saturated, the Jackson doesnt sound shrill any longer either.

I was on the verge of selling the Jackson, could not find a tone I liked, now the eq is in the loop, it thickens up the guitar almost to the point that I may give it a bit longer.

Same really goes for the Dracarys, just couldnt get it to sound right and was about to give up the ghost on it, Ill wait a bit and see if my mind changes.

So basically, try different things in and out of the loop.

 

[eclecticsynergy]

Re: School me on fx loop

Another handy hint: EQ before the preamp allows you to alter the gain character somewhat, while EQ in the loop works as expected to tune the overall sound.

Tube preamps often love being fed extra mids and treble. That was the idea behind the original treble boosters of the 1960s, an effect that's becoming more popular again today.

 

[assquatch20]

Re: School me on fx loop

EQ's or volume pedals in the loop can act like master volumes or boosts if you want, along with their tone-shaping abilities.

Loops excel in high-gain applications whereas you might've wanted less "wet" time/modulation FX signal mixed in if you had something like a delay out front with a lot of gain.

If you're trying to quiet things down, a noise gate can assist in the loop. I've heard of folks running one at the end of their "dry" effects in the front of the amp, or one at the end of the loop, or people doing both.

Some amps have a pot to transition from a parallel to series loop so as to act like a mix knob for your wet time based/modulation FX.

If you have a parallel loop, you don't need anything in the return. This means you can split off to other amps with potentially no pedals needed. If you have phase or grounding issues though, you have to handle that. I've been lucky in the phase department, and my second amp has a ground lift/polarity switch, so I run from one preamp into 3 power amps with the parallel loop. The send goes into stereo effects, which in turn head out to a stereo tube power amp and then on to two 2x12 cabs flanking the center amp which has no modulation/time effects, thus you have a wet/dry/wet setup. Still requires at least 5 instrument cables and 2 or 3 speaker cables but it does sound pretty cool. You could do without the power amp if you have cab sims of some sort going with your (stereo or mono) FX, into the mixing board. The power amp is a rackmount deal which brings me to another point...

Some loops have a switch to select +4 or -10dB, for pro (rack) or semi-pro (pedal-based) effects, respectively. I believe these are also referred to as line level (+4dB) and instrument level (-10dB), with there also being a mic level that is lower, IIRC. When slaving to the rackmount power amp, I found the volume mismatch too extreme when slaving to a 5W dry amp in the center, until I hit the +4dB switch. This made it possible to get a usable balance between the wet and dry channels.

 

[Coma]

Re: School me on fx loop

I would think that the stock reverb would have to be in the loop. But probably always at the end of it.

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Sadly not always. My Ironball has built-in reverb, but it's at the start of the loop. So hooking up a gate with the 4-cable method kills the trails.

 

[Demanic]

Re: School me on fx loop

That's a weird design.

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[Coma]

Re: School me on fx loop

That's a weird design.

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Very.

 

[Mincer]

Re: School me on fx loop

My Mesa has a parallel loop, with a level control. Great if you can set your effect to 100% wet.

 

[Hank-]

Re: School me on fx loop

The amp manufactures often mention what level the loop is at, like line or instrument, sometimes its inbetween like on some Laney amps. But you can always email the manufacture & find out. Line level is at +4dB more suited for rack units, -10dB is instrument level that works for majoriy of the coomon pedals.

A series loop is 99% wet in real world cases unless its a very well built amp. Modulation effects like a series/serial loop. Modern delays/reverbs mostly have a mix level knob to control the wet/dry, this comes in handy with series loops. Parallel loop works with time based effects.

Always get quality instrument cables for the loop too. I use the planet waves american stage cables that have a wire mesh form of shielding in them. Had got them in 2012 i think, nome have broken. There must be other brands out there with such form of cables, I find the mesh type shielding helps in rejecting noise better & the cables are low cap so less loading on the signal.
Anyways point being, use quality cables for the loop.