Amp effects loop...

[Rampant]

Can someone shed some light on the benefits of having an effects loop built into an amplifier... Why not just use the effects in-line between the guitar and amp????

Cheerz

Mark H

[tunghaichuan]

Some FX, like OD, distortion, compression you want to put in front of the amp to drive the preamp harder. Modulation FX like chorus, flanger, reverb, delay, you want to run in the loop after the preamp.

If you use the amp clean for pedals, then you can run all of them in front of the amp and not use the loop.

If you have an amp with built in preamp distortion, you would want to run the modulation FX in the loop after the distortion. Putting modulation FX in front of an already distorting amp doesn't really sound all that good, and the FX get lost in the distortion.

IOW, you want apply FX to distortion. You don't want to distort your modulation FX unless you are going for that type of sound.


Can someone shed some light on the benefits of having an effects loop built into an amplifier... Why not just use the effects in-line between the guitar and amp????

Cheerz

Mark H

[Spudman]

The delays and chorus come out a lot cleaner when they are placed in the amph's loop.

[markb]

Put a clinically clean sounding digital delay in front of a driving amp and see if you like the result. Now put it in the loop. This is the best way I've come across to illustrate the effect.

[Rampant]

Thanks fretters

The penny dropped after the first reply.
Of course - it's the sequence of effects that's the key - and if you're gonna use the o/d on the amp, then it follows you do need a loop...

Cheerz

Mark H

[markb]

It's just occurred to me that the best illustration for effects order are those block diagrams you get in every multi effect manual. Once you've looked at a few you notice they are always laid out in the order {Tone modifier}>{Gain stages}>{Time based fx}.