Why is my egnater rebel 20 effects loop noisy?

[gatorbrit]

My rebel 20 has an effects loop which I use for my fender reverb pedal. But when the pedal is engaged it is quite hissy. I thought that this was a problem with the pedal but if I just put the pedal in front of the amph there is no hiss. Is this a common thing with effects loops? Or is my amph just noisy?

[Eric***]

I won't be able to give you any technical info, but in one former playing situation I used to use a Kustom Quad 100DFX and plugged my Tech 21 Sansamp into it. When I tried to plug into the effect return I got lots of noise and clipping and other crap, but if I just put it in front of the amp with the amp set to clean, it worked great. I eventually read other accounts of the effects loop being noisy on that amp, so my point is that it's not unheard of for effects loops to be noisy.

I'd personally start by cleaning out the effects loop jacks with some contact cleaner like DeOxit. If that doesn't work, you might want to do some googling to see if that's a common problem. If it is, you might run into a solution for it or you might just end up not using the effects loop very much.

[Tig***]

I'd try different cables to/from the loop. I like to try the simple stuff first if possible.

Also, +1 what Eric said about using some cleaner, and make sure it has completely evaporated before plugging the amp back into power.

[RobQ]

Is the fx loop on that amp tube driven? Could be a bad tube, or even simply not seated properly.

[RobQ]

Just googled; apparently there's a mod to the fx loop to drop the noise floor. Get in touch with Bruce Egnater and he'll send you instructions