Effects loop vs direct from guitar

[gruizmuller]

I've had my amp for 20 years, and played almost without pedals all the time, never cared about the effects loop on it, technically I know the difference between this and plug the pedals direct from guitar to amp, the signal goes to preamp to a buffered loop that returns the signal to the amp.

Regarding tone modulation and drive, What's your experience with these differences, I'll experiment with different configurations, and come back with comments, these configurations may be, but not limited to:

-All pedals direct from guitar
-All pedals on the effect loop
-Dirt pedals direct, time and modulation pedals on the effect loop

I'm open to suggestions

[MEC]

Dirt pedals direct, time and modulation pedals on the effect loop

[julius_deane]

What amp?

[bigchiefbc]

It depends on two things:

1.) whether the effects are designed to take a line-level signal or an instrument-level signal. If the former, put them in the fx loop, if the latter, than before.
2.) are you using your amp's preamp for dirt? If so, then the modulation and delay will probably be more useful in the fx loop. If not, then there's not much of a point to using the fx loop.

[gruizmuller]

I forgot to mention, the amp is an acoustic tube 60. It is a 50 watt amp with 6L6 tubes, from the mexican era of acoustic. I have read that it is a ripoff of the mesa boogie mark IV.

[gruizmuller]

It depends on two things:

1.) whether the effects are designed to take a line-level signal or an instrument-level signal. If the former, put them in the fx loop, if the latter, than before.
2.) are you using your amp's preamp for dirt? If so, then the modulation and delay will probably be more useful in the fx loop. If not, then there's not much of a point to using the fx loop.

1) How can I know about what are them designed to? For my Ab-Synth I asked Tom and his answer was very clear " Put it first on your chain direct from the guitar", but for most pedals is hard to get that kind of information.

2) I use the amp overdrive, but it's not my main source of dirt, it's very subtle, and I use it to add to what my dirtier pedals do.

[bigchiefbc]

It depends on two things:

1.) whether the effects are designed to take a line-level signal or an instrument-level signal. If the former, put them in the fx loop, if the latter, than before.
2.) are you using your amp's preamp for dirt? If so, then the modulation and delay will probably be more useful in the fx loop. If not, then there's not much of a point to using the fx loop.

1) How can I know about what are them designed to? For my Ab-Synth I asked Tom and his answer was very clear " Put it first on your chain direct from the guitar", but for most pedals is hard to get that kind of information.

2) I use the amp overdrive, but it's not my main source of dirt, it's very subtle, and I use it to add to what my dirtier pedals do.

Most pedals are designed for instrument level, which means between your guitar and amp. There are a few pedals that can take line level, but they usually specifically say so in their literature, and they usually run at higher voltages than 9V, because they need a lot of headroom for such hot signals. Most rack units run line level, which means fx loop.

[McSpunckle]

I run everything into front end of the amp. My amp doesn't have a loop, but even if it did, I'd ignore it for almost anything.

I typically get my dirt from pedals, and maybe set the amp for a little drive. Reverb, delay, modulations, etc sound fine before a sorta dirty amp, and I think the way it interacts with the amp's distortion is interesting. Some people might disagree, but those people aren't me, so fuck what they think.

One exception would be loopers. I'd probably put loopers in the effects loop. It's in the name! But, I had an EHX 2880 that I put in an effects loop... the thing didn't have much headroom to begin with, and it did not like the effects loop. But if you put the looper in the loop, it won't be affected by EQ/gain changes and such.

If I used a high gain amp for my dirt, though, I'd probably go with modulation/delay in the effects loop.

And remember, the effects loop won't have its advantage if your amp's distortion is coming from the power stage. So if you're a Fender amp user or use low wattage heads, you're probably wasting your time.

So, yeah. Try it out. Always try stuff, even if you don't think you'll like it. I did that with guacamole, and that turned out great!