the guitar room
the amp room
the effects room

 

in the loop

There are always people out there who are willing to tell you that there is only one correct way to hook up your effects, and that all other ideas are blasphemous and should be abolished. Most of us will by now have learned to ignore these fools and just go with what sounds best to us, but that won't stop them from trying. And in no area is this more apparent than when it comes to how to use the humble effects loop.

Here's a nice one from Harmony Central:

There's a reason good amps have fx loops. Putting all of your pedals in front of the amp is an amateur** mistake. Don't put modulation, delay or reverb in front of the amp, unless you want to either sound bad and/or competely relegate your expensive amp to a simple amplifier of your pedal-based tone

** note: there's nothing wrong with doing this if you *are* an amateur, by the way, and nothing wrong with being an amateur!!! Hell, I'm not playing live right now, so I consider myself one. But if you play live or on recordings a lot, expect great tone, and convenience and reliability are important to you, then this applies.

Good God, where do people get all this nonsense from? First off, no such blanket statement can ever be true at all times, in every rig and with every amp. Second, if there's any "amateurism" to be found anywhere, it's all over that completely clueless statement. The effects loop doesn't magically make all effects sound perfect... and running your pedals up-front will not automaticaly make you sound like poo. Claims like those are just plain stupid and ignorant.

Now, with that off my chest , let's look at the effects loop and what it can (and can't) do for you, shall we? But just to make sure we don't make any "amateur mistakes", we'll start from the beginning...

 

The art of ordering

This is about which part of the signal chain works best in what position. Your basic guitar-straight-to-amp setup does actually consist of several parts, which functions we need to understand to be able to use (or decide not to use) the fx loop later on. Anyway, here's the basic layout:

Sometimes there will be another preamp stage after the tone controls, where the brunt of the distortion is generated. And on some amps, the master volume is located after the reverb, right before the power amp. But the description above is adequate for the point I'm trying to make - that even the simplest of setups consists of several stages, all performing different tasks. Now, an effects loop is simply a point in this chain where you can insert an effect of your choice. Some loops are located before the reverb section, while others are located after it. Still, a straight insert point like that is called a serial fx loop (because it sits in series with the signal path, breaking out the entire signal out from the amp and to the fx).

Parallel effects loops are more complicated, but the general idea is the same. The difference is that while the main signal path remains intact, a portion of the signal is sent out through the send jack, and whatever is fed back through the return jack is then mixed in with the original signal.

Now, to start thinking about how to use the fx loop, you must incorporate the amp's different parts into the entire chain. When dealing with floor effects pedals, one will usually arrange them in a certain order, to get the desired results from them. Chorus before distortion will sound completely different from chorus after distortion, and so on. It's all about thinking what you want affecting (or effecting, rather) what - do you want your guitar, with phaser added, to be distorted? Or do you want your distorted guitar to be processed through the phaser?

The same principle applies to using the effects loop - the stuff you place there will process the guitar sound, including any impact the preamp (including any distortion generated there), tone controls etc has already had on said sound. So... if you use lots of preamp distortion, sticking a chorus pedal in front of the amp will be the same as placing it in front of a distortion pedal, which you may or may not like. If you do like it, just let it be - you don't need to mess with it any more. But if you want to try it after the distortion, things get a little trickier - since the distortion is coming from the preamp, you can't simply move the chorus to the other side of the distortion box... and here's where the effects loop comes in. By running it in the loop, you are actually placing it after the distortion. Neat!

The difference will be even greater on delay pedals, since adding lots of distortion after them will make the repeats (which generally will play back at lower volume than the actual playing) louder. But that still doesn't mean that you should always, in any situation, use the effects loop - after all, if you're getting all your distortion from a box on the floor, all you have to do is make sure the delay goes after the distortion pedal, and you're fine. On a clean amp, using the loop will only move the pedals you place there behind the tone controls, which will only make a slight difference.

And there are instances where the loop's placement in the chain really works against it. For instance, if your amp happens to have the fx loop after reverb and you stick your chorus and delay in there, you will end up with chorused and/or delayed reverb... which may or may not be what you're looking for. It definitely isn't my cup of tea, though.

 

So when do I use the fx loop?

Basically, the big divider is distortion. Some effects definitely sound better or more balanced when placed after distortion (such as delay and reverb), while others just sounds different (chorus, flanger, phaser etc). Tremolo before distortion will vary the amount of distortion much more than the actual volume, which may not be what you want. So, here goes:

One final tip - if you have an amp that has a serial effects loop placed after the reverb, you have the perfect place to hook up a tremolo pedal. That way, the tremolo will most closely mimic that in a good old Fender amp (i.e. tremolo-ing everything, including the reverb), which sounds great!

But don't let anyone tell you that you have to use the loop for certain effects - nothing is that simple, and there are no universal truths!

 

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