Distortion Pedal in Effects Loop with Axe-Fx III?

[Ugly Bunny]

You could also put a couple of pedals in loops 3 and 4 prior to the amp block and switch them in and out using scenes/presets.

This is what I do with my King of Tone; Out/In 3 Right goes to KoT's Red side, and Out/In 3 Left goes to the Yellow side. Then I can use the same I/O block(s) and just set up channel A to pan left (Yellow side) or channel B to pan right (red side). I don't stack the pedal's sides so that's not really a concern, though I wonder if it's possible...

In any case, I've found pedals to work best in the loops, NOT going into Input 1.

 

[Adman103]

This is what I do with my King of Tone; Out/In 3 Right goes to KoT's Red side, and Out/In 3 Left goes to the Yellow side. Then I can use the same I/O block(s) and just set up channel A to pan left (Yellow side) or channel B to pan right (red side). I don't stack the pedal's sides so that's not really a concern, though I wonder if it's possible...

In any case, I've found pedals to work best in the loops, NOT going into Input 1.

Great idea! How do you bypass the drives altogether and just let the clean signal through?

 

[JCBitB]

If the loop is in front of the amp block, then that would still not bypass the amp blocks preamp though. Unless Im missing something. Just trying to figure out if it's possible to duplicate what Ola is doing with the real thing.

Sounds like you could put the pedal in front of the axe and just not use an amp block. If you’re dead set on using a loop, you can, but the best way to bypass the preamp is not to have one. So just skip the amp block.

For the record, I’m pretty sure that better sounds are in there using the amp models you have available to you

 

[Dino334]

With all of the stomps in the AxeFx and all the sounds you can achieve with almost no external pedals or processors, I truly question the sanity of some here. Who knows, maybe the next Fripp or Belew will come out of the experimentations.

 

[Ugly Bunny]

Great idea! How do you bypass the drives altogether and just let the clean signal through?

You just assign the FX loop to a button (via MIDI) or a footswitch on the FC to bypass the particular output or input (I forget which, but you only have to do one or the other because they're "smart" - meaning if the output is bypassed, it also bypasses the input in the chain without having to explicitly do it. Or vice versa - been a while since I used that preset.

In essence, I leave both sides of the KoT on all the time and have different bypass states and panning assigned to different channels of the I/O blocks in order to have either side. With this setup, however, I cannot cascade Red > Yellow, but it's okay.

 

[Adman103]

Totally! That makes perfect sense- I’ve got my rig set up similarly, but when I bypass the Out, it mutes the whole thing because there isn’t a parallel path for the signal- the out and in are directly in line before the amp, where a drive normally would be. I’d just run a parallel shunt past the Out and In, but it sounds like one of the drives in the loop is flipping the phase of the signal- it doesn’t sound right when there’s a parallel path to the loop. Did you run yours with a clean unaffected signal path in parallel to the out/in? Or is there a way to bypass the out/in loop and still have the signal flow through? (Kind of like how some blocks have a “thru” option for bypass). Thank you for the insight!!

 

[666was999]

You can connect output blocks and input blocks in the grid to have the signal bypass through them whem the loop is off.
Don't create an internal parallel path instead. Since the DA/AD changers take time they delay the signal a bit compared to the internal signal flow and that results in phasyness (comb filtering).

 

[Adman103]

Ok, that makes sense! Thanks so much for the help- that’s really interesting about the comb filtering because of the conversion delay.

Edit: I’m going to add this in for posterity: if you bypass the output block, no signal is passed through. If you instead bypass the input block, signal is passed through. For example, I’m now set up with a Blackstone Overdrive and a Klondike KTR both in Output/Input 4. One is in the left loop, one is in the right, so channel A of the Output 4 block is panned hard left, channel B is panned hard right. This means that the Blackstone is channel A, the KTR is channel B. Channel C is kept at the center, so both drives are on, running in parallel, which sounds awesome. I control the whole thing with one switch on the FC- tap is Input 4 bypass (make sure it’s Input 4, not Output 4 if you want the bypass to let the clean signal through), and hold is set for Output 4 Channel Inc +1, wrap on, limited to A through C. Two drives, easily selectable, and you can run them in parallel. Tons of fun!

Thanks to all the help getting this up and running.

 

[Perdikament]

You could try selecting the Neutral Preamp Sim as your Amp block, that’d probably get ya the same thing... it shouldn’t color the sound any of ya leave everything set flat.