How are you using the effects loop

[jzgtrguy]

Hi,

My understanding of the effects loop in an analog amp is that it inserts the effect between the pre amp and the power amp. If that is not right someone straighten me out.

So how do you use in with the axe? Where do you put it and why? Mostly I run a straight signal chain.

Block, block, amp, cab1, cab2, block, block block and out.

Thanks :?

 

[Shark Diver]

Yeah, I always thought it was weird that the fx loop didn't fit between the preamp sim and power amp sim. Maybe in a later version? It would be cool, since there are a stereo pair of Input 2 and Output 2, that you could have 2 mono fx loops, with one being more traditional. But it is nice to have it assignable to different locations. I'm sure that's so you can route output 2 to an amp/cab and output 1 to FRFR with a cab sim.

I use my fx loop after the amp sim, to a Soldano SLO 100 return, so I use the power section, and thru a Palmer 03 back to the Axe for fx and out to FRFR. Very nice.

 

[Dutch]

I Don't. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Not using it. But would I find a need for something the Axe could not do ( :shock: :shock: ) the loop is an excellent way to be able to put that anywhere you would possibly want within the Axe's chain. If you think the particular delay in your TC2290 can not be adequately simulated then you could loop it at the rear end of the Axe's chain. If you can't live without your MXR-Phase90-with-an-almost-blown-resistor-that sounds-unreal you could loop it somewhere at the front. Or in the rear. Or at the front in one preset and at the rear in another. Really, whatever you think sounds best. The Axe is unprecendented in it's flexibility. AFAIK.

Actually the loop in analog amps is a bit of a compromise. It's meant to be able to have effects after the amps overdrive/tone shaping circuits. Stuff like reverb, delays, modulation effects really mess with the characteristics quite a bit if they're put in front of overdrives. You'd lose a lot of definition putting a reverb in front of the overdrive. The compromise is that in tube amps there is still a lot of tone shaping and overdriving going on after the effects loop, in the power amp section. But that part can't be helped (in ordinary setups) because taking the signal after the power amp would fry the effects. You'd need a load box and another power amp to get that done. Off course lots of pro's that have roadies and don't have to lug their own gear do have those setups...
In the Axe it is possible to take the signal from a power amp (sim) and run it through whatever effect you may desire. So far, I don't see any need for a loop between the pre and power amp sections of an amp sim. That's just thinking inside the old, analog box, imo.

I love the Axe-FX. All of that setup in one 2he box.

 

[reclavea]

I'm running an Egnater M4 preamp in the fx loop of the Axe-Fx. I place the fx loop before the amp sim. The amp sim is the Tube sim. Works pretty good! But find that the Axe can really produce on it's own!!

 

[javajunkie]

I use it both I have my loop connected to a switchblade and a couple of pedals and an Adrenalinn 3 plugged into that. I can place effects before the axe-fx input, before the amp block or after the amp block. To me having the effects loop in between the pre and power amp is a limitation of traditional setups, it is a work around. Any effects placed there have the potential of being distorted by the poweramp. Generally that is not what I want when I place an effect in the loop.When I was running a multiamp rig into an ISO box, I would mic the cab dry, send it to a mic pre and add effects after that, then send it to the board. Those type of effects I generally would want to place before the preamp. Reverb had a unique sound when placed before the preamp.

 

[DNW]

I'm sending the piezo output from my main guitar in through the loop. There isn't really much else I can think of that I'd like to use it for instead, so for now I'm happy just doing that.

I'm considering a GRX4 or something to run a few of my OD/boost pedals out front, but I should probably just not be lazy and work on recreating those sounds with the Axe instead. :lol:

 

[reclavea]

With the Egnater M4 preamp in the fx loop, my aim was to see how the Axe-Fx power amp sims compare with a real one......then run that FOH....then to monitors. Worked great! And the sound was righteous!

 

[solo-act]

I plug an acoustic guitar into the loop.

Works great - no plugging/unplugging guitars, no a/b switch, each guitar gets its own patches, and the acoustic is out of the signal chain when you're playing electric = no feedback.

What I really need is a global parametric eq - a must have for gigging with an acoustic at a louder gig.

 

[VegaBaby]

I love the loop. Most versatile thing ever !

 

[Tom]

I have a modded Boss MT-2 I'm going to use in the loop for those occasions I want a really over the top death metal kind of sound a la Cannibal Corpse. That or I may just use it as a tuner out. By the way, does anyone know off hand how accurate the Axe's tuner is?

What I really need is a global parametric eq - a must have for gigging with an acoustic at a louder gig.

I've been thinking of getting something like one of these to put after the Axe for quick global adjustments since I often have to adjust my overall EQ a bit depending on the venue we're playing in.

 

[solo-act]

I've been thinking of getting something like one of these to put after the Axe for quick global adjustments since I often have to adjust my overall EQ a bit depending on the venue we're playing in.

We have a "system" graphic eq for overall output. I really really really need a parametric eq that works like global amps. That way there's control over every parametric block assigned to global in the patches -- in other words, I can notch feedback frequencies ONLY in the acoustic patches.

Did I say I needed this?

 

[tlainhart]

So how do you use in with the axe? Where do you put it and why? Mostly I run a straight signal chain.

I put an Echoplex Digital Pro in there for looping. The idea of an insertable FX loop is great - another bit of genius by Cliff.

 

[jzgtrguy]

I use it both I have my loop connected to a switchblade and a couple of pedals and an Adrenalinn 3 plugged into that. I can place effects before the axe-fx input, before the amp block or after the amp block. To me having the effects loop in between the pre and power amp is a limitation of traditional setups, it is a work around. Any effects placed there have the potential of being distorted by the poweramp. Generally that is not what I want when I place an effect in the loop.When I was running a multiamp rig into an ISO box, I would mic the cab dry, send it to a mic pre and add effects after that, then send it to the board. Those type of effects I generally would want to place before the preamp. Reverb had a unique sound when placed before the preamp.

I've never run a multi amp rig but I've read some and it seems the best place to put a lot of effects is after the speaker. It's amazing how different an effect can sound when you move it around. I was fooling around with the Rotary effect and it sound way different before the amp than it did after the speaker.

 

[joegold]

Hi,

My understanding of the effects loop in an analog amp is that it inserts the effect between the pre amp and the power amp. If that is not right someone straighten me out.

So how do you use in with the axe? Where do you put it and why? Mostly I run a straight signal chain.

Block, block, amp, cab1, cab2, block, block block and out.

Thanks :?

Effects loops in guitar amps were invented so that guitar players could mimick the types of time-based effects (reverb, delay, chorusing, etc.) possibilties they had in the studio when playing live.

These types of effects were done at the recording console after mic'ing a guitar speaker.
Any distortion was pre-effects. The idea is that you don't want to take a gorgeous pristine reverb and run it into the front end of a guitar amp and distort the reverb.

So, guitar players and amp manufacturers realized that if they provided access to the junction between a guitar amp's preamp (where modern amps, like Boogies) were doing most of the distortion and its poweramp (which amps like Boogies were designed to run pretty clean) they could get something like a studio setup in a live rig.

With the paradigm used in theAFX this is not needed. You can just place your time-based effects after the Cab sim.

So, the AFX's FX loop is designed to do other things like:
1. Place another preamp of other FXs somewhere within the signal chain.
(Using another preamp in the AFX's FX loop would be more better if we could defeat the AFX's preamp sims and just use it's power amp sims. But it looks like Cliff has no intention of doing that.)

Eg.
Wah > Drive > FX Loop (feeding a Triaxis) > Delay > Chorus > Reverb > to guitar speaker/poweramp.
or
Wah > Drive > FX Loop (feeding a Triaxis) > Cab Sim >Delay > Chorus > Reverb > to FRFR system.

2. Use the FX loop to send a signal with no Cab sim to a power-amp/guitar speaker on stage via Output 2 while sending another signal with Cab sim on through Output 1.

Eg.
Wah > Drive > Amp Sim > Delay > Chorus > Reverb > FX Loop ( to guitar speaker/poweramp via Output 2) > Cab Sim (to FRFR via Output 1).

 

[javajunkie]

I use it both I have my loop connected to a switchblade and a couple of pedals and an Adrenalinn 3 plugged into that. I can place effects before the axe-fx input, before the amp block or after the amp block. To me having the effects loop in between the pre and power amp is a limitation of traditional setups, it is a work around. Any effects placed there have the potential of being distorted by the poweramp. Generally that is not what I want when I place an effect in the loop.When I was running a multiamp rig into an ISO box, I would mic the cab dry, send it to a mic pre and add effects after that, then send it to the board. Those type of effects I generally would want to place before the preamp. Reverb had a unique sound when placed before the preamp.

I've never run a multi amp rig but I've read some and it seems the best place to put a lot of effects is after the speaker. It's amazing how different an effect can sound when you move it around. I was fooling around with the Rotary effect and it sound way different before the amp than it did after the speaker.

Here is what Cliff says about it (he is talking about placement of effects before or after cabs or delay before/after reverb, etc):

From Cliff:

" It actually doesn't matter for most effects. It the effects are linear, time-invariant (LTI), then the order is irrelevant. If you don't use the cabinet drive then it's LTI. Reverb is LTI. Delay is LTI. Now if you use modulation technically it's not LTI but it is "wide-sense stationary" so you can treat it as LTI. The only blocks that aren't LTI are the stuff that does pitch shifting (time-variant) or distortion (nonlinear)."



As long as you dont have the drive parameter up on the cab block, the cab blocks are LTI; therefore, placement of effects before or after will not matter. Now, placement of LTI effects will matter before or after non-LTI effects (like the amp sims, pitch-shifter, drive block, trem effect).

I have measured this and listened and it appears to me Cliff is correct in this regard.

Generally when you are using a traditional stage setup the effects signal is run thru the effects loop. This would include your poweramp as well as the speakers. The poweramp is not LTI. Rotary, I believe (trem is not so I assume rotary is the same), is not LTI so it's placement matters.

 

[danielodland]

Don't know if I understood all that, but I just wanted to mention in response to "placement of effects before or after cabs or delay before/after reverb, etc)" that delay before/after reverb does absolutely matter, at least to me. I'd much rather have delay before verbs. Then each delay will be reverberated, instead of the reverbed signal being "delay treated" =) Maybe thats what you/he said =))))

 

[javajunkie]

Don't know if I understood all that, but I just wanted to mention in response to "placement of effects before or after cabs or delay before/after reverb, etc)" that delay before/after reverb does absolutely matter, at least to me. I'd much rather have delay before verbs. Then each delay will be reverberated, instead of the reverbed signal being "delay treated" =) Maybe thats what you/he said =))))

It would seems the case but from what Cliff has stated and from what I have experimented with, it is not (unless you are going in parallel). You can put the delay before the cab and it will not make a difference unless you have drive on the cab. Similarly, you can do the same with the reverb. Try it. I can put up a clip switching them and I bet you will not be able to tell the difference at all.

What I think Cliff is saying is that whether reverb or delay comes first, as long as there isn't any non-linear functions, the math works out the same. If the math works out the same, the sound will be the same.

 

[joegold]

Don't know if I understood all that, but I just wanted to mention in response to "placement of effects before or after cabs or delay before/after reverb, etc)" that delay before/after reverb does absolutely matter, at least to me. I'd much rather have delay before verbs. Then each delay will be reverberated, instead of the reverbed signal being "delay treated" =) Maybe thats what you/he said =))))

It would seems the case but from what Cliff has stated and from what I have experimented with, it is not (unless you are going in parallel). You can put the delay before the cab and it will not make a difference unless you have drive on the cab. Similarly, you can do the same with the reverb. Try it. I can put up a clip switching them and I bet you will not be able to tell the difference at all.

What I think Cliff is saying is that whether reverb or delay comes first, as long as there isn't any non-linear functions, the math works out the same. If the math works out the same, the sound will be the same.

Just to claify what java is saying.....

Evidently, putting reverb or delay before or after a cab sim will sound exactly the same.
This is because the cab is basicaly a type of filter. Whether you filter out those types of frequencies before they get reverberated or after they get reverberated apparently makes no difference as far as the physics is concerned.

But putting delay after reverb or visa versa *will* make a difference in the sound.
Normally, delay (i.e echo) should either come in front reverb or in parallel with it, unless some exotic effect is being sought.

I.e. java's comments were only about cab sim placement in the signal chain.

 

[AlbertA]

But putting delay after reverb or visa versa *will* make a difference in the sound.
Normally, delay (i.e echo) should either come in front reverb or in parallel with it, unless some exotic effect is being sought.

I.e. java's comments were only about cab sim placement in the signal chain.

No it appplies to delay as well (in series).

If you have this:
Reverb->Delay
vs.
Delay->Reverb

Those two will give you the same result; unless you start using the distortion parameter in the delay or some really big modulation settings on the delay.

 

[joegold]

But putting delay after reverb or visa versa *will* make a difference in the sound.
Normally, delay (i.e echo) should either come in front reverb or in parallel with it, unless some exotic effect is being sought.

I.e. java's comments were only about cab sim placement in the signal chain.

No it appplies to delay as well (in series).

If you have this:
Reverb->Delay
vs.
Delay->Reverb

Those two will give you the same result;.

I find that hard to believe, but I'll try it out again and see what I hear.
I haven't tried using delay and reverb like that in decades.

I thought that the whole physics argument justifying why cabs don't affect the sound of time-based effects placed in front of or after the cabs, had to do with the cabs being an LTI ("Linear Time Invariant") effect.

I can see how a cab sim would be considered "LTI". It's just a type of filter.
But a reverb or a delay is a device designed to change an audio signal's propagation over time, altering its "lineage", no?

But for now, I'll take your word for it.