Effects loop VS Out front

[AlexWade]

Little bit of a noob when it comes to the effects world.

 

What effects are best to place in the loop and which are best to place out front?

 

Thanks guys.

[TheGareth]

In the effets loop it's best to have stuff like delay, chorus, reverb, echo and phasers. Going straight in you should have distortion, overdrive, treble boosters, wah wahs, fuzz and compression. Time based effects usually work best in the effects loop.

[ReckedTrek]

In the effets loop it's best to have stuff like delay, chorus, reverb, echo and phasers. Going straight in you should have distortion, overdrive, treble boosters, wah wahs, fuzz and compression. Time based effects usually work best in the effects loop.

 

 

It depends on the sound(s) you want. One of the biggest factors is if you're using your amp for any overdrive and/or distortion. If you run your amp completely clean, you can put them all in front. If you run heavy amp distortion then delay, reverb and chorus (sometimes flangers) in the loop. I usually like phasers in front, and sometimes flangers too. Stuff like distortion, overdrive, fuzz, wah wah and compression go in front like ILoveyouman said. EQ's depend on what you're hoping to get from it. If you want to make pedal or amp OD heavier/more sensitive, run an upside down V and boost the level in front of the OD source. If you want the typical heavy metal scoop sound, put it in the loop and make a regular V shape, cutting out some mids.

 

These are very generalized ideas I have, but I'm sure many here will have different ideas, and they're all be valid for that own person's sound/tone.

[TheGareth]

Yeah I guess that it just depends on what sound you like.

[Terminus]

Most people says that stuff like delay sounds muddy if you put them in front of the amp and run with distortion, but I think it differs a lot between amps and what type of distortion/OD you use.

[SpectralJulian]

All about preference. If you've got a really clean amp like I do then it doesn't matter.

 

If I had an amp with an effects loop, I'd probably only have delay, flange, and verb in it. I prefer chorus, phaser, trem, ring mod, and pitch shifting all before dirt.

[IvIark]

I've got to disagree with the concensus of opinion here, I think even if you're running clean it does make a different with quite a few amps with certain effects.

 

I bought a Verbzilla and Echo Park for a 6101LM combo I've got that has no reverb because I didn't want to have to hook it up to a rack every time I wanted to play it. When I first tried out both pedals I put them though the loop and thought they sounded great. So I was experimenting with it and put the Verbzilla in a true bypass looper I have before the amp and it didn't sound anything like as good. All settings sounded inferior to me, but the Octo setting on the Verbzilla was the most obvious difference between pre-amplifier and effect loop use. In the loop it sounded pristine, before the amp it was much less so and definitely more glitchy.

 

And that was all on the Marshall's clean channel, I didn't even try dirt because that isn't exactly what Octo is for. The amp has very nice cleans but obviously not up with the very best, so maybe better results can be had with a better quality clean channel. But that would worry me as to the results I might expect with a lower quality clean channel.

 

I may put some modulation before the amp if I wanted to put it in a MIDI switcher, but I'd never ever use delay or reverb before the amp. In fact that's the very reason I didn't by an Orange Rocker 30, because I couldn't do without a loop.