FX loops are wasted on me.

Deijavoo

Am I the only one?

I've tried every amp I've ever owned (that had a loop) and tonight I gave my Timeline and Flint a bash through my loop. It was poor to my ears. Unplugged spaghetti junction and found that in front sounded great to me again. I do tend to use low mix on most of my delays but my verb is pretty high.

Maybe the gargled repeats and croaky verb just suit me?

Sorry, does this make me a bad person?

monquixote

I don't even have a loop on my amp, or a master volume, or any channels. 

Luddite central.

Deijavoo

do you get dirt from pedals then?

I see everywhere people moaning about putting delays in front and it sounding shit. Not any sound issue for me.

monquixote

Yeah I have a Puretone. 

I use a Liquid Sunshine for a bit of grit and an ever rotating collection of distortions. Currently an Xotic SL and a Mooer Rumble Drive. 

Deijavoo

aha, I only use my SLO Clone dirt channel, although I am after a very fuzzy fuzz.

Pyroman

  Why yes, it does make you a bad person.  But, hey, whatever works for you.  I've got one amp with and one without, and some pedals prefer instrument level over line ( Carbon Copy, for ex), while others prefer line level ( TC especially).

  I think pedal choice plays a big role, too.

  Just to, you know, muddy the waters a bit.

Deijavoo

see i've had this issue with every pedal i've tried in all these various loops.

I think I just need to give up on this loop idea.

Bidley

I use amp gain (lots of) and I find if I use delays or verbs in front they just sound muddy. Of course @Drew_fx has the opposite view. Different strokes and all that.

I do find mods can sound much better in front though.

mike_l

I prefer them post gain, so after pedals in the front or in the loop for amp drive.

If I'm using a choice of amp or pedal dirt they go in the loop.

Deijavoo

I knew I'd seen someone here with a similar view to myself. No surprise it's Drew as I think we have at least similar tastes. 

I just find that my repeats lose character and they all but disappear on the (ridiculous amount of) gain channel while using the loop. In the front I just seemed to gain lots of, for want of a better word; sparkle.....

ToneControl

Deijavoo said:

Am I the only one?

I've tried every amp I've ever owned (that had a loop) and tonight I gave my Timeline and Flint a bash through my loop. It was poor to my ears. Unplugged spaghetti junction and found that in front sounded great to me again. I do tend to use low mix on most of my delays but my verb is pretty high.

Maybe the gargled repeats and croaky verb just suit me?

Sorry, does this make me a bad person?

I agree

everything always sounds better into the front for me

Having said that, I never play using loads of (pre)amp OD

juansolo

I think this is the key, if you push the pre then some things will work better after it. I tend to use reverb and noise gates in the loop. Not much else though.

timmysoft

I'm also an all out front guy! To me I hate how hygienic effects sound in loops.

ToneControl

even reverb there seems to spoil most amps for me

ThePrettyDamned

Needs to be in the loop for me, but I use a pretty heavy sound. It's not a huge amount of gain, but the tone is really aggressive and having delay or verb in front basically takes that away.

I've recently been playing chorus-type big power chords and inversions with a single fast repeat on the delay, and it's making it sound huge. In front, it just sounds muddy.

Deijavoo

Some comrades! It was starting to worry me that after all these years I may have been some sort of tone heathen. I do spend a lot of time trying to get my sound right as every one of us does but it's good to know I'm not the only one that uses this method.

not_the_dj

I go through phases of using the loop and not. I always want my amps to have one, but sometimes the setting up and extra cables running across the stage* is a pain so I just set the amp clean and use my drive pedals with delay and reverb at the end of the chain

*rarely an actual stage of course, normally a corner of a pub with the pool table pushed out the way!

Cirrus

I think if you want clarity at high gain with time based effects then effects loops are a must. If you're happy with a little bit of squish and grind then in front can be perfectly fine, though I find as the gain goes up you need to be increasingly accommodating with your playing to make sure the repeats of a delay don't just flub out your actual performance.

With two channel amps I like effects loops because they not only give you clarity on channel 2, they're also a good place for overall volume boosts. With one channel amps I'll just plug everything into the front because I never set the gain beyond loud but clean-ish.

ICBM

It does depend a lot on the amount of gain you use. With really high gain pretty much any delay or modulation effect is going to sound like mush in front of the amp. (Which you might still like .) Cirrus is right about two-channel amps too - it's usually difficult to set things like delays so the repeats are right for both the clean and dirty sounds if the pedal is in front.

With lower gain and single channel amps they often sound more 'natural' or 'organic' (stupid word but I think you know what I mean) in front of the amp.

I built my pedalboard with an insert loop for the amp's preamp that I can either use or not depending on what I want to do. Nowadays I more normally use it all in front.

fretmeister

Depends on the amp for me.

Fender amps and Plexi - love all the FX in front.

High gain metal amps - in the loop

Deijavoo

See my SLO Clone has gain aplenty and I set the pre amp to about 8 on the dial. It's pretty graintastic and I love how it mixes.