whats the advantage of putting my delay in the effects loop of my amp?

[0175westwood29]

ive got a ehx memory boy and have been loving it until a few practices ago.

ive started using more drive and fuzz pedals so i think im giving the delay to much gain or something as there seems to be a large volume boost as when i reaches the amp thats set to highish gain aswell! when all my dirt is of the delay behaves no volume boost.

will putting it in my loop prevent this? am i right in thinking it will bypass the gain on my amp? so the shouldnt push the delay to much?

andy

[Al Heeley]

in general stompboxes are meant to go before the preamp, and rack effects or processors for the fx loop (between preamp and poweramp stage).

[0175westwood29]

[quote name='Al Heeley' timestamp='1331582354' post='1575374']
in general stompboxes are meant to go before the preamp, and rack effects or processors for the fx loop (between preamp and poweramp stage).
[/quote]

yeh i get that bit im just wondering ive seen alot of vids on you tube for guitarists that have ther delays/reverb in the effects loops for a cleaner sound?

andy

[Al Heeley]

if you have high gain pedals and amp on high gain as well then the delay/reverb will be picking up even more noise after the preamp, not before it. I'd leave it bewteen instrument and preamp.

Edited March 12, 2012 by Al Heeley

[RandomProddy]

The amp will travel back in time!..

[RandomProddy]

..

[dannybuoy]

The reason for this mainly applies to guitarists who get distortion from their amp. Distorting delay and reverb sounds muddier than delaying and reverbing a distorted sound. Since most bass players pay their amps clean it doesn't make so much difference.

[0175westwood29]

[quote name='dannybuoy' timestamp='1331591889' post='1575640']
The reason for this mainly applies to guitarists who get distortion from their amp. Distorting delay and reverb sounds muddier than delaying and reverbing a distorted sound. Since most bass players pay their amps clean it doesn't make so much difference.
[/quote]

so if i play with a more dirty sound ( im playing mostly with fuzz/od atm) and my amp is getting dirty before that as i push the gain quite hi so its not mesa gain! but wount hurt having a try?

andy

[simwells]

If your pedals are creating your OD/fuzz then just put them after them, if it's the preamp it will tend to sound better after that in the loop. I'd just experiment though unless it's a significant improvement I couldn't see it being worth the hastle.

[xgsjx]

What about putting your delay earlier in the chain?

[simwells]

You can put it earlier and it will create a different effect but distortion and overdrive pretty well always compress quite a lot tending to result in losing the low volume trailing repeats whose volume is lifted by the compression just at lower gain, tends to just get very messy and noisy fast.

[hamfist]

In the guitar world, it is pretty much accepted as fact that time-based effects (eg. delay and reverb) sound so much nicer AFTER any distortion/overdrive/fuzz.
So, it doesn't matter where your dist/OD/fuzz is being generated, whether by pedals or in your amp's pre-amp, try and get your delay after it.
If you are playing into a clean amp, and getting all your dirt from pedals, then simply put your delay as the last pedal in the chain. That will ensure that all dirt is generated before the delay.
If you are getting at least some of your dirt from your amp's pre-amp, then put your delay in the FX loop, which in virtually every amp known to man, will be after the pre-amp in the amp's circuit.

If you think about what will happen when you put a delayed signal into a dirt box, you can see how it might sound a bit odd, as the (quieter) trails will not be as "dirty" as the initial tone. The quietest trails may even be completely clean. So you end up with a dirty first note, with all subsequent delays getting cleaner and cleaner. For most people, this is nowhere near as musical sounding as when the initial note AND the trails have the same amount of dirt.
There are still, of course, some old school officionados who still maintain that putting the delay before a dirty amp is the best way, but that is mainly because some vintage guitar/bass visionary did it "back in the day" when amps had no FX loops. Due to the design of amps back then, there were rarely huge amounts of dirt being used TBH. Personally, I still think it sounds sh1t like that.

[dmccombe7]

[quote name='RandomProddy' timestamp='1331591422' post='1575629']
The amp will travel back in time!..
[/quote]

WHOW !!!!!
That's an interesting concept.
Do you have any theories to support your findings.
Dr Who could verify this with a single quantum time step from the Tardus

Brill. like it

Dave

Edited March 14, 2012 by dmccombe7

[xgsjx]

[quote name='hamfist' timestamp='1331710047' post='1577382']
In the guitar world, it is pretty much accepted as fact that time-based effects (eg. delay and reverb) sound so much nicer AFTER any distortion/overdrive/fuzz.
So, it doesn't matter where your dist/OD/fuzz is being generated, whether by pedals or in your amp's pre-amp, try and get your delay after it.
If you are playing into a clean amp, and getting all your dirt from pedals, then simply put your delay as the last pedal in the chain. That will ensure that all dirt is generated before the delay.
If you are getting at least some of your dirt from your amp's pre-amp, then put your delay in the FX loop, which in virtually every amp known to man, will be after the pre-amp in the amp's circuit.

If you think about what will happen when you put a delayed signal into a dirt box, you can see how it might sound a bit odd, as the (quieter) trails will not be as "dirty" as the initial tone. The quietest trails may even be completely clean. So you end up with a dirty first note, with all subsequent delays getting cleaner and cleaner. For most people, this is nowhere near as musical sounding as when the initial note AND the trails have the same amount of dirt.
There are still, of course, some old school officionados who still maintain that putting the delay before a dirty amp is the best way, but that is mainly because some vintage guitar/bass visionary did it "back in the day" when amps had no FX loops. Due to the design of amps back then, there were rarely huge amounts of dirt being used TBH. Personally, I still think it sounds sh1t like that.
[/quote]

I agree that the norm would be to put it at the end, but if he's going through a wad of dirt boxes then it's still getting a dirty signal.
Experimentation is the way forward!

[pete.young]

[quote name='0175westwood29' timestamp='1331579856' post='1575285']


will putting it in my loop prevent this? am i right in thinking it will bypass the gain on my amp? so the shouldnt push the delay to much?

[/quote]

Probably not. It depends on the amp, but a lot of modern amps have parallel effects loops: they use a blend of the post-preamp clean sound and the effects in the loop. My Markbass is set up this way by default although you can change it with a jumper inside.

The reason for doing this is that you still get noise even if the effect dies. Not sure what a blend of un-delayed and delay will sound like, but it won't reduce the gain.

Just because guitarists do something, doesn't automatically mean it's a good idea :-)