good idea or no? comp/gate/loop

[blackieNYC]

I've decided that the particular noises I seem to make require either a noise gate to shut ugly things up, or a compressor for pretty things.  There are just a couple parameters to be juggled here. Some things, like Fuzz Faces and their ilk, don't want to be after a gate.  I find the noisy fuzzy stuff doesn't really need a compressor and the pretty stuff isn't noisy enough to need a gate.
So I thought, how about a one-box deal that contains, in this order:
      1 - insert effects loop, 2 - compressor, 3 - gate
Here is the tricky part: the stomp switch is Gate Or Compressor.
In the Gate Mode,
a - the effects loop is inserted.  The loop contains stuff like the fuzz faces that want to see the guitar directly, and very noisy things.
b - the compressor is bypassed.
c - the gate is inserted.  The gate can be set for the output levels from the dirt, and not the levels from both direct guitar pickup and dirt.
In Compressor Mode:
a - the effects loop is inserted.  Dirty noisy things are bypassed.
b - the compressor is engaged.
c - the gate is bypassed.  Yes, a compressor can be a little noisy, but not like the fuzzy stuff.  I don't feel my Compressed Clean Sound needs a gate.


Further on down the signal path, you'd have delays and flangers, etc, and distortion effects that might benefit from a compressor in front. And high gain distortion pedals that do not need to see the output of the guitar directly but would benefit from a gate to bring down your pickup/beer sign noise.  Yes, what you are looking at is a 6P2T switch.  Some relays would be required to do all this switching (or much easier - two stomps side by side.) I got this idea messing around with my DOD x30B noise gate/effects loop. If done right, I think it might even let you get away from having to do the dual front-end and back-end gate thing.  Does this seem useful? or am I a little overenthusiastic?  For those of us who use way too many pedals.

[slacker]

That sounds like a useful setup to me. If only want the options that are in your description then you can probably simply the switching a bit by combining the dirty loop with the noise gate just splice the noise gate in between the return of the dirty loop and the switch. This just means you can't run the dirty loop without the noise gate, you can bypass the pedals in the loop if you want just the noise gate. You could also put the compressor on the other half of the noise gate switch so it switches between noise gate and compressor, if you did that as well as combining the noise gate and dirty loop you only need one switch. Maybe add a bypass round the whole thing so you can have straight guitar, compressor or loop+noise gate.

[blackieNYC]

Well that would certainly work.  That's how I've used my DOD FX30b - it has a loop insert, you can gate the loop return, or the input.  The DOD is a huge pedal

What I had in mind was a space saving compressor and gate in one box, but I could still just include the gate in (the end) of the dirty loop.
The SSM2166 Quick and Dirty - not bad.  I have to try this with an optical compressor and a fencepost.