Advantage of amp looper ?

[petemoore]

  I see amp looper modifications going into amps, what is the advantage of having the loop inside the amplifier ?
  I know certain effects like the buffer or noise is sometimes reduced, for me, noise isn't a problem, and buffer I don't think I need one.
  I can understand that certain effects 'should' go late, such as reverb seems to be happy nearer the final amplification.

[Fender56]

Having a -10dB/+4dB switch on the return of the loop on my amp, I can run a wire from the "send" into the "return", and have a nice booster by pressing the Loop footswitch.

It is also useful to only use the amp as a power amplifier, using an external pre-amp output plugged into the "return".

[jacobyjd]

I use my amp's distortion channel a lot, so I generally use any effects that I want to be post-distortion (delay, reverb, clean booster, etc.) in the loop.

[boogietube]

Josh, do you find that having a clean boost in the effects loop will give you a significant volume boost when you are using the amp's distortion?

Sean

[jkokura]

Having an effects loop after the preamp and before the power amp is just another option for ordering the effects you use.

I use it often with reverb, Delay and Tremolo personally. The boost/cut switch idea is a cool one - I guess that's essentially what those power attenuation devices do.

Jacob

[jacobyjd]

Josh, do you find that having a clean boost in the effects loop will give you a significant volume boost when you are using the amp's distortion?

Sean

It depends on a couple of factors, and maybe a new way of looking at things if you haven't looked into doing things differently than the 'toss 'em all in the front' mentality of effects ordering.

Meaning....

Yes, on the condition that you aren't pushing your POWER tubes into distortion. I use a 30-watt tube amp w/ a loop. I don't ever crank it up high enough to get more than a tiny bit of jangle from the power tubes on the clean channel (this is floor-shaking loud anyway). So, with a clean boost in the loop, I DO get a volume boost...in fact, there's quite a lot of semi-clean headroom left in the power tubes to make it obnoxiously loud. However, I only bump the volume say, 1-3db for solo-y type things (my booster has a bit of a high-mids emphasis, so there's a little EQ mojo going on too).

However...if you're one to crank things way up (my God bless your sound guy), and you've got the power tubes pretty much saturated (maybe with an attenuator), you're going to get more distortion and very little, if any, perceivable volume increase...so in that case, the answer is no.



To expand a little on how my rig is set up--I run a booster into the front end of the amp as well, but I only use it on my distortion channel. Essentially, it gives me the option of 'normal' light overdrive (booster off) as well as something a lot more high-gain (booster on, giving...say...40db of boost). So basically, I get clean, OD, and all-out rock n' roll, PLUS the ability to clean-boost the [clean, OD, or distortion sound] signal (via the booster in the loop).

If, say, I decided to move my delay from the loop to the front end, I'd be ok on my clean channel, but if I switched to overdrive and cranked up the delay feedback, I'd get more distortion, since the signal is getting bigger as it enters the preamp stage. To me, that's undesirable for what I play. I've heard it used to good end for shoegaze-type sounds before, but it's just not my bag.

One of these days I need to cartoon-ize how I have things set up so I don't have to try to describe it in paragraph form...lol...hopefully all that makes sense. The key is that there's no wrong answer, but if you think of your amp as 2 separate pieces (preamp and power amp), you get a better picture of your possibilities.