Effects Loop and Tone Suck...

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drunton

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I should be practicing but I have been spending a lot of time refining my rig and trying different settings. I have been a rackmount guy for a long time but recently switched to a Boss GT8. I didn't think things were bad until I dusted off the pedals and started playing with them - wow, what a difference... All the 3-dimensionality of tube amps, that I love, has returned. So, now I am adding to my pedals to get back to what I need for the song selections and playing around with effect order, etc.

Pedals: 70's Crybaby, Boss SD-1, Boss CS-3, Korg PMX 4-channel pedal box (analog delay, chorus, flanger, EQ), Boss GigaDelay, Boss RV5

These experiments have been with an American Deluxe Strat with Noiseless pickups.

Here's the predicament when I plug these effects in this order into the front of the amp, all sounds fine, yeah, a little tone suck, but not bad, easy to EQ it away. When I plug-in GTR->Wah->SD-1 into the front and the rest in the series effects loop the tone loss is significant. Volume is lower and a lot of the crispness, string definition is gone.

I have both an RM50 and an RM4 to try this on, and both seem to act the same. I am just in a bedroom, so I am using 6ft or less cables, stage would have to be longer. Modules tried are Blackface, Top Boost, Plexi. All set for fairly clean to a bit edgy with or without the SD-1 on, and an SL+ with medium distortion

To get my lead boost I planned on the Korg EQ in the effects loop, but not at this tone loss price. It will just have to be pedal distortions/overdrives and clean sounds from the modules where the EQ will still boost things.

BTW: I am not a big fan of adding exciters (BBE, Aphex) or any other "tube sweeteners" - these are just band-aids.

Anyone else tried this? suggestions? Will I even notice this when the drummer starts playing - (am I being anal about it)?
 
I believe these amps have a tube supported effects loop. I was reading somewere that signal loss is a sign that a tube may be going bad. So I was thinking maybe your FX loop tube(s?) is/are bad. Replacing it/them might be worth a try
 
Hey, thanks for that suggestion. I kind of figured that the series signal path was normalled - meaning that if you didn't plug anything in, the path didn't change, this was just a tap point - but you may be on to something if there isn't any "through" path.

Being a techy, I was going to pull the chassis on my RM50 and check it out :lol: I'll let you know what I see.
 
Don't know if this will help at all, but, the effects loops run at line level. If one of your pedal is running at "guitar level" it will cause problems. As far as I know most Boss run at line so OK there try pullig pedals out the chain and see what happens, you can buy line level shifters which may also help.
 
I notice the difference in quality just with a patch cable running in the series loop, so it's not the pedals (at least by themselves).

So, I changed the tubes in back of the RM4, no difference.

Then I started playing with routing options:

GTR -> wah/OD pedals -> RM4 -> Mod/Delay/Rev pedals -> Mesa 20/20

After trying:
1. Pre-loop out -> pedals -> Series loop in
2. Series loop out -> pedals -> Series loop in
3. RM4 out -> pedals -> 20/20
4. Pre-loop out -> pedals -> 20/20

I settled on option 4 as having the best sound - it's not a drastic difference, just clearer, cleaner, and less high end loss. So, for me it pre-loop Pre Out as the best output option. I read somewhere that BruceE suggested this output anyway since there are less items in the signal path and it really duplicates some of the earlier M4's which had no series/parallel loop. Of course, this means I can't use the parallel loop, but that is fine with me.
 
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