# Front of Amp or FX Loop?



## SWLABR (Nov 7, 2017)

I have always plugged my pedals (and/or pedal board) into the front of the amp. From one, to the many I now have, they go in the signal chain between the guitar and the front inputs. But, I do have an FX loop option in the back. 
A little research says they're good for "modulating" effects (reverb), but not "colouring" ones (Overdrive). As mine are all on one board, I'm not going to break them up, or have two boards, but curious who uses their FX Loop option??

And what do you (personally) run through it? I've seen the vids, I'm interested in what you're up to.


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## BlueRocker (Jan 5, 2020)

I'm using a temple board and have two "loops" on the board, one for stuff to go in the front end, and another for the loop. They're patched to the 1/4 jacks on the side of the board (connected under the board), and when I use an amp with no loop I just run a patch cable between the two loops to connect them together. Only really makes a difference if you're using the amp for your overdrive sounds - chorus, phaser, reverb in the loop, overdrive, wah, etc in the front end.

I have two pedals that always stay in the loop - a looper and beatbuddy mini.


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## bigboki (Apr 16, 2015)

In general
if you want to use drive from the amp, then you plug in drives in front of the amp and time effects (delay, reverb) in the loop.
Reason being is that if you have delay reverb in front of the amp, clean signal from the guitar goes into them, and then hey go into dirt of the amp.
In that case because of the delay/reverb signal is much less "in power" then the original signal, you will get one kind of dirt from the amp on the guitar signal, and much less dirt of the delayed / reverb signal.

However if you use your amp clean, then in general does not make a difference.

If you want to plug whole pedal board just into the loop where is your guitar plugged in - in the amp or in the pedal?
If in pedal then you are using only power amp section of the amp.

However all this is theory.
you need to find with your gear what suits you best.
And enjoy the process


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

The suggested way is drives out front and time-based in the loop. Time based out front works as well, just gotta dial it in differently. 

The one time you'd want drive in the loop is if you had a preamp type pedal (mesa v-twin, amt pedals, etc) and you wanted to use the amp as a power amp.

In sparrows we ran everything out front, as we didnt have loops. No issues.


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## CathodeRay (Jan 12, 2018)

Budda said:


> The suggested way is drives out front and time-based in the loop. Time based out front works as well, just gotta dial it in differently.
> 
> The one time you'd want drive in the loop is if you had a preamp type pedal (mesa v-twin, amt pedals, etc) and you wanted to use the amp as a power amp.
> 
> In sparrows we ran everything out front, as we didnt have loops. No issues.


@Budda, you seem to have some experience with this, wondering what you think.
I'm fooling around with a Gary Clark Jr tone, and he evidently runs WAH - > TREM -> REVERB -> FUZZ.
i.e., time based out front.
Do you thing the whole pedal chain would then likely be running in the loop, or into a front end preamp channel?

*--- EDIT ---*
The Reverb article I got this info from stated:

_"Clark's board sees a lot of additions these days, but when I caught up with him, it started with a Korg Pitchblack tuner and custom-voiced Dunlop Cry Baby ("Gary wanted it to sound like it was under water," Holman explains. "It came out perfect."). Next is the Strymon Flint, set for the '70s setting for reverb (it's a little dirtier) and '63 for tremolo. His custom Hermida Audio Zendrive—which replaced his standby Tube Screamer—has a cherry wood box and a hotter voiced midrange and is used as a boost between clean and dirty to warm things up a bit. After that is a prototype of MXR's La Machine, a fuzz with octave control. Clark keeps the gain high and distortion low. Finally, he has a Dunlop Jimi Hendrix Fuzz Face Mini, which he settled upon after trying a slew of different Fuzz Face pedals and clones. "_

But the author evidently read the pedal board from left to right. What can I say... Clark does not have his reverb before his fuzz.
Thanks @fretzel for the head's up.


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## SWLABR (Nov 7, 2017)

BlueRocker said:


> I'm using a temple board and have two "loops" on the board, one for stuff to go in the front end, and another for the loop. They're patched to the 1/4 jacks on the side of the board (connected under the board), and when I use an amp with no loop I just run a patch cable between the two loops to connect them together. Only really makes a difference if you're using the amp for your overdrive sounds - chorus, phaser, reverb in the loop, overdrive, wah, etc in the front end.
> 
> I have two pedals that always stay in the loop - a looper and beatbuddy mini.


So your board has an option?? Does that mean you have two sends coming out the board into the amp? One to the front, one to the back? (if that's where your FX loop is)

How does your board know which ones are front of amp, which are FX loop? Then if you don't have the FX loop option, you patch them and they all go in front of amp?? 

This is all very confusing for my pea-sized brain. That's why I've never even bother to research it.. 

Fascinating stuff though.


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

I've run pedal boards both ways.

Both sounded good (ie, I was able to get the sounds I was seeking from either set up).

If I was going out gigging these days, I would go for simplicity. I don't mind taking time dialing in my sounds, but on stage, I want things to be easy.

I want to be able to focus on music, not tap dancing on buttons or adjusting things.


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## SWLABR (Nov 7, 2017)

Milkman said:


> I've run pedal boards both ways.
> 
> Both sounded good (ie, I was able to get the sounds I was seeking from either set up).
> 
> ...


Ya, that's my thing too. I've always gone in front of amp, and I have gotten a lot of good feedback on my tone. Especially live. You know that guy that comes up to the stage and cocks his head to see what you've got going... "Awesome tones dude". 

I run a clean amp (Fender), so everything is coloured in front. I suppose if I used a Boogie, or a Marshall, I'd want that as my O/D and then send my chorus/phase/delay to the FX Loop.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

CathodeRay said:


> @Budda, you seem to have some experience with this, wondering what you think.
> I'm fooling around with a Gary Clark Jr tone, and he evidently runs WAH - > TREM -> REVERB -> FUZZ.
> i.e., time based out front.
> Do you thing the whole pedal chain would then likely be running in the loop, or into a front end preamp channel?


I would say front end. Running the fuzz after the reverb is interesting, because the fuzz gets applied to the reverb (fuzzy tails).


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## Cardamonfrost (Dec 12, 2018)

Fwiw, I have never had any luck running anything that has a gain knob in an fx loop.

C


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## tdotrob (Feb 24, 2019)

Not all effects loops are created equal either so something to consider.

I used to run everything into the front of my amp, usually just a TS9, delay and reverb.

Since I picked up GFI specular tempus I decided to give it a go in the loop and much prefer it there with the added level control. Sounds much nicer when doing higher gain stuff as well. Just my tiny experience.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

Delay and reverb will pretty much always be clearer in the loop because that puts them after the preamp gain (which is most modern amp designs).


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

As mentioned, not all loops are created equal. I plugged the same board into two different amps.
Using some effects into the front and the modulation and time effect units into the loop and had vastly different results into two different amps.

The big board at home, I run a variety of pedals into the front, dirt, wah and some utility pedals.
The rest, modulation and delays are run into the effects loop. Four cables needed.
One from the guitar to the first pedal in the front of the amp, then a cable to the front of the amp,
Then two more cables for the send and return of the effects loop and those pedal involved.

For my band rig, I use the amp as a clean platform and run everything into the front of the amp.
The only thing run into the loop of that amp is a Decimator noise suppressor.

I have a small board for my Marshall 2525 and that only runs in the effects loop.
I get the dirt from the amp, so on the board is just a tuner, boost, delay, modulation and a reverb pedal.


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## LouisFNCyphre (Apr 23, 2021)

Cardamonfrost said:


> Fwiw, I have never had any luck running anything that has a gain knob in an fx loop.
> 
> C


I don't like my HM-2 direct into the loop, but most of my distortion pedals are amp-in-box types that work better into the effects loop. I've had other distortion pedals that sounded really brittle and lacking through the loop so it really depends on the specific pedal and how it's voiced.

I've built a small collection of amp-in-box type pedals imitating older solid state amps, and an SLO to mix things up.


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## JMann (Feb 18, 2007)

Been running my delays/reverbs exclusively through an effects loop. Running most of my modulation effects including phaser, flanger and tremolo through the effects loop. I’ve had a few exceptions though: I used a MXR phase 95 in front of amp and always used a Deco last in my effects loop chain. The Deco has the tape saturation side which sounded fabulous to my ears in the FX loop.

If you are thinking of trying your FX loop I would line up all your pedals that you want in front of your amp on one side and the pedals you want through the loop on the other. Your guitar input will go into the input of the first pedal in your to-front-of-amp chain and the output of the last pedal in the amp chain will go to your amp input.

From your amps FX loop send, that will go to the input of your first effect in your FX loop pedal chain and the return of the FX loop will go to the output of the last pedal of your FX loop pedal chain. This, in a nutshell, is the 4 cable method. And the great thing about this is of you want to go all-in into the front of the amp is patching the output of the last pedal in the amp-input chain to the input of the first pedal in your FX loop chain. 

As mentioned above, not all FX loops are equal. I’ve recently been using a parallel FX loop which is different from a series type loop. I do believe parallel loops are rare. 

Hope this helps.


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## Okay Player (May 24, 2020)

CathodeRay said:


> @Budda, you seem to have some experience with this, wondering what you think.
> I'm fooling around with a Gary Clark Jr tone, and he evidently runs WAH - > TREM -> REVERB -> FUZZ.
> i.e., time based out front.
> Do you thing the whole pedal chain would then likely be running in the loop, or into a front end preamp channel?
> ...


I've been over his rig way, way, way, way too many times. He messes around with orders and is always trying new stuff but the combination I've seen the most often goes Octafuzz > Zendrive > Flint. There is of course always a wah, I believe it's first in the chain after the tuner, but it's somewhat unclear to me because of how his board is oriented.


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## fretzel (Aug 8, 2014)

Here is a pic of his board from 2015. I believe its after the one posted above. You can see with this pic that it appears the wah and tuner are last. 

Not sure if it is because of buffers messing with the fuzz pedals. I had the La Machine and I actually found it sounded better with a buffer in front of it. When MXR made a modded La Machine with the introduction of the Sub Machine they included a buffer in the circuit.


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## AJ6stringsting (Mar 12, 2006)

Run your compression, distortion, fuzz, overdrive, booster pedal and Eq pedal through the front and put your modulation pedals ( phaser, flanger, detuner, chorus pedals, delay and reverb) through the effects loop of your amp.


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## BMW-KTM (Apr 7, 2015)

I've tried time-based pedals in the loop several times over the years but I never found enough benefit to justify the extra work setting it up. There just wasn't enough difference that a couple adjustments would not have covered the same ground. Of course, most of my tones would be considered pretty low gain by comparison to many of the members here. I'm more of a straight ahead rock 'n roll & blues guy. Maybe it's different when you're set up for soul crushing grind.


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## LouisFNCyphre (Apr 23, 2021)

BMW-KTM said:


> I've tried time-based pedals in the loop several times over the years but I never found enough benefit to justify the extra work setting it up. There just wasn't enough difference that a couple adjustments would not have covered the same ground. Of course, most of my tones would be considered pretty low gain by comparison to many of the members here. I'm more of a straight ahead rock 'n roll & blues guy. Maybe it's different when you're set up for soul crushing grind.


That seems reasonable. If you're not adding a bunch of distortion to the sound after the time-based effect it shouldn't matter too much where they're located because the distortion isn't dealing with how the time-based effect impacts the signal (basically it isn't recompressing the quiet echos back to being loud).

Not that I've got much familiarity with those sorts of effects, I mostly stick to dry distortion.


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## BMW-KTM (Apr 7, 2015)

LouisFNCyphre said:


> If you're not adding a bunch of distortion to the sound after the time-based effect it shouldn't matter too much...


Before. Not after. I always place gain ahead of modulation in the chain.


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## LouisFNCyphre (Apr 23, 2021)

BMW-KTM said:


> Before. Not after. I always place gain ahead of modulation in the chain.


Right, I understand that's the correct way. That's why having them in front of the preamp only works well if you're not adding distortion with the preamp, otherwise you want them in the loop after the distortion.


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## BMW-KTM (Apr 7, 2015)

LouisFNCyphre said:


> Right, I understand that's the correct way. That's why having them in front of the preamp only works well if you're not adding distortion with the preamp, otherwise you want them in the loop after the distortion.


Ahhh ...right. Now I gotcha.
Yes, I typically run only a small amount of dirt into a clean-ish amp with mod fx.
If I switch channels to the dirty side, usually the greater the amount of dirt I'm getting from the amp the less I want to run any modulations.


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## Scott McCrea (Dec 27, 2020)

I run delay and reverb in fix loop


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## TubeStack (Jul 16, 2009)

I used to not care about loops and never used them, but a couple years ago got an HXFX and really enjoyed putting things in front of and/or in my amp’s loop. I now do the same with my FM3. Still use a couple real OD/fuzz pedals in front of the FM3, and then have the option of putting any of the FM3 stuff before/after my Mesa’s preamp. Love it and now need an amp with a loop, for sure.

Also, as others have said, effect loops can be very different from amp to amp. Mesa generally recommends putting pedals in front and keeping anything that’s in the loop rack/studio quality.

On a related topic, some delays sound better/more “period correct” in front of the amp, like a Belle Echo or other Echoplex-type. I had a CBread Montavillian Echo that was amazing in front.


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## Okay Player (May 24, 2020)

fretzel said:


> Here is a pic of his board from 2015. I believe its after the one posted above. You can see with this pic that it appears the wah and tuner are last.
> 
> Not sure if it is because of buffers messing with the fuzz pedals. I had the La Machine and I actually found it sounded better with a buffer in front of it. When MXR made a modded La Machine with the introduction of the Sub Machine they included a buffer in the circuit.


I didn't see you had responded.

The board I posted was from 2019.


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