Effects. How do you avoid killing your tone?

[CapnCrunch]

I have been playing in a pretty straight ahead blues/rock band for the past 6 or 7 years. 99% of the time I plugged my Les Paul, or Tele, straight into an 18 Watt or AC15, cranked the amp wide open, and controlled it via my volume knob. On a couple songs I used a little analog delay.

I've recently changed gigs, and the stuff we're doing now requires digital delay, reverb, modulation, maybe some fuzz........

Finally getting to the point. I dug some of my old effects out, dusted them off, plugged them in, turned my amps down to avoid the hard clipping (I don't have an effects loop) so the mod effects and the delay wouldn't sound crappy, and I couldn't believe how dead my amp sounded. I had just changed tubes so I was wondering if I got some bad tubes. So I unplugged the effects to see if that was it. Yup. Now, I can't bring myself to plug my pedals in. I'm running my delay pedal and a tuner, and that is all I can bring myself to plug in.

Anybody else have this issue? When you run multiple effects, how do you do it without killing what your amp does best? Just curious to see how others deal with this.

Thanks

[strato17]

Every try a true bypass strip?

http://www.loop-master.com/index.php?cP ... fuqshcoa67

[tubeswell]

Hi Capn

Could be that the impedance bridging from too many pedals stacked up in front of your amp (I presume you aren't using a loop?) drags down the bandwidth from your geetar pickup(s). Is the situation better with only one pedal at a time? (you may need to think about some sort of switching rig - or just less FX)

[MBD115]

You might try switching around the order you have your pedals chained together. That might help.

I think they say you want distortion before delay then reverb, but I can't remember. Since you're getting most of your distortion from the amp that will put it last in the chain. The order of the pedals can effect the tone.

I think I'd try guitar > fuzz > delay > reverb > amp - and see how that sounds. But just try some different arrangements because you might find where it works best for you.

Good luck

[Andy Le Blanc]

less effects, if can't do it with a tele caster and a champ, you might as well quit.

[iknowjohnny]

Heres the way that sounds best and has the most advantages with only one disadvantage, but it's a small one. Use a second amp as a effects only amp. You only need a very small amp, any solid state cheapie with say 15 watts and a 10" will likely do for bar gigs. A small amp like that is fine unless you are going to use a ton of delay to the point the wet signal is almost as loud as your amp, then it only needs to be a fraction as loud as your main amp. So the tone quality isn't nearly as important as your main tone. You need two things to make it work best....a DI out that is from the speaker, (2 resistors and a jack will get you that, or you could make a box if you don't want to add it to the amp) and effects that are capable of delivering WET ONLY signal. If you can't dial out the dry signal then you will taint your amp's tone to a degree. Effects that have a global setting to turn off dry or "direct" signal as it's usually called is necassary. If you don't have that i still think you're better off buying some and doing it this way because your tone will be the best by far. The advantages are that the direct signal id only coming from the main amp and you even get a bit of a stereo effect since the effects are coming from a different speaker. Another way to do it is use a better quality amp and leave the direct signal in the effects so you now have a second speaker to beef up your tone, plus no need for effects that have the ability to turn off direct signal. In that case you need to set it up by playing with the effects box working, but the effects off so you can turn the second amp's volume up and down till you find the balance point where it's the same as the main amp's volume. Then add effects and tweak them till they are the correct level.

Either way you do it it is the only way to truly keep your amps tone 100% intact. the better the second amp's quality and power the better the effects tone, but the point is that even with a tiny amp thats easy to carry around your tone will be better than using a loop by far. And when the effects are coming from a different speaker you also have the benefit of the main amp's speaker only having to reproduce direct tone, so theres another way it keeps your main amp's tone perfect. If you have a second amp already, give it a try at home and see what you think. I started doing it this way in the early 90's and i could never go back. One more thing....it's not optimal for several reasons, but another way is to use the PA as the effects return. As you can imagine there are things to overcome there, but it can be done effectively in some cases depending a number of factors. Oh, and that fuzz you mentioned as you p[probably know must be used as normal....into the front of the main amp. But if that bothers you, mod it to have true bypass or make a true bypass box for it.

[Andy Le Blanc]

Ampeg used to make those echojet things that did exactly that.

It was two amps, the verb tank was drive by the voltage off the feed back loop of one,
and the input of the other amp was the recovery. BIG verb, and you could tweak your verb tone.

[Structo]

Those looper pedals are pretty easy to make.

The main cost is the jacks and LED's

Here's a couple.

One has a tuner out so it mutes the signal when tuning, that is if your tuner does not mute the signal when switched on.

The neat thing about loopers is that you leave the effects all on.
Then you connect them to the send and receive jacks.
You can use combinations of pedals for each loop as well.

Like if you want a chorus and delay to come on at the same time, hook those two pedals together then to the looper.

A lot of pros use these. A lot also use midi switching type systems but that is a lot more money in those.

To add more loops just copy the circuit and continue the chain.

[dano-rator]

I'll join the "keep them out of the signal path" camp... I've recently started using alot of digital stuff (rack verbs and delays) and i'm trying to work out a solution for jogging things in and out - more and more it looks like I'm after some sort of midi switching arrangement. Maybe something diy built around the arduino board like this - http://www.maxgreco.com/fun/microfoot

Also attached is a dip switch looper I stumbled upon out on the net somewhere- a pretty neat idea I've never built but would be great for switching set combinations of pedals on and off.

[jaysg]

I dug some of my old effects out, dusted them off, plugged them in, turned my amps down to avoid the hard clipping (I don't have an effects loop) so the mod effects and the delay wouldn't sound crappy, and I couldn't believe how dead my amp sounded.

Please list the boxes...the guys here will know which are tone suckers.

[mumford]

I used to use a certain "crackle ok" box to fix signal loading. Worked great.

[M Fowler]

With most old pedals you need to use a linear booster at the end of the chain to make up of the loss. More than likely you had one bad pedal that sucked the tone out not all of them.

I had the same problem Friday night my Boss digital delay pedal was not functioning properly and reduced my signal. I went direct the rest of the night which sounded the best anyway. But its possible only one pedal is the culpret here.

I currently run two amps into a stereo 412 cab. One is straight signal and the other uses bypassed pedal board.

Mark

[jjman]

A fuzz pedal sends the input to ground thru the transistor. This loads the signal down and destroys the tone for me unless I put any buffered pedal in front of the fuzz. It took me over a year to realize what was happening and why it was only a problem sometimes.

[crbowman]

I, like you, play in a band that really requires some effected guitar. I prefer to play straight in when possible but the reality is in this day and age you just can't always get away with that.
What I have found is that with a well thought-out layout signal wise and one good buffered pedal (such as a TS9 or equivalent) in just the right place in the signal chain your signal loss should be minimal. It just takes a lot of trial and error to get it just right. I would go through each pedal one by one.
Just guitar->pedal->amp and figure out which ones suck tone the worst and replace them with newer true-bypass models if you can (or mod them to true bypass). Also, quality patch cables are an absolute MUST. One bad cable can blow the whole thing.
Some pedals are REALLY sensitive to where they are placed in the signal chain. I have a fuzz-face that absolutely MUST be the first effect in the chain, otherwise it sounds TERRIBLE and messes with everything after it.
Wah-Wah's are notorious tone suckers of the worst kind! They are the one effect that I simple cannot deal with. They seem to destroy tone no matter where I place them.
Aside from that, my basic rule of thumb is this:
Compressors come first right after guitar. Otherwise you compress the noise from everything before it.
Second, modulation effects. Most modern Uni-Vibe type pedals just sound SO much better before any distortion.
Third, distortion effects (unless you have a problematic fuzz-face like mine).
Fourth, delay effects. I prefer delayed distortion as opposed to distorted delay.
Using this philosophy, and good quality cables, my tone loss is very minimal. With a really bright amp you might actually prefer the tone with the pedals.

[Structo]

I run the time based effects through the D'lator.
EHX Stereo Memory Man-Danelectro Cool Cat Chorus-HardWire RV-7 Reverb.

On the front I have a StroboStomp2 Tuner -Dunlop Crybaby Classic but I don't use that much.
If I use a compressor it goes after the tuner.
If I use a Fuzz it is after the tuner.