Just a question

when you use a preamp (or pedal) for distortion/overdrive, on a regular head... for the best results: would you put it in the head's effects loop or in front, between the guitar and the head.

If it would make any difference, for a start.

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Well, did you try it out for yourself? What do you think sounds better?

But usualy, you'll want compression -> distortion before your amplification, and any modulations like reverb, flange, delay etc. in the loop. Equalizers can be put anywere you want.
But like I said, just do what your ear likes.

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a preamp you want to plug into the fx loop return...

a distortion pedal you want before the amp.

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i think that distortions and wahs should go from your guitar to the head, everything else in the loop
yes xdx?

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mostly, but fx sound different in different places... i prefer phasers in front... some people don't...

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i'll tell you what mike gilbert from severed savior told me when i asked him. things like overdrives/ wahs/ noise gates things like that go better straight into the input. things like delays/ chorus'/ are better in the loop.

for the most part, that's how it usually goes... but it's still best to experiment.

i always laugh when i see the locals running like 10 pedals all before the amp, no buffers, no true bypassing, eeek, just a big line of tone suckers and noise makers.. no fx loops being used either...

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buffers, bypassing??

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yep...

when you have your guitar running through like 6 boss', 5 digitech's, a couple dod's, a wah, ect... all connected with mediocre cabling, and all in front of your amp... you get tons of signal degrading and added noise.

true bypassing, not all pedals do this. meaning, when you "bypass" the pedal or "turn it off" your signal is still altered from that of what it would be if the pedal was not in the chain. very subtle, but with, say, a dozen+ of those tone suckers it becomes very apperent and usually undesired. most pedals can be modded to be true bypassable, and alot of higher end pedals already are.

buffers also help, especially if you don't have true bypassing.

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So I had always thought that my Crate gt3500 head didnt have an effects loop which completely baffled me. I emailed crate and apparently the 'line in' and 'line out' in the back are the effects loop in/out. So thats cool, I thought it didnt have one! (which didnt affect me before because I dont use any pedals)

anyways, I have an effects loop now!

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