Understanding Tube Amps: Effects Loops

Categories: Understanding Tube Amps

In the 7th video of this series, I explain the difference between putting your pedals before the amp in the signal chain, and inserting them in an effects loop.

7 Comments

  1. Tyler Durman Says:
    December 11th, 2010 at 3:13 am

    First of all, very informative! Thanks!

    I have a quick question about impedance from an amp to a speaker cab. Can you explain what happens to a speaker when you run the amp at/above/below the cab’s rated impedance? From what I could tell with my Marshall stack with a 16 ohm cab, there was speaker distortion at the 16 ohm setting, and at there was a more comfortable tone at the 8 ohm setting. Also, it is always recommended to run cabs at their rated impedances?

    Anthony Stauffer reply on December 13th, 2010 4:16 pm:

    Running an amp into a higher load won’t sound as good, but it’s not as dangerous as running it into too low of a load. An amp rated for 4 ohms, when pushing a 2 ohm load is like you trying to keep a wheelbarrow full of rocks from getting away from you while walking down a hill :-)

  2. Dcope Says:
    November 21st, 2010 at 11:11 am

    Thanks for the info. are there certain pedals you don’t in the effect loop such as a wah or a tubescreamer to push the pre amp harder? thanks D cope

    Anthony Stauffer reply on December 13th, 2010 4:16 pm:

    Typically only clean pedals are put in the effects loop I believe. Wah pedals are typically used in front of the amp.

  3. Matt Says:
    July 29th, 2010 at 3:58 pm

    Hey Anthony! Great videos! I have a question on the effects loop: Would it makes sense to put a clean boost/OD pedal in the effects loop? My initial thought would be that it would provide an opportunity to run the amp clean but push the power section to distort to get the better sounding distortion. If this is a correct assumption, would you want to move that pedal to the end of the effects chain so that the delay/modulation effects can come through clean before moving into the distorted stage? Or does it really matter? Thanks dude!

    Anthony Stauffer reply on July 30th, 2010 10:29 am:

    Hi Matt,

    Yes, theoretically this would allow you to run the preamp clean, but overdrive the power tubes. However, I’m not totally sure that this will sound any better than just running the whole amp wide open. I’ve never tried it.

    In terms of pedal order, my general method has been to put dirty pedals first, clean pedals last. Dirty meaning pedals that generate distortion.

  4. Wayne Says:
    April 24th, 2010 at 6:31 pm

    I love this series Anthony. I built my own tube amp from David Allens Encore kit and it sounds awsome. I was wondering if you could do a video to explain how different types of preamp tubes and their position affect the overall tone of your amp i.e. V1, PI, Reverb circuit. Thanks