Multi Effects Pedals

[LSchefman]

No matter which multi-effects unit you choose, my input would be to make sure it has a bypass feature. If that's not important to you, then by all means ignore me. But I wanted to at least share my experience and mention it. :-)

I think that's great advice.

Most multi-effects pedals add a certain amount of digital hash or hiss to the signal chain unless they're able to be bypassed, but there's one solution to consider: A true bypass loop switchbox. With one small box, you can completely switch out the multi-effects, and if you like, even switch additional stuff in and out of the signal chain.

This place does a nice job:

http://www.roadrageprogear.com

[Boogeyman]

Can any of you explain the effects loop and the 4cm method in more detail? I have a boss gt-6 that I've always plugged right into the front of the amp. I done some reading and watched a couple of videos on youtube about effects loops, and most people say "dont" run distortion through the loop, that it's intended for reverbs and chorus etc... with multi effects, you're running it "all" through the loop, so is there a disadvantage to this other than sound quality? Will it hurt the amp at all?

[Boogeyman]

Can any of you explain the effects loop and the 4cm method in more detail? I have a boss gt-6 that I've always plugged right into the front of the amp. I done some reading and watched a couple of videos on youtube about effects loops, and most people say "dont" run distortion through the loop, that it's intended for reverbs and chorus etc... with multi effects, you're running it "all" through the loop, so is there a disadvantage to this other than sound quality? Will it hurt the amp at all?

Anyone, Anyone at all?

[Steph]

Anyone, Anyone at all?

I'm no FX expert. That said, I'don't think its about "hurting" the amp. OD and distortion FX are made to push or drive the pre-amp into clipping earlier and differently than it would on its own, hence the name "over-drive". An FX loop puts your FXs between the pre-amp and the power amp. So if you put your distortion in the FX loop, you bypass the pre-amp it is suppose to drive to create your tone.

Hope I'm right on this
.........and making myself clear.

[vchizzle]

I'm no FX expert. That said, I'don't think its about "hurting" the amp. OD and distortion FX are made to push or drive the pre-amp into clipping earlier and differently than it would on its own, hence the name "over-drive". An FX loop puts your FXs between the pre-amp and the power amp. So if you put your distortion in the FX loop, you bypass the pre-amp it is suppose to drive to create your tone.

Hope I'm right on this
.........and making myself clear.

That's mostly right except you're not bypassing the preamp if the distortion is in the loop...you're just placing it in a different spot. It just sounds different. I like to have mostly everything except reverbs and delays in front of the amp. They have more impact and a more dramatic affect on the sound. Placing chorus, flangers, filter type effects like wah & synth in the loop will make them a little more subtle. If using a high gain amp, that's when you really want the reverb and delay in the loop because it gets too messy and sloppy running them in front of high gain most of the time. If you run an amp that's clean all the time it doesn't matter much but you'll usually want the OD's, distortions, etc before the reverbs and delays.

The four cable method is just routing your effects in a multi-fx unit to different jacks coming out of the unit itself. There usually needs to be a setting or programming feature in the unit to do that. Would probably be labeled as inputs/outputs for the ones intended to in front of the amp(chor, flanger, etc) and FX loop in/out on the jacks that would run to your actual loop on the amp for time based effects like delay and reverb. I think with the gt-6, the "external" jacks would go to the loop of an amp? I'm not familiar with the unit so you better check the manual. If you search boss gt-6 4cm, you'll find a bunch of stuff. Looks like there's just a button you push twice to run it that way? I didn't read that close since I don't have the unit but... http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum....php?t=1499141

[Steph]

Here's the sort of info out there on the web that led me to understand the FX loop as being in between the pre-amp and power amp stages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_loop

I'm not saying I'm right. "Au contraire". Just curious to learn and get someone else's take on this.
Is this info bogus?

PS.: S'cuse my french...

[Woundtight]

Can any of you explain the effects loop and the 4cm method in more detail? I have a boss gt-6 that I've always plugged right into the front of the amp. I done some reading and watched a couple of videos on youtube about effects loops, and most people say "dont" run distortion through the loop, that it's intended for reverbs and chorus etc... with multi effects, you're running it "all" through the loop, so is there a disadvantage to this other than sound quality? Will it hurt the amp at all?

If the multi-effects unit has the ability to have an assignable chain, then you can get the most out of the 4 cable method. So you assign, or select which effects stay in front and which one go in the loop. I have a Boss GT-10 that works great for this, I don't know if the Boss GT-6 will allow you to do this, let's assume it's the same.

Physical connections would be:
Guitar>GT-6 In
GT-6 Out > Amp Input
GT Loop Send> Amp Return
GT Loop Return> Amp Send


For starters, if you have a good amp and cab, switch off the amp and speaker sims in the GT-6.
The GT-6 has a manual stomp box mode so you turn effects on and off by stomping on a switch. Rather than a preset/ that turn on and off a series or chain of effects.. I would start with the stompbox mode when using the 4CM. So imagine you have 5 effects want in a chain. Wah>Overdrive> Boost> Delay>Reverb. In the GT-6 you can create the chain and assign where each effect goes, in front or in the loop. Of course, in this example I would put the Delay and reverb or any modulation effects in the loop.

[Boogeyman]

Thanks so much for the replies ...I'll play around with the 4cm some and see what happens.

[Boogeyman]

this video is what lead me to believe there could be amp damage from running distortion through the loop...he mentions it at about 3:20 in the video. Not the best of 3 videos I watched, but that comment caught my attention. He's also using individual stomp boxes rather than a multi unit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sbqIaY-1BA

[Raven17]

Question, do you have more than one amp? I ask because I recently started going in the opposite direction when I bought a new amp. I had been running a lesser brand 2x12 combo amp using a Digitech GNX4 thru the clean channel. I got an amazing deal on a Randall tube amp and a 4x12 cabinet. This is my first tube amp and the quality of the sound was amazing thru both channels. This is where I could REALLY hear the difference between my PRS guitars and the others. But when I hooked up my Digitech it was sadly lacking. A friend of mine advised me to try some analog pedals with my tube amp and that made the magic happen! One of the pedals had stereo outputs and I had the bright idea of using both amps at the same time. Using all analog thru the tube amp and the Digitech thru the combo amp and holy cow the massive full sound and tone. So long story short, try having your cake and eat it too!