Effects loop vs. straight in throught the input

[spot]

Never gave it much thought but it was recently suggested to me that I run my Boss ME-50 through the effects loop on my DC-5 as opposed to running it straight into the input jack. What's the advantage?

 

[tele_jas]

It depends what your wanting to do or what you're using the Boss for??? Heres a couple of ideas:

* If you run an FX processor in to the input of the amp, you are also using that amps preamp along with your fx processor and running the FX through the preamp. This is what I do when I run my PODxt in to my old fender deluxe, the podxt adds distortion and/or effects to signal before it goes to the amp.

* If you are using an FX processor in an FX loop (send and return) you are sending the amps signal through the fx processor and adding FX after the preamp stage. Unless the amp has a paralell fx loop, then it actually has two signal (one dry and one fx'd) and you blend the two - I really dont like paralell fx loops myself because you cant really use any modulation fx (like flange, chorus, phayse) in the fx loop, thus you have to use a pedal/fx unit in front of the amp for this.

* On amps with a serial fx loop, you can run into the FX return only from something like your Boss and use the amp as a power-amp and your Boss would be the only preamp.

Man, I just confused my self :shock: Maybe some of this will help, or someone might give you an easier answer.

 

[jbird]

The advantage would be that time based effects typically sound better in an effects loop. I'm not familiar with the ME-50, as to whether you can bypass the other effects or not, or route them to the front end?

 

[spot]

The ME-50 is basically just a knob based effects processor for idiots like me who don't like menu driven processors. It's not an amp/cab modeling box but it has all the oscilating effects, delay, compressor and an overdrive. I'm using it to directly replace my old boss DD3 delay, CE3 chorus and TSP overdrive.

I had been running them into the front of my amp but now I'm wondering if I should use the loop. It is a parallel circuit.

 

[tele_jas]

the parallel loop will only really work with Delay and Reverb (and the reverb wont ever be a real heavy verb) so if thats all you really want to run, then I would recommend the FX loop, any other effects will have to be ran before the amp (flange, chorus, compression, EQ, ect...).

To run the verb and delay in the loop, its best to set your ME-50 fx mix to a really WET mix with lots of verb and fairly loud delay and then set the fx mix on your boogie to as low as possible, like around the 10% area and then tweak the ME-50 from there. Just some FYI fer ya.