Mark IV - delay/mod. effects and power tube saturation

[highroller]

When using time delay or modulation effects with distortion, some says that if you want to preserve clarity of power-tube saturation, these effects must go after *all* types of distortions, so basically, the delay must be ideally positioned after the mic, in the console fx-loop.

Maybe this as more to do with vintage amps that need to be cranked to max to get a full distortion (e.g. Marshall) rather than more modern cascaded gain amps like the Mesa Mark IV which use a large amount of preamp saturation to get is distortion sound rather than its power section.

I which I could use time delay effect in my fx-loop without loosing definition and clarity so I assume that if I use medium grade power tubes and a full power/Pentode/Simul-Class/ setting, my power stage will be less prone to saturate.

I'm not sure how I can tell if the power tubes of my Mark IV remain clean when I use an heavy distortion ?

Any tips ?

Thanks

Dom

 

[marklyn]

Think of it like this...
Distortion>>>Delay results in delays of the original distorted tone (more or less)
Delay>>>Distortion can result in a smear of the delay so that neither the delay nor the distorition have the same clarity

Play around with it and see what you like.
I like my delay in the loop.

Power tube saturation probably isn't much of an issue with the Mark IV other than to add some character to the signal. Again, play with the power settings and see what you like.

 

[Antoine]

I totaly agree with Marklyn, the delay sound so much better and natural in the FX loop, it's the distortion signal that has to be delayed, and not the Delay that has to be saturated !