Newbie help

[fmcgee10]

So I have a 3 channel triple recto that's a few years old and I currently am not really using any effects.

The songs that I play go from soft to heavy quickly, and I dont have enough time to hit more than one button on a pedal to make a smooth transition. I really like the overdrive/distortion sounds I get on my 2nd and 3rd channels, I dont want any effects on those channels. But I'd like to be able to have some effects on my clean channel, like some delay, chorus, reverb, etc. I know I could do this with a multi effects pedal if I use their distortion, but I dont want fake pedal distortion, I love the tone I get from my 2nd and 3rd channel.

What would I need to go, in one push of a button, from my clean channel with some pre set effects on it, to one of my other channels with no effects whatsoever? Any help on this would be greatly appreciated, and really dummy it down for me, I'm clueless about effects :wink:

 

[mr_fender]

The most common solution is to use a MIDI controlled relay switcher to change the channels on your amp. You create "presets" assigned to MIDI program numbers and set the relay switcher and your FX unit to the same MIDI program number. Using a MIDI footcontroller, you change between different programs, and your amp and FX unit are switched accordingly at the same time. This is definitely possible, but not simple or cheap. There are also some FX units that have a channel switching jack that might work too. Regular old pedalboards are nice and simple, but you do have get used to the tap dancing. MIDI is more complicated and expensive, but it can give you one button changes.

In your particular case, since you want FX on channel 1 and no FX on channels 2 or 3, you can just assign the FX loop to only channel 1 and put your FX in the loop. When you switch to channels 2 or 3 the loop will be bypassed and you'll get no effects.