How And Why To Use The Effects Loop In Guitar Amps

hey guys we're gonna do quick videos called ten things every guitar player should know and no particular order let's start with this one it's called the effects loop alright the effects loop on an amp I want you to understand how effects loop work so that way when you make decision not to use one or to use one you're doing it for the right reasons effects loops everybody generally knows how an overdrive box works right distortion box great now effects loop is essentially exactly like an overdrive box here's why if you have an overdrive box you've probably learned that if you put a delay a flanger or reverb in front in other words from that pedal into the overdrive box the effect is over the top and it's not very pleasing unless you're looking for that kind of crazy out there kind of sound but most of us are going to definitely put those kind of effects on the other side of the torsion box let's say here right okay now here's how this works the problem is what if instead of an overdrive box use your amplifiers overdrive tone same problem the effects have to come after the distortion tone so the amp companies make to car make one kind of a system it's called the effects loop vendor calls this preamp out power amp in everybody else calls it effect send in return there's no trickery to this this is all you have to know a sinned on an effects loop really means output on a pedal just like you would expect if you had this pedal output means would go either to the amp or to the next pedal right that is the sin on an effects loop or the preamp out on a Fender amp the return our input on the pedal is returned on the effects loop in other words what they're saying is it looking at the effects loop like a pedal you would send this is sending this so think of this think of this amp as the actual distortion pedal and now imagine your amp is the distortion pedal you would then output which is send of the effects loop of your distortion pedal which is your amp into the next petal so in this case let's say this was a delay pedal you would send from your amp to the input of this delay pedal you would output of your delay pedal to the return on the amp which is basically the input again the amp does that make sense you use a horrible terminology right push it they should just say input output on this it would really be less confusing I like said vendor use cramp out which they're trying to say the [ __ ] is the sound of the PAMP out there sending that signal out and the power pin is returning it back to the power that's essentially what's happening okay so in your aunt try to picture your amp is two things a distortion box and a power amp a section okay so essentially all you're doing is saying I would like the distortion box the amp to be first then the delay then the reverb then to the power section of the amp I hope that kind of makes sense but let's say you don't use those kind of effects and you don't care so in facts loop doesn't have it particularly it's not really important to you however there's another huge thing that if X look really good for most guys are familiar with the idea that if you have a forty water 100 watt tube amp it's really loud okay even 25 watt amps like this one are so loud they're hard to practice with at home so I'm going to show you what you do what you use in effects loop for to help that all right in this particular case I have a volume pedal we're very familiar with volume pedals if you've never used a volume pedal imagine this if you put up on pedal before and overdrive box what happens is as you go full-bore you're fully distorted as you back off you're less distorted if you put a volume pedal after distorted box none of the tone actually changes it all it just gets loud distortion or less loud Distortion so make sense same thing if I sin which is output of the amp which is the distortion box the amp is the charge box I'm going to send the signal to the input of the volume pedal the output of the volume pedal to the return are the back to the amp to put it to the power section I've now essentially inserted this pedal in between the amps distortion box and the amps power side does that make sense so now your volume is in between those two so what happens this happens Sam right now it's fully cranked it is cranked right now and it sounds me now something I want you to understand right now so you understand clearly when this volume is full all in here that is where the amp is set right now if you were plugged in the same if I pull these watch what happens if I pull these out listen to happens that's how loud the amp is right by inserting this pedal in between I am choking how much of that signal now goes to the power section so what I've effectively done is I'm running my ant hard and loud but I'm basically killing the volume with this Vaughn so I practice now let's say you're not a practicer let's say your gig well essentially it works the same way you could set this volume let's say here hey when your solo comes up a little bit more right so essentially uses boost now if you don't want to use that volume pedal because it's a kind of irregular in other words where you set it you could use a boost pedal especially a low gain boost pedal or you can use an EQ pedal okay and sometimes you keep that even work a little better because uh you can when you turn it when you run the game really low or the volume low you can kind of fatten it up with the EQ if you want so either way that's how you kind of intent the sound now a lot of guys will use the same idea they just don't realize it if you run a distortion box into the front of your amp and then you turn the volume down on your origin box right did it make your ant quieter you just did the same thing it's working the exact same way we're just using this volume pedal as the volume overall of the pedal you know the source of oxide of the amp doesn't make sense now the other application that people use is a power soak or an attenuator in other words they run the actual output of the amplifier into something that basically restricts how much power gets to a speaker now the only thing about that is they're kind of pricey right you can find them for about 200 bucks and on up and some of them are very specific to what ohms that the amp has to be in the cabinet some are variable either way and my experience with all of them is they all sound okay you know right I don't really love or hate them but I don't find that for practicing I get anything different than just using what I'm using now right so that's how the effects loop works right okay so you now you know that's one thing down to 10 things you should know if you're a guitar player alright guys thanks for your time know your gear

Channel: Phillip McKnight

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Keywords: Mesa, boogie, dunlop, volume, phillip, mcknight, prs, effects, loops, effects loop explained, effects loop vs direct, effects loop attenuator, effects loop uses

Id: 7Hi7fBwe5JM

Length: 6min 27sec (387 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 26 2015