First Of All as you could guess from the name these things deal with the effects...
As we all know (or don't) the "putting the pedals in particular order to get the right tone for your ears" is a bit complicated thing... There are no rules, as somes may think... Off course there are some ways you have to prevent in order to avoid sounding like a dead baby in a microwave... But these are just advices for newbies... And not always work...
Ok here are some examples... Putting the phaser before the distortion varies a lot from the one, after distortion... In 1st case you are adding the distortion on the phased signal... In the 2nd you add the phaser after the distortion... Pitch pedals or octavers (off course somes go after the distortion, cause putting them behind it, can bring the problem of low notes (octave lower) and the distortion may not catch the notes as it is not for bass pedals...) putting the chorus behind the distortion will give you a complitly different sound as the one after it...
But here's an advice not putting the reverb or delay behind the distortion as the distortion will affect on the reverbed or delayed signal which will make you sound a bit... bad!
The tremolo before distortion will affect in increasing and decreasing distortion... Putting it after will be just acting in normal way... Putting it after the reverb will give you somekinda Fender-ish old school, bluesy sound...
Ok now when the point comes to your amp... It contains of several stages (most comon and simple stages)
Input
Pre-amp stage
Tone Controls
Master Volume (Channel Volume)
Power Amp
Speakers (ie. Output)
Somes may have another Pre-Amp stage after the tone controls... The others (like Peaveys) have additional tone controls on Power Amp stages... Others have reverbs and so...
Of course you may be using your amp distortion... So if you do, your question is "how shall I add a delay pedal... Or a chorus after the amp distortion?" Off course you don't want to say no! To your amp's tube distortion and just run all the pedals before the amp... But adding the delay pedal after the amp can fry the pedal... Tons of WATTs into a little pedal... Ouch!
"Ok what shall I do then?"
Now this is when the "Good Sir - Effects Loop" comes... It just brakes the chain between the stages and gives you out/in so you can put pedals between the stages... After the amp's distortion... But before the Power Amp stage
Now there are several kinds of Effects Loops: Serial and Parallel
Serial: this is pretty simple... it just brakes the signal and sends the entire signal to your pedals... (from the FX Send) then brings it back to the amp (by FX Return) This is if you want your effect pedal to affect the entire signal... (example: Choruses, Volume pedals, wahs, boosters, gates, etc...)
Parallel: Is for time-based FX... You want to add delayed signal but also have the original signal untouched... Like on mixers... However you can use the pedals on both loops... Adding time-based FX through the series loop will be just like you do as ussually... For the parralel there might be (I'd say Must Be!) an FX knob on the amp... This is a wet/dry controller...
Parallel (FX Knob at half) The Dry and Wet are like 50:50
Parallel (FX Knob at min) Dry Wet = 100:0 (inthis case you won't hear the looped signal)
Parallel (FX Knob at min) Dry Wet = 0:100 (in this case you can add whateverpedal you want)
And you can use the Parallel with for example a phaser FX which doesn't have a volume or amount or wet/dry knob... Plug it and you can control the amount by the FX knob... Also you can use the FX loop for recording or so... Well you got the point... I hope
Somes also have both Serial and Parallel
The Loops mostly come with two jacks: Out/Send and In/Return... You take the out to your FX chain's in and it's out to the In of the FX Loop
The other way is a One TRS Jack FX Loop... It's pretty easy... You'll need a three conductor jack (as like those on your headphones) TRS stands for Tip: Hot, Ring: Cold and Sleeve: Ground... In this case: Tip is the Send, Ring is the Return and sleeve is a shared ground... (somes may have the return on the tip and send on the Ring... Ground is always the same)
If your FX Device has a TRS in/out than you can simply get a TRS cable to connect the two... But for those usual guitar pedals you'll need a Y cable that slpits the Tip and Ring signals... and connect the Tip to the FX Chain's Input and the Ring to its output!
Pretty easy eh?
Some amps also have a footswitchable Effects Loop which is pretty handy (I'd say Footy) in those cases when you have got loads of pedals there and need to turn them on/off at the same time.
It's also possible to DIY an FX Loop on an amp if it hasn't got one... Don't forget to add a footswitch to it... For this contact me... It won't be that much hard though would be a bit complicated while figuring out the whole schematic...
Allright I guess that's all! Enjoy your playing... And your Tone! Tweak but don't freak! - V
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