Any Experience with long cable-runs in Express FX Loop?

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john525

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Hello all,
I'm curious to hear about anyone's experience with long cable runs in the Express's FX Loop (say 20' round-trip). I ask because my 5:25's manual is pretty clear about limiting cables to 3' (with 1' being preferred). In particular I've got 2 question:
1) Is this primarily related to loss of high end due to the extra capacitance introduced by longer cables, and
2) Can anyone tell me if the 5:25's fx loop is fully buffered - I know the Express+ FX loops are, but couldn't find any info on the regular Express's loops.

Cheers, and thanks!
Jon
 
In my opinion, you can disregard that section of the manual. Most players use pedalboards, so a 3-foot run is completely unrealistic. Just make sure you have a quality buffer on your board and you'll be fine.
 
Thanks for the feedback. All of the pedals I had planned on putting in the loop are true-bypass, so no buffer, although I suppose I could use my Boss TR-2 (Tremolo) in the loop.
Think that would qualify as a "quality" buffer?
Thanks again!
 
Try it, and if you like your tone, then yeah it was a "quality" buffer. ;) If not, there are guys who make dedicated buffers specifically for this situation. It really is a great time to be a guitar player.
 
john525 said:
Thanks for the feedback. All of the pedals I had planned on putting in the loop are true-bypass, so no buffer, although I suppose I could use my Boss TR-2 (Tremolo) in the loop.
Think that would qualify as a "quality" buffer?
Thanks again!


I've been using 6m total cable to and from my send & return loop jacks with no issues for years - 2 x 3m cables.
The Express loop is really excellent - you won't find better.

But I do warn you against using Boss pedals with high quality tube amps.
They are infamous for tone suck (most of em - not all) due to use of poor quality buffers.
Not sure on how bad the TR-2 is but I won't risk any boss pedals except their delays & chorus pedals.
Their OD and distortion pedals are terrible tone suckers and the others vary from bad to not so good.
Their delays and Chorus are usually ok
There's hundred of threads here about boss pedal tone suck :)

http://www.thegearpage.net/board/forumdisplay.php?f=4
 
I use two 10' cables to go to a volume pedal that I use as a master volume, and have not run into any glitches with the signal (once I got rid of using the Tuner Out on my EB VPJr, which was having a huge negative impact on the quality of my sound).

I have no idea why Mesa would realistically recommend the extremely short lengths they did for the loop - that's just not practical in most situations. An Always-On pedal in the loop (like the ubiquitous Reverb or Delay) is different story; short lengths would work there, and is done by a fair number of guitarists.

But, I think the only person I ever saw with a pedal or two sitting on top of their amp where they have to walk back to engage/disengage those pedals by hand, and make setting changes between songs, was Richie Kotzen about 4 years ago when he kept his Signature Zoom on his amp head.

A couple of my friends who use the loop have those pedals on their board, alongside with their pedals going into the amp, so they have the longer runs to and from the amp's efx loop.
 
I tried putting my Timeline onto the Pedalboard and running it through the loop with long cables (6 meters each). I was not happy with the sound (Timeline has a build in Buffer), so now my Delay is placed next to the amp and connected with very short cables (0,3 meters each).
Needed to buy a Midi Controller, but soundwise everything is perfect!
 
Interesting...well, I'm just about done building my custom "snake" to bundle all my cables to and from the pedal board to backline -
3 instrument cables (amp-in, fx-send, fx-return)
amp footswitch cable
Mic XLR cable

It's only about 15 feet, so we'll see how it sounds
 
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