Placing Delay Pedal in Effects Loop Kills Your Tone?

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HK Expat

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After running my EHX Memory Boy Deluxe delay pedal into my amp's input for the last year or so, I thought that I would try something different and put it in the effects loop. The Memory Boy has send and return jacks, so I used those at first. That resulted in very little signal - almost inaudible. Then I used the pedal input/output jacks and the level returned to normal. However, when turning the effect ON, the highs and upper mids were noticeably degraded. The Memory Boy is true bypass, so when I turned it off the tone went back to normal. To verify that the box was sucking my tone, I turned the effect ON and adjusted the Blend control on the Memory Boy to zero, so that the only signal coming out was the "dry" sound without delay effect. Toggling the effect ON and OFF verified that it had a negative effect on the tone overall. I then place the effect at the amp's input jack, and the tone was definitely better than when it was placed in the loop.

I found this surprising for a couple of reasons. Firstly because most references that I have checked state that delay effects are best placed in the effects loop. Secondly because I am a big fan of Andy Timmons' tone and he clearly states that he places is Deluxe Memory Man boxes in the effect loop.

Can anyone offer any helpful insights? I realize that the Deluxe Memory Boy and Deluxe Memory Man are different boxes, but they are both considered to be very good analog delay pedals. Mine sounds better at the amp's input than in the effects loop. I would like to hear your thoughts on this, especially if you are able to place the effect in the loop without sucking your tone.
 
This sounds to be an impedence issue with the effects loop and your pedals.

I'm not very tech savvy, but the line level loop (I think) doesn't like your pedal level, well pedal. What exactly is happening to your tone?
 
I'm using boss dd-20 with my express...ofc I put it in the loop cos otherwise its unusable on the drive channel...
It doesn't suck the tone at all so I would suggest changing your delay pedal for something else...another option would be to try and use the buffer with it in your eff. loop, maybe that would fix it...
 
jazzphan89 said:
This sounds to be an impedence issue with the effects loop and your pedals
Click to expand...
Ding ding ding! We have a winner! :D

Yep, some pedals just suck (literally and figuratively) with some amps. It isn't the fault of the pedal or the amp, they just weren't made for each other. Drop an MXR Carbon Copy in there...my MkIII loves it.
 
kdorsey said:
jazzphan89 said:
This sounds to be an impedence issue with the effects loop and your pedals
Click to expand...
Ding ding ding! We have a winner! :D

Yep, some pedals just suck (literally and figuratively) with some amps. It isn't the fault of the pedal or the amp, they just weren't made for each other. Drop an MXR Carbon Copy in there...my MkIII loves it.
Click to expand...

Yep, this. The CC works great in my Express effects loop.

Al
 
Might be a silly question but...are you running the pedal on a battery? If so, change it and see what happens. Sometimes you just gotta make sure something is plugged in.

That said, I run my Carbon Copy in the effects loop of my 5:50+ head with no noticeable tone degradation. It is an awesome effects loop in my experience.
 
Thanks everyone for your replies thus far. What I did not mention is that the Mesa amp on which I am using the effects loop is the Express 5:50+.

Jazzphan89, what is happening with my tone is that the highs and upper mids are degraded when the EHX Deluxe Memory Boy in inserted into the effects loop. The other strange thing is that I cannot use the send/return jacks on the Deluxe Memory because the signal level is almost inaudible, so I use the standard input/output jacks on the box instead. So you may be right about the impedance mismatch. Mike at Analog Man is sending me a deluxe Memory Man with several mods including input impedance control, so that may help.

FlamencoD, no I am not using a DC battery with my Deluxe Memory Boy. Only 9VDC from a PSA-type power supply. Sounds great at my amp’s input, but terrible in the effects loop.

I hear you guys about the MXR Carbon Copy, but for my ears I really like the EHX and Analog Man delay boxes. For this reason I have Analog Man doing some mods on a DMM that should be coming my way shortly. It has a Chorus setting that adds the same character as the Roland Space Echoes that we used back in the 70’s and 80’s; this is the kind of organic sound that I love. I know that Andy Timmons uses two DMM’s in stereo in his effects loop and gets really good tone with his Mesa amps, so there must be potential with this combination of pedal and Mesa’s running in the effects loop.
 
one more thing - check your cables that you use for connecting the delay...
btw MXR CC also has that modulation delay (the chorus thing you just talked about)...
 
One other thing you could do is to check for possible oxidation of the effects loop jacks by repeatedly inserting and removing the cables (this works best if you can spray a bit of electrician's contact cleaner (such as Caig deoxit) onto the cable ends and into the jack ports first).
 
Krek13 said:
I'm using boss dd-20 with my express...ofc I put it in the loop cos otherwise its unusable on the drive channel...
It doesn't suck the tone at all so I would suggest changing your delay pedal for something else...another option would be to try and use the buffer with it in your eff. loop, maybe that would fix it...
Click to expand...

I gigged mine with a DD-20 in the loop for years. I agree -- it sounded amazing every single night.
 
HK Expat said:
After running my EHX Memory Boy Deluxe delay pedal into my amp's input for the last year or so, I thought that I would try something different and put it in the effects loop. The Memory Boy has send and return jacks, so I used those at first. That resulted in very little signal - almost inaudible. Then I used the pedal input/output jacks and the level returned to normal. However, when turning the effect ON, the highs and upper mids were noticeably degraded. The Memory Boy is true bypass, so when I turned it off the tone went back to normal. To verify that the box was sucking my tone, I turned the effect ON and adjusted the Blend control on the Memory Boy to zero, so that the only signal coming out was the "dry" sound without delay effect. Toggling the effect ON and OFF verified that it had a negative effect on the tone overall. I then place the effect at the amp's input jack, and the tone was definitely better than when it was placed in the loop.

I found this surprising for a couple of reasons. Firstly because most references that I have checked state that delay effects are best placed in the effects loop. Secondly because I am a big fan of Andy Timmons' tone and he clearly states that he places is Deluxe Memory Man boxes in the effect loop.

Can anyone offer any helpful insights? I realize that the Deluxe Memory Boy and Deluxe Memory Man are different boxes, but they are both considered to be very good analog delay pedals. Mine sounds better at the amp's input than in the effects loop. I would like to hear your thoughts on this, especially if you are able to place the effect in the loop without sucking your tone.
Click to expand...

3 options - either -
a) The Memory Boy - issue specific to this pedal is the most likely cause imo. Some delay pedals suffer from this complaint. Try other delay pedals to check.
b) Cables - try different ones.
c) Issue with the amps loop that needs fixing.

I've used about 20 different delay pedals thru the 5:50's loop over 5 yrs.
I've never had any issue but I've never tried a Memory Boy.
Imo 5:50's loop is great quality and as good as you'll find - if operating correctly.
I have heard many different people complaining about your issue on TPG with some delay pedals with non 5:50 amps :mrgreen:
 
Thanks for the recent replies to this thread.

Krek13, melodiusthunk, and Newysurfer - This is not due to worn out effects loops jacks on either the amp or the Deluxe Memory Boy (DMB). Neither have been used before. The cables are high end Xotic cables, and are working well in every application.

I don't think that there is a problem with the amp's effects loop, as it appears to be doing its job. One of the clues here is that the DMB box does not work at all when using its send/return jacks - nearly zero signal. I checked that the connections were correct by process of elimination. It does work with the Express 5:50+ loop if I use the normal input/output jacks on the DMB. Today I tried tweaking the Gain and Blend controls on the DMB, and was able to get some OK results. So I think that the issue is the Deluxe Memory Boy, and nothing to do with the amp.

I have a Deluxe Memory Man arriving next week, with gain and mod tweaks as done by Analog Man. I will let you know how this works in the effects loop.
 
HK Expat said:
One of the clues here is that the DMB box does not work at all when using its send/return jacks - nearly zero signal.
Click to expand...

I don't have a DMB but I don't think it makes any sense putting your amps effect loop into the effects loop of your pedal. It is not surprising that there is zero signal.
 
Grissinerl, thanks for your reply. I know that Andy Timmons puts his two Deluxe Memory Man (DMM) into the effects loop, as he openly demonstrates his entire rig on YouTube and he states this and shows this clearly. And his tone is fantastic in my view. Other players also have success putting delay effects into the effects loop of Mesa amps, so I believe that it does make sense to do so. From references that I have checked, the consensus is that certain effects such as drive pedals and wha wha should go into the front end of the amp, and modulation/time delay boxes are best places in the effects loop.

One thing I should point out is that although I am novice to some of the stomp boxes out there, I have been playing professionally and semi-professionally for 40+ years. My paycheck gig right now is as a manufacturing engineer. In the old days when I played guitar for a "living", I discarded all of my stomp boxes either because they were unreliable or I just didn't like breaking my groove for the need to stomp on a box or tweak a setting, so I charted out my effects requirements to our sound man and he did all of that for me on an Eventide through the mains. Now I am doing a small P&W gig on Sundays, so if I want to make the sound a bit wetter then I will be doing that work as we don't have a sound man. :)
 
I don't think you understand the usage of eff. loop jacks on your ehx pedal...check the manual, I doubt those jack are supposed to be connected to the amps eff. loop...I agree with Grissinerl here 100%...Those jacks are probably for connecting other effects, not your amp...
 
I have to agree with Krek13 and Grissinerl on this, as it was the first thing that came to mind when reading the original post. Why would you use the DMB' s loop to hook up up to an amp's effects loop? Nearly ANY pedal's loop is meant for a separate loop that is controlled by that pedal. To use a pedal in an amp's effects loop, you connect a cable from the amp send to the pedal's input, just as you would when putting it in a chain in front of the amp. Then, connect a cable from the pedal's output to the amp's return. At least give it a try.
 
I have a similar issue with my Carr Slant 6v's loop, so I bought a G-Lab ALA-1 (their loop converter)

The Kleinulator, or dumbleator will do that same thing - essentially a loop adapter/additional Master Volume.
 
HK Expat said:
Thanks for the recent replies to this thread.

Krek13, melodiusthunk, and Newysurfer - This is not due to worn out effects loops jacks on either the amp or the Deluxe Memory Boy (DMB). Neither have been used before. The cables are high end Xotic cables, and are working well in every application.

I don't think that there is a problem with the amp's effects loop, as it appears to be doing its job. One of the clues here is that the DMB box does not work at all when using its send/return jacks - nearly zero signal. I checked that the connections were correct by process of elimination. It does work with the Express 5:50+ loop if I use the normal input/output jacks on the DMB. Today I tried tweaking the Gain and Blend controls on the DMB, and was able to get some OK results. So I think that the issue is the Deluxe Memory Boy, and nothing to do with the amp.

I have a Deluxe Memory Man arriving next week, with gain and mod tweaks as done by Analog Man. I will let you know how this works in the effects loop.
Click to expand...

HK Expat said in his 1st post he started using the MBD send & return jack but got no signal.
Then he used the input jack & got clipped off highs.
So I understand his problem is with using the normal input/output jacks on the MBD with the 5:50's loop - is this correct????

If so, I suggested the most likely cause is the MBD - not its jacks, but the pedal the true bypass/buffering components of the pedal.
Many pedal makers claim their pedal is true bypass but it sometimes is not really.
Some install various types of buffers instead & claim it works just like TB.
I'm sure analogman Mike will know how to fix it

The clipping off of highs, lows & volume increases/decreases are common issues with some delay pedals.
Some pedals have issues with some amps & not others.
Often an impedance mismatch.
I don't know the tech detail - have heard it reported many times & have experienced it myself.
I have a Nova Delay that slightly increases highs - it's not the amp - it's the pedal.

Finding causes is a process of elimination.
That's why I suggested trying different cables & delay pedals and try your MBD on other amps with a loop if possible.
But I'll bet the cause is the MBD.
If you've had he pedal mod'ed by analogman Mike I'd be surprised if he doesn't fix the issue.

Issue for me is - you shouldn't have to get a pedal mod'ed by others to get it to work acceptably.
It costs more $$, time and is major pain in the A
It confirms a major pedal design fault imo.
So I'll never consider buying a MBD now & I've banned lots of other pedals for the same reason.

Please report back if AM Mike's mod fixes the issue :mrgreen:
 
I had to re-read the original post, and now understand the the op originally tried the pedals effects loop, then hooked it up correctly using the input and poutput of the pedal. Somehow I got lost amongst the other posts. It would seem, after weeding out the rest, that the op is hearing nuances caused directly by the pedal in the amp's effects loop. As has been mentioned, some pedals are better than others in some amps.
 

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