Placing Delay Pedal in Effects Loop Kills Your Tone?
- Thread starter HK Expat
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Krek13 and royslead, you are both correct in that I should not have been using the Deluxe Memory Boy’s send and return jacks when I attempted to insert the effect into my Express 5:50+ effects loop. I did some more reading and the send and return on the DMB are indeed for inserting other effects into the DMB’s loop, not into the amp’s effects loop. After playing guitar for nearly 50 years with a whole lot of different amps, this was the first time that I had ever tried to use an amp’s effects loop. I still have a few things to learn, and I appreciate having that opportunity after all these years.
My current belief is that this is an issue with the DMB itself. I recently received a fully tweaked Deluxe Memory Man from Analog Man and it sounds really good in the signal path at the amp’s input. I have been preoccupied with designing and building my Pedaltrain with a bunch of high-end effects that I have picked up during the past month. This is kind of exciting for me because I had sworn off stomp boxes for a few decades after an experience that ended up with me footballing the old Boss pedals across the stage. Once I get the Pedaltrain project done then I will go back and try the DMM in the effects loop of the 5:50+. Mike’s team tweaked the input impedance amongst other mods, and I expect there is a good chance that it will sound great in the loop.
I appreciate the feedback and many good replies from you guys. I have learned some new stuff from your collective experience, thanks!
My current belief is that this is an issue with the DMB itself. I recently received a fully tweaked Deluxe Memory Man from Analog Man and it sounds really good in the signal path at the amp’s input. I have been preoccupied with designing and building my Pedaltrain with a bunch of high-end effects that I have picked up during the past month. This is kind of exciting for me because I had sworn off stomp boxes for a few decades after an experience that ended up with me footballing the old Boss pedals across the stage. Once I get the Pedaltrain project done then I will go back and try the DMM in the effects loop of the 5:50+. Mike’s team tweaked the input impedance amongst other mods, and I expect there is a good chance that it will sound great in the loop.
I appreciate the feedback and many good replies from you guys. I have learned some new stuff from your collective experience, thanks!
It's great to know we can still learn new things, despite previous experience. Effects loops were new to me as well; and I started using them once I got into more serious playing. I built a Pedal train (pro) board for live use. On it, I have a series of pedals for the front of the amp, and a series for the amps effects loop. The effects loop series gets changed a bit depending on which amp I use. While I may not ever be "done" chasing tones - I'm pretty close to what I've always wanted.
royslead said:
Been there and got the t shirt much to my wifes annoyance, the rig always seems to have something more it needs although since switching to the Digitech I have managed to keep the board to something like a usable rig lol
Just to clarify as there are a couple of misunderstandings from a couple of the guys that replied to this post. I will hit RESET on the discussion and try to start anew and in brief. The delay unit that I was discussing in the original post is an ElectroHarmonx Deluxe Memory Boy (DMB). I bought it new off-the-shelf and did not have any mods done to it. I started off by hooking the effects loop send/return on the DMB to the send/return on the effects loop of my 5:50+. That was an error as the effects loop on the pedal is meant for putting other pedals into its effects loop, and not meant to hook up into the amp’s loop.
I then connected the DMB correctly to the 5:50+ effects loop by simply using the DMB’s input and output. The sound was initially poor, but after much tweaking I could get an OK sound, but not great. The repeats are somewhat distorted and muddy as compared to the dry sound. I attribute this to a possible impedance mismatch at the input, and also a possible problem with the gain in the pedal’s delay circuit. Reasons for those best guesses in a minute.
In parallel with this experiment I was assembling a Pedaltrain for my church rig (Side Note: I have a church gig on Sundays in Hong Kong and a night club gig in Suzhou China as regular guest player with a great rock band over there. All of this in addition to my paying gig as manufacturing engineer). Inside my Pedaltrain rig I have a Deluxe Memory Man XO (DMM XO) that I purchased new from Analog Man. For those of you who are not familiar with Analog Mike, he makes his own high-end pedals and also buys classic pedals that he modifies. He is an expert at doing mods to classic analog pedals. For my pedal, he did an input impedance mod, and an internal gain mod to clean up the repeats so that they sound nearly as clean as the dry signal. This pedal was not cheap when all was said and done; total around $550 USD. But well worth it.
I tested the DMM XO in the 5:50+ effects loop and it sounds awesome straight away. Much more musical sounding than the DMB, by far. The sound is clear and clean, which hints that the input impedance of the pedal is probably matched up OK. The repeats are really clean, telling me that the internal gain mod to the delay circuit was a good idea as well.
I hope that this explains things well enough, and if not I am open to questions and comments.
Cheers!
I then connected the DMB correctly to the 5:50+ effects loop by simply using the DMB’s input and output. The sound was initially poor, but after much tweaking I could get an OK sound, but not great. The repeats are somewhat distorted and muddy as compared to the dry sound. I attribute this to a possible impedance mismatch at the input, and also a possible problem with the gain in the pedal’s delay circuit. Reasons for those best guesses in a minute.
In parallel with this experiment I was assembling a Pedaltrain for my church rig (Side Note: I have a church gig on Sundays in Hong Kong and a night club gig in Suzhou China as regular guest player with a great rock band over there. All of this in addition to my paying gig as manufacturing engineer). Inside my Pedaltrain rig I have a Deluxe Memory Man XO (DMM XO) that I purchased new from Analog Man. For those of you who are not familiar with Analog Mike, he makes his own high-end pedals and also buys classic pedals that he modifies. He is an expert at doing mods to classic analog pedals. For my pedal, he did an input impedance mod, and an internal gain mod to clean up the repeats so that they sound nearly as clean as the dry signal. This pedal was not cheap when all was said and done; total around $550 USD. But well worth it.
I tested the DMM XO in the 5:50+ effects loop and it sounds awesome straight away. Much more musical sounding than the DMB, by far. The sound is clear and clean, which hints that the input impedance of the pedal is probably matched up OK. The repeats are really clean, telling me that the internal gain mod to the delay circuit was a good idea as well.
I hope that this explains things well enough, and if not I am open to questions and comments.
Cheers!
Newysurfer
Well-known member
Thanks for clarifying some very confusingly written posts 
Analog delay pedal repeats aren't as clear as digital ones.
That's the major character difference between the 2 & the main reason why i prefer digital delay pedals.
So you bought both a DMB which sounded poor in the 5:50 loop and then a DMM XO (plus had to get Mike to mod impedence on this).
Good info to know - I won't consider buying either pedal :mrgreen:
Analog delay pedal repeats aren't as clear as digital ones.
That's the major character difference between the 2 & the main reason why i prefer digital delay pedals.
So you bought both a DMB which sounded poor in the 5:50 loop and then a DMM XO (plus had to get Mike to mod impedence on this).
Good info to know - I won't consider buying either pedal :mrgreen:
I had a similar problem with an EHX #1 Echo in the loop.
Found others with similar problems on the EHX forum.
See bottom of first post here:
http://www.ehx.com/forums/viewthread/414/
Might just be EHX delays (or the way their Blend knobs work) don't like our effects loops.
Am currently using TC Electronic Flashback delay in loop of 5:25+ with no problems.
Never a problem with Boss DD-3 either.
Cheers.
Found others with similar problems on the EHX forum.
See bottom of first post here:
http://www.ehx.com/forums/viewthread/414/
Might just be EHX delays (or the way their Blend knobs work) don't like our effects loops.
Am currently using TC Electronic Flashback delay in loop of 5:25+ with no problems.
Never a problem with Boss DD-3 either.
Cheers.
I have the 5:25 Express. Does anyone know if the effects loop is buffered? Considering putting a buffer on the front end through my pedal board with a lot of TB boxes. Someone told me they run a buffer in their effects loop also.
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