Musician Gear & Tech Discussion

Haley, you mentioned in another thread that you had a snake for looping effects.

Ive always run my effects in front of the amp, but this weekend I decided to play around a bit.

I ran wireless> tuner>wah>distortion>phasor into my amp input, then made a loop coming back to my whammy>delay unit

My delay and whammy seem to add some noise, so I thought this would isolate them and when I didnt use them take them out of the circuit, works great, Im still trying to get my levels set on everything.

One issue I have is my effects loop on my Triple is in parrallel, and no matter how I set if, I still get some dry signal thru it, Im looking for a way to get around this, may have to rewire in series.

But I was just curious if you got a prefabbed snake for your board, I basically have 3 20 ft guitar cables going back and forth, since I dont play out but every 4-6 weeks it may not make any difference, other than I have a benefit gig where we only have a few minutes to set up, I worry that I will get wires crossed and have to deal with that, but no biggie.

Thanks in advance

John, I made a snake for my pedal board. First I plugged everything in the correct inputs with the desired amount of slack at each end. It required 3 20' monster cables as 1 is for the input for the amp and the other 2 are for the effects loop send and return. I prefer the monster cables because they come with those little color coded inserts but colored electrical tape will work as well. I color coded my ends and put matching colored electrical tape at the inputs so I don't plug them into the wrong input. Making a snake like this requires angled ends on at least the pedal board side of your snake. Anyhow once I had everything like I wanted it I used small zip ties and about every 6 " I would tie wrap it with the zip tie's. When I was done I trimmed the excess zip tie. Now you have a snake. If you are like me you have used all of the real estate on your pedal board and your pedals are so close together you won't be able to disconnect the snake. When I am done at the end of the night I just roll the snake up starting at the amp and use a velcro tie to tie up the roll and it always stays on my pedal board. I would put that phase 90 in front of your distortion it will sound better. Check the owners manual about the dry signal those mesa's are so versatile there may be a knob on the back or selectable switch that allows you too adjust that. Typically all delay and modulation effects should go thru the loop. That phaser is an exception. It IMO needs to be right after the wah pedal! I hope this helps! One more thing when you loop effects through your effects loop those are seperate from what you run in front of your amp. That may be why you are getting a dry signal. The effects loop inserts the effects after the preamp (I think) I have my modualion and delay pedals run thru it with one cable from effects send (on back of the amp) to the input of the first modulation pedal and another cable going from the output of the delay pedal going to the effects return on back of amp. I have a seperate cable to run the other pedals in front (regular input) I hope this makes sense!

Yea Haley it makes perfect sense to me, I think I will move the phasor in front of my TS9, actually when I use the phasor I dont engage the distortion pedal, but Im gonna switch based on your advice.

My Triple had a parrallel effects loop, so after reading up on it, there is always a dry signal present when you engage the loop. Im going to play with it some more before I try to rewire it. Hopefully I can make it work.

On my Delay modeler, I use a backwards setting, in front of the amp, you dont hear the original note, just the swell of the note going into backwards. I hope that makes sense, there is a mix dial on the back of the amp, but my understanding is it never cuts the dry signal all the way off.

Thanks for the advice, if I keep running it this way Im gonna make a snake also, I had this tubing stuff that you can stuff 3 cables into, which might make it neater.

Tubing stuff huh When you get your snake built if you get a chance post some pics. and maybe a supplier for that cable wrap it interest me.

Its just a hard plastic wrap with a slit in it to put cords in, it may be too inflexible to be useful. Im not sure if it would roll up small enough to put in my pedal box, zip ties might be the best route like you used.

One of our business's has a room full of electrical parts and supplies and I found it in there.

Thats what I was afraid of John. If it would be flexible enough. Oh well all is good as is!

I thought maybe you had found some guitar cable thats all made into one bundle, Ive looked around and havent found anything like that.

Probably would be a good seller if someone marketed it!

Ok I just gave everyone on here another way to make money thru music run with it, and if you get one made send me a free one!

LOL!

An update, Haley I moved my whammy pedal back in front of the preamp, and I think it works better there, the only effect in my loop is the Line 6 Delay Modeler. It has a tap switch to sync it to the rythym of a song, so I just leave it on in the loop, tap the tempo while playing rythym and then kick it in so its in sync with what Im playing.

On the delay modeler, Im using a dynamic delay setting, it allows you to play your notes on the guitar and they come thru dominate, then if you stop playing the delay comes thru. Pretty cool effect, Ive never been a big delay player, but I really like this on my leads. When Im picking hard you dont hear the delay at all, but the second I back off the delay swells in volume.

My only issue that i see going forward is that Ive always had the loop active on my amp, allowing me to use the loop for an overall volume control. Now I just have the amp set, without a muzzle on it, so its quite a bit louder. My next gig is in a place where volume isnt an issue, but I know going back to our regular club gigs with our pa I will have to really drop the volume, so for that I may have to go back with the delay in front of the amp.

I had mentioned that I retubed my amp with JJs a few weeks ago and getting to really open the amp up, Im very pleased with the tone Im getting, I kept all my old tubes, but i think they were getting a little weak.

John, does your footswitch for that Tripple Rec got an effects loop on off button? That Mark IV I sometimes use has one. When I use it I really have to watch it because sometimes I turn that thing off and no effects. Did you try putting your phaser in front of the overdrive pedal? Eddie Van Halen ran his Phase 90 in front of the distortion unit. What I have found is that it dependes on your taste. By placing the phasor in front of the O.D. it has a raunchier sound, placing it behind the O.D. gives it a smoother sound. For eruption it sounds better behind it as that is what Eddie did orignally!

Haley I moved the phasor around, but ussually when I use the phasor I dont use my distortion pedal just use the amp.

I couldnt tell a big difference other that with the distortion in front the phasor seemed to have more "bite", or the effect is a bit louder to my ears, but its not a huge difference.

The loop works great on my triple, like i said tinkering around I was just leaving my delay on, in the past I would doo a pedal dance real quick to get the tap tempo in sync with whatever song I was doing, now when Im playing rythym I just tap it, and then wait and kick the loop in.

I mentioned the whammy pedal, it just sounds better in front of the preamp to my ears, plus my effects loop is in parrallel, so I would get a dry signal along with the wet sound, having it in front and running it all wet, there is no bleed thru, plus I dont hear a big difference in the noise in the amp. I thouhgt putting the whammy in the loop, would kill any noise from it when I had the loop engaged, but A/Bing back and forth theres not much difference.