refuogee wrote
I have a Marshall valve amp and it has an effects loop right, so whats the difference between plugging stuff into that
versus the front of the amp?
The effects loop is between the preamp and power amp, so plugging an effect into the input of the amp means the effect goes before the amp's preamp, plugging it into the effects loop means it goes after the preamp. The amp's preamp adds distortion (a fair bit in the Marshall's case), so you can think of it like a distortion/overdrive pedal - and some effects sound different/better before an overdrive and some sound better after it.
And more specifically where would/should you plug in overdrives and equalisers?
Overdrive is always in front of the amp. EQ can go anywhere and will sound different before and after overdrive,
BUT there is one caveat - most effects loops are
not made for pedals. They run at a significantly higher power level (called line level) than most pedals can handle.
Also my amp has no clean channel which is awesome so what do pedals such as the tubescreamer, blues boy etc
actually do to the amp and what should the approach be? I mean like turn gain on the amp down and up on the pedal
There are two approaches: by keeping the input and output levels of the pedal the same (unity gain) you just add pedal drive to the sound before it goes into the amp, but the amp sound itself doesn't change when you kick in the pedal.
The other approach is to have a volume boost when you kick in the pedal, which drives the amp harder, getting a bit more drive from the amp itself (particularly when the amp is set on the edge of overdrive with the pedal off). With clean amp or lower amp drive settings, the volume will jump with the boost as well, but if the amp is already heavily distorted, the extra boost will make the amp distort even more without boosting the volume.
Which you use is up to you. It's a taste thing... Pedal dirt is usually tighter, more controlled but less dynamic with your playing, while amp drive is fatter and bigger sounding but a lot "looser". It also depends on the pedal(s) and amp.
