Multi-Effects Processors - A logical approach to getting great results

shaunf

Guys, following on from this thread http://www.guitarforum.co.za/general-discussion/getting-that-sound-please-help/ where the discussion turned to multi-effects processors, with several people mentioned they were having trouble making them sound good. I want to create a bit of a guide for people who own these processors or who are thinking about buying one, so that they can better understand what they're buying as well as how they work. Hopefully this will ease the learning curve a bit and give guys a good starting point from where they can then begin to experiment, but from a solid, logical base.

I'm going to quote 2 posts made in the thread in question as a starting point:

shaunf wrote: The reason most people dislike multi-effects processors like the Boss Gt-8, is that they continue to think of them as one big oversized stomp box. They plug one cable into the input of the pedal, plug the output of the pedal into the input of their amp, and away they go. If you do this, it's no wonder the thing sounds horrible.

Would you connect a string of stompboxes in some random order, along with another (insert brand here) amplifier straight into the input of your amplifier and hope for the best? By just plugging the Gt-8, GT-10/whatever multi-effects processor you have straight into the amp's input, that's effectively what you're doing. In my humble opinion, the only things that belong connected to the your guitar amp's input are either your guitar itself, or stomp boxes, wah's and whatever other pedals are designed to operate in front of your amplifier's preamp.

One begins to understand multi-effects processors better if you start to look at them as a much larger part of your rig, which is what effectively they are designed to replace. They replace the multitude of stompboxes you would usually have lying around on the floor, they give you a bunch of preamp models for many popular amplifiers, allowing you to effectively "replace" your physical amplifier's preamp, which means that you can make your amplifier sound like another type of amplifier, but at the same time, giving you the flexibility to still use your physical amplifier's preamp, and to place the array of effects built in to the multi-effects processor around whichever preamp you decide you want to use, and to sequence them in the order which provides the best results.

Multi-effects processors are in essence, a "rig in a box". These virtual rigs require thought and planning, much like designing your dream physical rig does. Depending on what order you arrange effects in can have a huge impact on how they sound, and on how effects lower down the chain sound.
The awesome thing is that these units place a multitude of effects, amplifiers, speaker cabinets, microphones etc etc within the reach of the average guitarist, whereas if you were to physically go and purchase each and every piece of equipment, it would cost you millions, not to mention, where would you store 20+ amplifiers?

Bottom line, if your multi-effects processor is connected to a guitar amplifier using anything less than 4 cables, you're effectively using less than 1% of the processor's capabilities, and are doing the equipment a serious injustice by commenting about how horrible it sounds. I do need to add a disclaimer to this though, in that not all amplifier's effects loops operate the same, some are series and some are parallel, and the often differ in levels as well as impedance, and these can be factors which effect how one of these multi effects processors operate. Some amps just don't work well with them, and so it's important to try it with the amp you intend using. Secondly, the cables you use to make the connections are extremely important. Ordinary cheap instrument cables won't cut it, as due to the number of interconnects, things like ground loops can occur. As such, one should use high quality shielded cables, where one end of the shield is grounded.

I spent the good part of a year doing exactly what I've warned against doing above with my GT-8, and wasn't exactly happy with it, but when I began reading about how things should be done with it, suddenly a light went on in my head, and even though I've owned it since 2005, not a day goes by that I am not blown away by what it is capable of, and I'm still only using about 50% of what it can do.

Spend the time and learn to use the equipment properly and it will reward you in more ways than you could ever imagine.

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: I had great success using a GT-Pro. It is all in knowing how to program them.

However, don't forget that most guys don't want to program something. Some will get attacks of the heebie-jeebies if a pedal has more controls than a Tube Screamer. One of the reasons electric guitar is so popular is that it's simple to plug and play. A couple-o-stomps and an amp is all most people need. And there ain't nothing wrong with that.

Some of us are more adventurous by nature though and like players who use effects as a big part of their sound (Gilmour, Belew, Stevens, Fripp, The Edge). Many of us (particularly we "gentlemen of a certain age") went through building a pedalboard one effect at a time, learning how to use each by the time we could afford the next. Some of us delved into guitar synths, MIDI, piezos and studio techniques. Eventually you reach the "colossal pedalboard stage" and that's when rack gear and multieffects came into play. And that's where we have the decided advantage - being tinkerers by nature and also having worked with each effect singly until we know how do just about anything (I don't think I ever even unsealed the manual for my GT-Pro).

Where the problem comes in is when the average or new player, who just wants to plug 'n play is handed a modern multieffect (often because of a better "value" compared to buying a slew of pedals). He goes from 0 - 100 on the learning curve, all in one fell swoop. He is suddenly faced with what is quite honestly, a bewildering complexity of buttons, knobs menus, sub-menus and a whole lotta new effects that he's never encountered before - all rounded off with some shoddy "presets" that were created in a rush to get the unit to market. Is it any wonder bad tones result? Or that he misses some small but very important detail like turning off amp and speaker sims before plugging into a combo amp?

This is why I try and persuade guys to go for a few simple stomps and an amp first, before delving into the multieffect world. I also tell guys with multieffects to turn everything off but the amp and speaker sim and use to learn them first. Then work with one effect at a time, learning how each works thoroughly before switching it back off again and moving on to the next effect - it simulates the natural learning process I (and others) went through to get where I am now.

shaunf

Ok, so if you've bothered to read all that, then lets begin. I'm going to try to keep this generic and not get too tied to specific brands of Multi-Effects processors. I happen to own a Boss GT-8 though, and it is from that frame of reference that I make these posts. I haven't used any of the others available, and so any guru's who happen to know the Tonelabs, Digitech's etc etc, please feel free to add.

Firstly, lets look at getting it connected. If you want to connect it to a guitar amp, you want to use the 4 Cable Method, as this will give you the most flexibility.

Take a look at the diagram below:

The first things you will notice is that your amplifier is typically made up of several sections. There's a Pre-Amp section, which is largely responsible for creating the distinctive tone of your particular brand of amplifier, and a Power Amp section, which is responsible for amplifying the Pre-Amp signal to the required volume. In between the pre-amp and the power amp, you have an effects loop, which is designed to allow you to place effects between the pre-amp and the power amp. This is very a very simplistic view though, as the power amp section does contribute to the overall tone of the amplifier, particularly in valve amplifiers, but should you remove the pre-amp from the circuit, you are largely left with a colourless amplified signal. If you take your guitar and plug it into the Return jack of the amplifier's effects loop, you are essentially bypassing the amplifier's preamp and passing the signal straight to the power amp. Try it, and behold how horrible and lifeless your guitar sounds.

Now, the beauty of the 4 Cable Method of connecting a multi-effects processor to your amplifier, as that you are able to isolate your own amplifier's preamp, which remember is responsible for most of your amplifiers characteristics, within the multi-effects processor's effects loop. Look at the diagram again, you will see what I mean.

So what would typically happen if the effects loop on the multi-effects processor was switched on, is that the signal would flow from your guitar, into the input of the multi-effects processor, then out the Send of the Multi-effects processor's effects loop, through your own guitar amplifier's pre-amp, out the amplifier's Effect's loop Send effects loop connection back into the multi-effects processor and then back to the amplifier's power amp via the amplifier's effects loop return.

If you then switched off the effects loop on the multi-effects processor, the signal would flow from your guitar
into the input of the multi-effects processor, then out the Output of the multi-effects processor into the Return connection of the guitar amplifier and to the power amp. IN this scenario, there is no preamp in the circuit, so if you have all effects switched off on the multi-effects processor, it should sound as if you've plugged your guitar into the Return socket of the amplifier.

Make sense so far?

shaunf

Ok, now assume that a good starting point for starting to program a multi-effects processor is to immediately switch all effects off.

Assuming all effects are off, if you switched the multi-effects processor's effects loop on, you should get the same tone and sound as if you just plugged your guitar straight into your guitar amp's input, because now your guitar amp's pre-amp is active.

Switch off the multi-effects processor's effects loop, and you should get a similar bland sound similar to if you plugged your guitar into the Return socket of the amplifier's effects loop. ie: the amplifier's pre-amp has been bypassed or disabled.

So, to recap, you can play using the pre-amp of your physical amplifier by switching the multi-effects processor's effects loop on, or you can now have the ability to substitute your physical amplifier's pre-amp for one of the pre-amp models built into the multi-effects pedal and make your physical amplifier sound like a different type of amplifier.

inflames

Shaun, great stuff so far +1 thanks for the effort.

Question: 4 cable method. Does this mean I can use my Amps preamp and then the processor for effects (delay etc). I can also use a preamp from the processor instead of my amps preamp?

shaunf

Ok, now that that's out the way, we can actually start to program the multi-effects pedal.

The first thing you want to do, is to create yourself a few base patches, consisting only of the amplifiers you want to use, with all other effects still turned off.

Creating one totally blank patch with only the effects loop turned on, will give you your phyical amplifier's own pre-amp tone.

Create patches with each of the pre-amp models built into the multi-effects pedal switched on, and the effects loop off, still with all the other effects switched off. This will give you a series of modelled amplifiers. What a win! You've just gone from owning one physical amplifier to owning a whole bunch of other famous amplifiers. Isn't life great?

shaunf

inflames wrote: Shaun, great stuff so far +1 thanks for the effort.

Question: 4 cable method. Does this mean I can use my Amps preamp and then the processor for effects (delay etc). I can also use a preamp from the processor instead of my amps preamp?

Thats exactly it! See post above for detail.

shaunf

Right, so now that we've got base patches created for all the different amplifier types we want to play with, including our own physical amplifier, we can start to look at the actual effects themselves.

When we're talking about effects, you have to learn to look at a multi-effects processor not as a single big pedal, but as a whole series of virtual stomp boxes. Each of these virtual stomp boxes can be tweaked just the same as you can tweak the knobs on a physical stomp box. You can also reposition the order of the virtual stomp boxes, just the same as you can change the order of your physical stomp boxes and lastly, you can obviously also switch these virtual stomp boxes on and off.

Now that we're just talking about stompboxes, it doesn't matter if they're physical ones or the virtual ones contained within the multi-effects processor, things become a little bit easier to understand.

I'm sure most of you would also agree that it does make a difference what order you position your stomp boxes, as well as whether you place them between your guitar and the pre-amp input of the guitar amplifier, or whether you place them in the effects loop, between the guitar amplifier's pre-amp and the power amp.

Multi-effects processors allow you to position and order the effects very easily, normally just a case of dragging and dropping them into a different position in the effects chain.

Now 2 items in the effects chain are very important: The Pre-amp, and the processor effects loop. The reason these 2 items are so important is because you are going to need to know where either of these items are, in order to correctly position your effects.

Now remember, The Pre-amp item represents a modelled pre-amp, while the processor's effects loop actually contains the pre-amp of your physical amplifier, so if you're using a modelled pre-amp, some effects will go in front of the "Pre-amp" item, and some will go after it, while if you are using your amplifiers pre-amp, some effects will need to go in front of the processor's effects loop and some after it.

shaunf

Ok, so know we know that we're either using a modelled pre-amp built into the multi-effects processor, or the physical amplifier's preamp, which is encapsulatated in the processor's effects loop, lets take a look at the rest of the effects chain.

Here is a diagram which represents good basic effects chain positioning. Please note that there is no right or wrong way to position effects, this is more just a guide that I use for my own reference, than anything that should be set in stone:

From this diagram, you will see that effects like phasers and wah's usually go first in my chain, followed by compressor, and then distortions or overdrives. Then comes either the modelled pre-amp or your actual amplifier's pre-amp in the processor's effects loop, and following this come all pitch, modulation, level and echo effects. You can position the Equaliser in a variety of positions, depending on what you're wanting to do with it.

Alan gave some very good advice in his post which I quoted above: start with the basic amplifier patches, and then add effects one by one to see what they provide. Another analogy is to pretend you've just bought a new physical stomp box when you turn on an effect. Think about all the tweaking and fiddling one does when one buys a new stomp box and adds it into the chain. That's exactly what you need to do when you introduce a new effect into the chain using a multi-effects processor too.

Ok, so that's what I've got for you so far. What do you think? Comments? Flames? Suggestions? ?

DonovanB

Shaun, which Gt Editor do you use? I know there are 2 for the GT8. I have both but have only really tried one.

shaunf

DonovanB wrote: Shaun, which Gt Editor do you use? I know there are 2 for the GT8. I have both but have only really tried one.

Hi Donovan,

I use both the freely available editors, GT8 Editor and GT8-Master. I like GT8 Editor for the visualness of the editing experience, but I also like GT8-Master in that it contains very useful descriptions of the various amp models available, so you have a clearer idea of which amp is which (the naming of the amp models in the GT8 is quite confusing), and it's also a bit more user friendly when you start to use cabinet and mic simulation.

andrewjbryson

Shaun. Great stuff ...

I'm sure many of us Appreciate the effort that went into your explanations. You have been thanked / applauded

I'm running a Marshall JMP1 pre amp -> BossGt8 - into my PC for recording.

Would I still be able to use the 4 Cable method , since a essentially have no power amp.

I imagine i Could because I have the effects send/return on the JMP1.

shaunf

Just to add, if it's not clear by now, in any given patch, you want to be using either your own amp's pre-amp in the effects loop OR one of the multi-effects processor's pre-amp models, but not both simultaneously. This is one of the primary reasons why when guys plug a multi-effects processor straight into an amplifier's input, they sound horrible or guys complain that the amp models don't sound like the actual amplifiers, because most of the pre-programmed patches have a pre-amp model enabled as part of the patch, which then goes into the amplifier's pre-amp, so the signal is effectively being processed by 2 pre-amps, which is why things often go pear-shaped.

shaunf

andrewjbryson wrote: Shaun. Great stuff ...

I'm sure many of us Appreciate the effort that went into your explanations. You have been thanked / applauded

I'm running a Marshall JMP1 pre amp -> BossGt8 - into my PC for recording.

Would I still be able to use the 4 Cable method , since a essentially have no power amp.

I imagine i Could because I have the effects send/return on the JMP1.

Hi Andrew, thanks for the kind words. Look, I'm no expert, but I just wanted to share what I have learned about these things so far, and hopefully other guys can benefit by what I have explained and look at these multi-effects processors in a new light, and not misunderstand them as it seems is so often the case.

Yes, you should still be able to use the 4 cable method. Instead of the Output from the GT-8 going to the Effects return of the amplifier as in the diagram, in your case it would connect to your pc.

DonovanB

shaunf wrote: This is one of the primary reasons why when guys plug a multi-effects processor straight into an amplifier's input, they sound horrible or guys complain that the amp models don't sound like the actual amplifiers, because most of the pre-programmed patches have a pre-amp model enabled as part of the patch, which then goes into the amplifier's pre-amp, so the signal is effectively being processed by 2 pre-amps, which is why things often go pear-shaped.

Yes, but some preamps work well enough with another amp.

For eg, I don't have an effects loop, I use a VOX VT50 which sounds good enough on it's own.
IMO the Marshall Drive is probably the best on the GT8 so I like to use that for some patches.

If I used the SLDN preamp it sounds horrible cos there is just way to much gain going on there.

When NOT using the 4 cable method it is probably best to not use the pre amps. I suppose I realised that when I stopped looking to copy someone else's sound, and find my sound using my gear.

There are some pre-amps that can compliment your amp you just need to find it. and that will take a little effort.

shaunf

DonovanB wrote:
shaunf wrote: This is one of the primary reasons why when guys plug a multi-effects processor straight into an amplifier's input, they sound horrible or guys complain that the amp models don't sound like the actual amplifiers, because most of the pre-programmed patches have a pre-amp model enabled as part of the patch, which then goes into the amplifier's pre-amp, so the signal is effectively being processed by 2 pre-amps, which is why things often go pear-shaped.
Yes, but some preamps work well enough with another amp.

For eg, I don't have an effects loop, I use a VOX VT50 which sounds good enough on it's own.
IMO the Marshall Drive is probably the best on the GT8 so I like to use that for some patches.

If I used the SLDN preamp it sounds horrible cos there is just way to much gain going on there.

When NOT using the 4 cable method it is probably best to not use the pre amps. I suppose I realised that when I stopped looking to copy someone else's sound, and find my sound using my gear.

There are some pre-amps that can compliment your amp you just need to find it. and that will take a little effort.

100%, but the I was trying to make is that the results are inconsistent. Nothing wrong with a little experimentation, but then one needs to manage one's expectations and not expect a Vox amp model plugged into the front of a Marshall to sound anything like a Vox. It might sound cool, but it's probably not going to be anywhere close to authentic.

inflames

Just for clarity I would place my TS9 before the Multi-Effects Processor.
Because I only use my TS9 on my physical amps preamp. This way I can stomp it on or off depending if I'm using a preamp from the Multi-FX.

Would this be the correct way of doing it?

I'm going to need allot more cables made up! MATTA!!!!!!!

andrewjbryson

Going to use the 4 Cable method later 2night.

Will post clips with my findings. - Stay tuned.

Riaan-Combrink

Hi Shaun.

Thanks for the great thread. I've owned a GT-6 for a few years now. I don't, and have never used, a physical guitar amp [horror ☹]. Just the GT-6 into a mixer connected to a power-amp in my live rig. I also only use three patches a buddy programmed for me -a basic clean, one overdrive and one distortion.

I'm now at the point where I need to figure out how to make some better patches, and this thread has helped me understand some basics.

Question: am I right in assuming the 4-cable method adds little value to my kind of set-up (straight into the PA). I should probably spend more time finding the right pre-amp sim to make up for the lack of a physical amp, right?

andrewjbryson

Hey Riaan

Yea, sound like you need to fiddle around with the differ "PRE" - amp simulators.

I found the MS-HiGain / SLDN / JCM120 to be the most useful pre-amps.

Also try modify your OUTPUT/ and SPEAKER options.

Usually the Speaker is set to "Type Original" which sounds very thin/ nasely.

Try the 4x12 / 2x12 / Custom2, Custom3 Settings.

I don't know if the GT6 has these options but I'm pretty sure they have some of them (the PREAMPS and a few Speaker Emulation settings)

I'm sure if you set all your E.Q on your P.A/ Mixer to 12 o clock / 0, and control the E.Q from the GT8 you would be able to get some cool tones.

AlanRatcliffe

Yeah - you need to fiddle a bit with the preamp and speaker settings. Make sure the speaker sims are set to all "mic" and no "direct" (I think that's the terminology they used in the GT-6). Start some new patches with just the amp and speakers and tweak until you are happy. You can then use those basic amp patches as templates and do a "save as" every time you want to write a new patch.

No need to use the four cable method - just guitar in and one or two cables out direct to PA.

andrewjbryson wrote: I found the MS-HiGain / SLDN / JCM120 to be the most useful pre-amps.

? Just shows you how we are all different - I found I got the most mileage from the Matchdrive for crunchy to distorted sounds, and the Blackface (IIRC - The Fender amp sim) for cleans. Occasionally the JC-120 for Andy Summers type clean tones.