 Hello everyone and welcome to Blackstar Potential. My name is Lee Fuge and I'm here today with MGRmusic.com and in this lesson we're going to talk about the effect loop on your Blackstar amp. More importantly we're going to talk about if you should use the effect loop or not. Many amps in the Blackstar range come with a built-in effect loop but what is an effect loop? An effect loop is essentially an insert point in your amp circuit where you can put effects that come in after the preamp. So if you've been watching these videos where we talked about the preamp section and how that works, the preamp is where your amp generates some of the preamp distortion and a lot of the tone because the tone stack is part of the preamp. The effect loop sits after the preamp of the amp circuit but before the power amp. Now many people who use modulation and time-based effects such as reverb, delay and chorus will prefer to put the modulation effects in the effect loop after the preamp. The reason for this is if you're playing with preamp distortion you then add a clean modulation or reverb or delay to that distorted signal. If you put these effects in the front of the amp they all get subjected to what the preamp does. The general consensus is that anything that goes into the effect loop especially when you play with a distorted amp is going to sound cleaner. So if you've got a delay the repeats are going to be crystal clear with your distorted tone going into the delay. If you put the delay in the front the repeats of the delay are going to get distorted by the preamp of the amplifier. So what we're going to do in this video is take a look at how these two ways of plugging effects pedals into your Blackster amp both sound. The amp I'm going to be using for this video is the Studio 10 6L6. I love this amp because it's great for a clean pedal platform. Many people who use a pedal platform will put these type of effects in the front of the amp because the front end of the amp is designed to be perfectly clean and almost flat at its response. But the good thing about the Studio 10 is that it does have an effects loop and especially when we kick it to the drive channel that's when we'll see a big difference. So like I said we will try this both ways both in the front and in the loop. I've got three pedals I'm going to be using. I've got this Boss Multi effect here that I'll be using for a chorus effect. It's also got every other modulation effect you can imagine so the principle is the same whatever effect you're using. I've got a delay here from Walrus Audio called the D1 Mako and I've also got a reverb here from Jupiter Effects like a spring reverb. Even though the Studio 10 has reverb built in I'm going to use an external reverb pedal because if you have an amp that doesn't have reverb built in these principles will also apply. So we'll start off by running through some clean tones with the effects in the loop of the amp. So here is how chorus sounds into the effects loop of the Studio 10. So because I'm running a clean amp I get a really clear chorus sound there. I can hear the movement of the modulation and it's super super clear. Now if I was using another effects type so let's say I was using something like a phaser the rule would be the same. The phaser is going to be super clean because it's going into the loop of the amp. So the preamp of the amplifier is not affecting the input of the effects pedal. So the sounds of a modulation pedal into the loop of the Studio 10 6L6 are great. It's super super pristine you can really hear the effect. So now I'm going to kick on the delay pedal which I've just got set to a standard delay. What we should hear is very very clear delay repeats. So as expected the repeats are super clean. The tone stack of the amp is not brightening or darkening this in any way. This is coming in after the tone stack. So let's put some reverb on now and we should expect the same thing a very clear concise reverb sound. So as expected a very clear reverb sound as well. So we've proved there that playing through the effects loop with modulation delay and reverb gives you a super clear sound. Now I've gone to the overdrive channel in the amp now and we'll go through the same three things. So I'll come back over now to the chorus pedal. So this is a chorus sound in the effects loop but the amp is now overdriven. So what happens here is because the chorus pedal sits after the preamp we have the preamp distortion then the effect. So the effect gets applied to the already distorted sound. So even though the amp is overdriven there because of the preamp the chorus is still very clear and very crisp. This is because it's modulating the already distorted sound. Great for 80s rock there. So I'm going to turn the chorus off now and come over to the delay. So what we should hear now is the same thing the distorted sound with the clean delays applied on top. And finally we'll turn on the reverb into the effects loop. So again we'll get the distorted signal and then that's going to be added to a reverb sound. So even though we're playing with a distorted sound there what the reverb being in the loop does is it takes the distorted sound and it places it into a space. So this is where the effects loop differs from going into the front. So what we'll do now is we'll change the cables over and go into the front end of the amplifier. Alright so now all those pedals are running through the front end of the amp so my guitar is going into the chorus pedal which is cascading through the other pedals in the chain then the output of the reverb is going straight into the input of the amp. So there's nothing in the effect loop this time. So what we should hear is a slightly different tone to the effects. The biggest difference is going to be when we kick to the overdrive channel. On the clean channel we're not going to hear a huge difference we're just going to hear the preamp sound of the amp applied to the pedals. So they may be totally different because of the EQ section at the front of the amp but overall we're not going to hear any differences in saturation or how they interact with the rest of the circuit because there's no preamp distortion being applied. So here's the chorus first of all straight into the front. So the biggest difference there that I can hear in the room is that it's brighter and you should be able to hear that through the video as well. The chorus is now hitting the tone stack of the amp then the tone stack is affecting the entire signal. So it's affecting the clean part of the chorus as well as the modulated part. And this is where we get this slightly different tone because previously we were taking the entire tone of the amp and adding chorus to that. Now we're adding the tone of the amp to the chorus. So let's turn on the delay and see the difference here. So with the delay going into the front of the amp the repeats don't feel as bright or as crystal clear. This is because the preamp is almost compressing them slightly. It's not the biggest difference though it's just a subtle difference there and let's go on to the reverb now. So again not much difference when we use the reverb into the front of the amp because the amp is running clean. Now the biggest difference is going to be when we move to the overdrive channel. So now we're going to hear the chorus again but this time into the front of an overdrive amp. The biggest difference now is we're going to be taking the chorus as our input signal and we're going to be distorting that signal. So we're not adding chorus to the overdrive signal we're over driving the chorus signal. So the first thing you should have noticed there is that the chorus effect is more pronounced but almost not as chorusy as it previously was. This is because we're taking the chorus effect and we're applying overdrive on top of that. This sort of boosts the effect but also it changes the overall tone of the effect. It sort of feels a bit more like a wah there. It's not exactly like a wah pedal but it has that sort of moving, filter-y type sound. A lot of people prefer chorus in the loop for this very reason because that up front doesn't really sound like a chorus. What you would do to remedy that would be to dial in the pedal a lot subtler. So let's try the delay now. So what we should hear now is the same delay signal but now because we're overdriving the delay repeats because the delay repeats are going into the preamp we're going to hear distorted repeats. So they're not going to be as clear or as pristine as previously. So you can definitely hear the difference with the delay because those repeats are now distorted. It works great as a sound. If you like that kind of analog tape delay sound whether the repeats do distort it's great. But if you're looking for a pristine delay repeat you definitely don't want to be putting your delays into the front of an overdriven amp. So let's try the reverb now. So I'll turn this on. What we're going to be doing now is adding reverb to the dry guitar signal and then distorting that. So not only is the guitar going to get distorted but the reverb is too. So again that makes for a great effect. If you're looking for that distorted crunchy reverb sound it sounds fantastic. It's great for creating crazy textures and soundscape stuff but if you really want that pristine spacer on your guitar part once again the effects loop is going to be your best friend for reverb. So there you go there is an overview of the difference between using the effects loop for your reverb and modulation and time-based effects versus putting them into the front end of the amp. Which do you think works better? Let us know down below in the comments. Thank you guys so much for watching. I hope you've enjoyed this video. If you did like I said let us know down below in the comments what you thought and if you've tried any of these principles yourself how did you get on. If there are any other amp related topics or educational topics you'd like us to talk about in these videos please let us know down below as well. Don't forget to go check out Blackstar Amplification on YouTube for more free videos just like this and if anyone out there is looking for a guitar teacher please head over to mgrmusic.com. It's a network of great teachers all around the UK waiting to take you guys to that next level. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you soon.