They told me I needed one...

I always heard it said, "Don't use pedals in front of a dirty amp. It messes everything up. You HAVE to put them in an effects loop." Over time I realized there are some tricks you can use to get good sounds out of reverb, delay, and chorus into the front of a dirty amp. Here's how...

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[Splattle]

Masterly understatement. Once a player gets past the basic calisthenics of playing and can spare some brain power for tone, so much of the sound of the electric guitar is determined by the vol control.

[zenlandzipline]

People say no delay into distortion, but the man of tone himself, Eric Johnson, does it exactly like that. Echoplex into Tubedriver. It works. I’ve made it work. You have to: a: keep the repeats down to 3-4 and b: feather the output of the delay to find that perfect spot where if it’s too loud, the echoes run into each other and trip up and turn into a mess, but if it’s too low, you don’t hear anything at all.
Eric makes it so that you don’t really hear the echoes while he’s playing, you only hear them after he stops a phrase. But if you listen carefully, you can hear a little “ba da da” after certain notes. It’s magic when you find that perfect spot…almost like a ducking delay. If you put the hours in and do it enough, it becomes second nature to get that output volume setting correct.

[silverwings]

When I was in the studios all we had was Deluxes, Twins and 30s. There were no effects loops. All we had were Master Volumes
and some ODs to keep it all down. No cranking in the studio. The most used and required pedals were Compressors and Limiters.

[billyslide]

I’ve found that less is more. My pedal board is small, this comes more from years of not having money to get all the pedals/effects I want. I learned early that volume nobs can be magic. My favorite rig is a Pappas amp, which doesn’t have an effects loop to start with, but are beautiful amps. I throw a few pedals in front for expression not overall definition. Great videos!

[audioglenngineer]

Sometimes it’s really fun and meaningful to hear you teach the things you’ve learned, in light of being familiar with your very early playing and rigs. It’s interesting to contemplate that journey. Sometimes I wish I’d have kept a journal of all the paradigm and gear shifts I made over 30 years of playing. It would be pretty crazy. That’s the part people don’t see, the hard-fought battle to arrive where you are.

[PanhandlePonics]

My personal choice is that anything like delay, reverb, chorus, flange, goes in the effect loop because I don't want to distort those. Everything else goes in front of the amp (whah, compressor, distortion, phaser, and even a whammy pedal). Just my choice, certain things I just don't think should be distorted.

[charleswood]

So good to hear this viewpoint, as is it matches my taste and equipment.

[ericskinner]

So true. What l hear is the whole band, and that's what makes bit sound big. Not a bunch of unnecessary gain.

[bringitya]

Thank you Justin for your advice: Less Gain = Better Tone! Back in black is the benchmark tone for crunch rhythm!

[diegozamorano]

Nice video and nice explanation. I run my delays, mods and reverbs in front of the amp and never had any issues. There’s a mix control in all the modern units nowadays. The catalinbread topanga reverb is designed to be in front of an amp for no effect loop vintage amp. Sounds awesome even with the bit commander engage. Sounds more “wrong” but closest to Jamie Hince from the Kills or even Jack White style. There’s no wrong or write option. Use your ears and fit the sound in your style and taste.

[hectorvader]

The reverb into the fuzz is such a cool sound, I really love the keeley loomer for those sounds (and you can get the regular fuzz into reverb with the push of a button!)

[philf]

Man that reverb was barking in your first example! With the delay, when you turned down it didn't really affect the last couple of repeats, but it definitely toned down the first couple of repeats. Neat stuff, thanks Justin!

[tacmason]

Right on Justin, your generation is much more “Goals focused” than my generation was, good on you !

[youKnowWho]

That was good enough with straight volume. You are making me hate reverb with these clips. Sounds soo good.
True, everyone used to just be running volume open through amps with volume up.
I find I tend to love my guitars on about 6-8 volume with overdrive unless of course its a Newer 90s+ metal tune.

[theleviathan]

Thanks for the tip about the Memory Man. That overload is very sensitive, I’m having a hard time not having it react to the point that I just ignore it. I’m going to try putting it before my various drives like you mentioned.

[pedalscapes]

I love your tone and playing.
Personally I go all out with effects in front and in the loop. However I do have a small board ready for live with some dirt, mod, and rev/del the wet fx can go loop or front with a simple cable change (need to have the extra cables in the bag though), depending on what's available/necessary. Cheers 😎

[caleshtcincredibles]

Great video, very true the power of the volume knob or .volume pedal is very important. I used to run my volume knob all the way up on my guitar and was never satisfied with my tone that knob openes up a whole new world of tones and responsiveness. I'm not a high gain person either, it always gets lost in the mix .

[seancostello]

I’m a bit confused. Backing off guitar volume might reduce the unwanted reverb or delay levels, but it also reduces the gain. If you’re someone who wants that high gain sound, I don’t see how that’s a solution.

[mofateam]

again such a musical approach to a technical issue - and this way makes the guitar sing and shine : dynamic playing.
Lesson learned, thank you so much. I will try if that works on my modeller too...

[chrisforbes]

Neil Young is definitely a great example of effects before amp working really well. So much character.