Preamp, amp and effects chains?

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KrispyDK

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Hello All,

First up, I reckon that this will sound like a dumb question to everyone for which I apologise in advance. My mitigating circumstances are that I'm a drummer. We bang things and they make a noise.

So...I have also been playing the guitar on the side for a few years but it's only recently that I've been accumulating the gear to go with it.

I've ended up with a 25w peavey amp with one input. I also have a Nomad Axxeman preamp and a small collection of effect pedals.

My questions are:

1. Should the Nomad preamp really be plugged into the 1 input on the peavey amp? Or should I invest in a power amp/speaker cab??

2. I don't have an effects loop on any of my gear. I'm not even entirely sure what an effects loop does. Should my effects be placed before the Nomad preamp or after it on it's way into the peavey? Or should I cut the preamp out of the equation entirely? Some of the effects, like a Snarling Dogs Very-Tone, state that they are also a preamp of sorts. So should I plug a preamp into a preamp??!

The preamp does sound lovely by the way.

There you go, my ignorance is laid bare for all to see.

Krispy.
 
Oh my...... :eek:

We're gonna need to see some ID.... :laughings: :p
 
KrispyDK said:
Hello All,

First up, I reckon that this will sound like a dumb question to everyone for which I apologise in advance. My mitigating circumstances are that I'm a drummer. We bang things and they make a noise.

So...I have also been playing the guitar on the side for a few years but it's only recently that I've been accumulating the gear to go with it.

I've ended up with a 25w peavey amp with one input. I also have a Nomad Axxeman preamp and a small collection of effect pedals.

My questions are:

1. Should the Nomad preamp really be plugged into the 1 input on the peavey amp? Or should I invest in a power amp/speaker cab??

2. I don't have an effects loop on any of my gear. I'm not even entirely sure what an effects loop does. Should my effects be placed before the Nomad preamp or after it on it's way into the peavey? Or should I cut the preamp out of the equation entirely? Some of the effects, like a Snarling Dogs Very-Tone, state that they are also a preamp of sorts. So should I plug a preamp into a preamp??!

The preamp does sound lovely by the way.

There you go, my ignorance is laid bare for all to see.

Krispy.
Click to expand...

Ok, let's learn a little about preamps first... A preamp is exactly what the name implies, it's tube or transistor driven electronic amplifier which prepares a signal to be fed into a power amp by taking your near mic level guitar signal and boosts it to line level, and just as importantly the preamp adds "tone" or "color" to your signal, it's what gives you your guitar tone. preamps CAN be plugged into preamps but generally you only wanna do this if it gives you a certain desirable sound such as having a distortion pedal and running that into a clean preamp. As for the FX loop... The FX loop send is also the same as "preamp out" and return is the same as "power amp in" and generally what they are used for is you would take the send and run it through an EQ or some such effect pedal and put the signal right back into the return and what this does is it will give you a slightly different sound than if you had ran the pedal into the input of the amp. Another use for FX loops (and this is what I do) is you can take a separate preamp and just run the output of the preamp into the return(power amp in) of your amp, this bypasses the amps built in preamp and allows you to use a separate preamp to achieve a different sound.
So for instance, one use for your gear is you could keep your peavey amp on clean and run your snarling dogs pedal into the input of the amp and model your sound using the snarling dogs pedal and the EQ on your amp.
Or you could take your nomad pre and run it into the FX loop of your amp and bypass the snarling dogs and the peavey's built in pre altogether.
No matter what you choose to do it looks like you have a potential for a wide variety of tones... just try different things out to see how it sounds, if you like it then you can keep it that way, if you don't like it just experiment a little more.
Just experiment with different things and good luck to you!!!

Sorry for my poor explanations :o:(
 
I think everything KoP said above is accurate but I'm going to restate it from my POV and to answer your specific questions.

1. Normally the preamp would not be plugged into the instrument input of a combo amp. If you want to use the preamp, pair it with a power amp. That said (and as KoP said), you might get some interesting sonic results if you do run it into the front end of your combo, in the same way that you would use a boost pedal to push the combo's preamp circuitry. Never hurts to try.

2. An FX loop is just a signal insertion point between an integrated amp's preamp and power sections. How you organize your FX will depend on whether or not you have an FX loop.

(a) On amps like your combo amp, which doesn't have an FX loop, you'll have to run everything into the instrument input. The normally recommended order is as follows:

Guitar >> tone-shaping FX (wah, EQ) and compressors >> boost/distortion FX >> modulation FX >> time-based FX (delays etc) >> amp input

There's nothing magic about this order, though, and swapping things around can yield very different results.

(b) With an FX loop, the general recommendation is to run the tone-shaping FX (wah, EQ), compressors, and boost/distortion FX into the instrument input of the amp, and put the modulation and time-based FX in the FX loop. Again, there's nothing magic about it.

If you have a separate preamp and power amp, you have a de facto serial FX loop between the two. Preamp output >> FX >> power amp input.

Clear? :)
 
Something I might add is, experiment with FX order... the order zaph used above is the logically correct way of order but try different things out, it never hurts to experiment and you might get some interesting results.

One example I could give is using a wah pedal before your distortion/overdrive stage will sound different from using a wah pedal after your distortion/overdrive stage. Wah before distortion was made populer by Jimi Hendrix and Personally I prefer wah before distortion but like I said just experiment and find out what works for you.
 
Chaps,

Nice one. Both your replies makes perfect sense.

What I'm hearing is, in fact, there's no rules except for what sounds good sounds good, right?!

My main reason for asking was through the fear of maybe blowing something up by plugging preamps into preamps into pedals into combos!

I finally understand what an fx loop is so for that, thank you! Putting it as simply an insert between preamp and power amp makes perfect sense.

I must say, the Nomad preamp sounds very good plugged into the combo. I thought the combo sounded ok when I first got it but using the Nomad before it really seems to bring it to life. I've also stuck a BBE maximizer between it and the combo and the difference is startling.

Thanks for the advice and especially for not laughing me out of town with my dumb questions!

Next I need to know about 'humbucker' pickups and which ones to get for a reasonable price to liven up an old les paul copy. But that's probably a subject for another thread. Or, more likely, the subject of a thousand threads before me!
 
KrispyDK said:
Chaps,

Nice one. Both your replies makes perfect sense.

What I'm hearing is, in fact, there's no rules except for what sounds good sounds good, right?!

My main reason for asking was through the fear of maybe blowing something up by plugging preamps into preamps into pedals into combos!

I finally understand what an fx loop is so for that, thank you! Putting it as simply an insert between preamp and power amp makes perfect sense.

I must say, the Nomad preamp sounds very good plugged into the combo. I thought the combo sounded ok when I first got it but using the Nomad before it really seems to bring it to life. I've also stuck a BBE maximizer between it and the combo and the difference is startling.

Thanks for the advice and especially for not laughing me out of town with my dumb questions!

Next I need to know about 'humbucker' pickups and which ones to get for a reasonable price to liven up an old les paul copy. But that's probably a subject for another thread. Or, more likely, the subject of a thousand threads before me!
Click to expand...

Oh I'm sure we can knock it all out in one thread. Now pickup selection is subjective... One guy will swear by one set and another guy will swear by another set... not to mention there's active pickups, passive pickups different wiring options and so on and so forth...
I suppose the first thing we need to know is what kind of music is it that you play? that will point us in a general direction in which to give you advice.
 
I like your thinking...in for a penny, in for a pound as they say over here!

Ok - style of playing would be mainly the funkier side of things - mostly rhythm - and a little jazz and little rock. When I say rock I'm not talking thrash metal though! More sixties/70's British rock if that makes any sense.

I think I'd be sticking to passive pickups as I imagine that they are far easier to install? But I don't know?

I have a cheapish old les paul that I won't mind practising upgrading. Has 2 stock humbuckers on it at the moment. I'm guessing replacing the pickups is the quickest way to transform the sound of it.

I'm getting a little confused when it comes to talking about the output ohms at the mo. I'm seeing things listed from about 4 up to 12. I'm guessing the higher this number the stronger the signal? Or have I got that round the wrong way?
 
Krispy, the only issue you might run into with the various pedals is that of input and output levels, and those levels can dictate where you can run them.

Most stompboxes are instrument level, meaning that their circuitry is intended to accept and output levels approximately the same as your guitar's output.

Rack units and other boxes intended to run in an FX loop are line level, intended to be at that level of signal amplitude in the loop.

You have to mix apples with apples as far as the pedals' levels are concerned to prevent over- or under-driving whatever is next in the chain. Some FX have switchable levels that will let you run them either at line or instrument.

Just keep your eye on this and it will save you hours chasing down strange volume boosts and drops.
 
KrispyDK said:
I like your thinking...in for a penny, in for a pound as they say over here!

Ok - style of playing would be mainly the funkier side of things - mostly rhythm - and a little jazz and little rock. When I say rock I'm not talking thrash metal though! More sixties/70's British rock if that makes any sense.

I think I'd be sticking to passive pickups as I imagine that they are far easier to install? But I don't know?

I have a cheapish old les paul that I won't mind practising upgrading. Has 2 stock humbuckers on it at the moment. I'm guessing replacing the pickups is the quickest way to transform the sound of it.

I'm getting a little confused when it comes to talking about the output ohms at the mo. I'm seeing things listed from about 4 up to 12. I'm guessing the higher this number the stronger the signal? Or have I got that round the wrong way?
Click to expand...
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and recommend a pair of Gibson '57 Classic humbuckers as a good all around pickup, with enough output to push an amp but not so much as to sacrifice tone.
 
I've heard alot of good things about DiMarzio Evolutions (steve vai's pickups) ... Their supposed to be fairly versatile but remember this is only word of mouth.. I've never actually tried them.
 
Thanks for the tip off on the pickups Zaphod - just had a little read about them and they sound right up my alley. Warm, subtle and full so says the add I just read, spot on.

With regards to your point about placing of different types of effects - I'm guessing any stomp box should ideally be placed before the preamp and any rack fx (e.g. the BBE maximiser) should be placed after it?
 
KrispyDK said:
Next I need to know about 'humbucker' pickups and which ones to get for a reasonable price to liven up an old les paul copy. But that's probably a subject for another thread. Or, more likely, the subject of a thousand threads before me!
Click to expand...

Humbuckers are dual coil pickups where one coil is reverse wound and reverse (magnetic) polarity from the other. This results in signal from the string being reinforced by the second coil, but ambient RF (mainly 60 Hz hum, hence the name) noise is canceled out by the second coil. To my ears they do not sound as bright and clear as single coil pickups, but they are usually louder and fatten up nicely under distortion conditions.
 
Thanks KoP - I'm trawling ebay now!

There seems to be quite a few Epiphone pickups - 'Alnico' - which are up for sale. Are these worth looking at or will they be comparable to your standard 'stock' pickup found on a cheapish les paul copy.

There's also a DiMarzio 'Steve's Special' coming up in a couple of days so am keeping my eye on that.

And what about these?? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190395652345&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_500wt_1182

I'm using a strat which I do currently prefer the sound of due to the single coils, like you say ggun, much brighter sounding. The only thing that does bug me just a little is the hum that you mention when using one pickup. I've seen a few single coil 'hum cancelling pickups' for sale. Are these worth looking at?
 
KrispyDK said:
Thanks for the tip off on the pickups Zaphod - just had a little read about them and they sound right up my alley. Warm, subtle and full so says the add I just read, spot on.

With regards to your point about placing of different types of effects - I'm guessing any stomp box should ideally be placed before the preamp and any rack fx (e.g. the BBE maximiser) should be placed after it?
Click to expand...

Not sure about the BBE Sonic Maximizer - I've never used one. I'd recommend checking on BBE's web site for specifications.

If the other units are stompboxes in the usual sense, then they would likely go into the front end of the preamp.
 
Kingofpain678 said:
I've heard alot of good things about DiMarzio Evolutions (steve vai's pickups) ... Their supposed to be fairly versatile but remember this is only word of mouth.. I've never actually tried them.
Click to expand...

Evolutions are my default pickups on upgrades and new builds (with humbuckers, of course). Though for my last build I used the new Evolution 2--slightly lower output but even more articulate. A bit more midrange bite--my new favorite.
 
KrispyDK said:
I'm using a strat which I do currently prefer the sound of due to the single coils, like you say ggun, much brighter sounding. The only thing that does bug me just a little is the hum that you mention when using one pickup. I've seen a few single coil 'hum cancelling pickups' for sale. Are these worth looking at?
Click to expand...
I'm still using the stock p'ups (except for the middle one) on my Strat and putting up with the noise. The middle one is RWRP so that I get hum canceling in positions 2 and 4, same as you. Mine is an old Strat; the RWRP p'up in the middle is stock now, I believe.

There are "noiseless" Strat pickups available, but what I have heard is that there are compromises in tone with all of them. The Kinman p'ups get pretty good reviews, but I've never played with one.

FWIW, I believe that putting a humbucker on a Strat is tantamount to heresy, but that's just me. If that's the sound you want, get a Les Paul. I have a Les Paul, too.
 
The BBE Sonic maximizer, clears the sound from "mud" by letting the highs go through but delaying the mids a little and bass some more, so the frequencies arrive in the order the ear is used to naturally. The frequencies might get mixed up because for example in long cable runs, the impedance differences of the frequencies make the low freqs "go ahead" the bright freqs. So they say.. Anyway IMHO that sort of a thing should be last in the chain before the Power-amp.
 
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