Here Today... Gone To Hell!

Anyone have any experience with a valvestate II type amp and it's effect-loop?

I'm trying to use it in conjunction with a dunlop cry baby wah pedal and it works, somewhat, but when pressing the pedal about 70 to 80% down (where the cry baby changes tone most drastically), the sound get's way too 'screamy', if that makes sense. Now, my tone is pretty edgy to begin with (ODII, gain at 10, treble and bass at 8, middle at 6.5, contour around 7.5 - Gibson Les Paul with dimarzio pickups for buckets o' gain), so maybe that's part of the issue but I don't want to be fiddling with my knob (heh) during a gig, if ya know what I mean...

Also, the manual says the effects cuts out completely when set on "dry", which it does, but on "full" effect setting, the sound is still mixed with the original amp sound.

Any ideas on how to improve this setup (without spending all too much money...)? I'm trying to achieve a good distorted wah sound.

Thanks!

Tried running your wah:


Guitar > Wah > Amp



?

that's the answer ! always use whammy or wahwah befor the amplifier...

plus your mashall doesn't have a mix knob for the loop...

If your amp has a parallel effectsloop, it could be that part of the signal is always put through dry, and that the signal from the effect is only added on top of the dry signal.

If that's the case, you need to just put the wah before the amp. It will propably make the wah sound a bit softer... ?If I'm not mistaken, the dunlop has true bypass, so the sound won't be darkened when turned off.


Are you sure? At least some valvestate IIs have mix control.

Watch your input levels. High-output pick-ups with a pedal on full and the amp cranked
doesn't really give a blistering sound.  Sometimes it's just better to back off on some of that stuff.

Tried that, but it messes up the distortion, although that might be opinion :)

.
Yes it does. It's a stereo loop, right on the front of the thing.
I have this amp, to be specific: http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/reviews/guitar_amplifiers/marshall/valvestate_8240/index.html (it's 2x40 watts though, not 40 as it states there). The three jacks on the front in between the buttons are the effects loop.

So maybe I need to play with the tone when the Wah is between the guitar and the amp. I'll try that and let you guys know how it turns out.

Guitar  - wah - ampli

I know it's been said ... but NEVER use a Wah in an effects loop.  Effects loops are purely for modulation and EQ ....  things like Chorus, Flange, Delay, Reverb, EQ....  NOT Wah, and NOT distortion.

:)

Really, can you explain why (I'm an effects noob, although I've been playing for 10+ years :) )?

The only real limitation techically (afaik) is how big signals the effect can handle. Some pedals don't like if they get 10V_pp to their input and saturate. This is the case especially with circuits that have operational amplifiers in them..

Another suggestion. Don't have your gain at 10. Set it to around 6 or 7 and turn the volume up more. Will sound more chunky. Use an overdrive pedal like a TS-9 or something if you need more gain for solos.

For some reason, the gain knob on the distortion channel doesn't change the volume all that much (or at all), but changes the tone drastically. I dunno, I could try it, especially with the wah, but I'm reluctant to change a sound I've been really happy with for all those years. Yes. I fear change ;).

Effects loops give you the opportunity to plug effects between the preamp and the power amp. This is best for modulation (phaser, flanger, chorus, pitsh shifting) and delay effects because it allows them to effect the distorted signal as opposed to the preamp distorting them. It also runs a line-level signal, instead of instrument, which works better with most rack mount effects. (Distortions and boosters, etc, usually work better going straight into the guiatr input where they can affect the preamp gain)