Tricks to turn series effects-loop into parallel?

[Bearitone]

I just watched the video linked below where he gets a pretty nasty tone by mixing the front of the amp, with an external preamp signal going straight to the poweramp, using the blend knob of the parallel effects loop.

My amp was only has a series effects loop.

Assuming I already have a signal splitter, is there a work-around to make this happen using an amp with a series effects loop?

I have preamp pedals I would LOVE to blend with my amps core tone.

 

[tedtan]

Use a mixer to blend the signals prior to the FX return. Several builders make pedal sized mixers.

 

[Bearitone]

Use a mixer to blend the signals prior to the FX return. Several builders make pedal sized mixers.

Any recommendations on a specific pedal?

 

[tedtan]

Unfortunately, I don’t have any experience to go by, but I know that Lehle and Radial both make great gear, so I’m sure theirs are solid, though they’re aren’t cheap. At a lower price point, I’d probably look at the Electro Harmonix or Morley.

 

[odibrom]

BOSS ES pedals allow you to have presets where some pedals are in series and in other prsets the same pedals are in parallel. For the folks with the pedal mania, these little bastards are a MUST... Of course, there other brands doing the same stuff, but Boss came to my mind faster... As far as I know, these are ANALOGUE audio signal with MIDI/digital control.

 

[Shask]

I am a big fan of parallel mixing. I tend to mix all of the my effects in parallel in the loop because I think it sounds way better.

I have used various devices, but probably the cheapest, easiest way to do it is a Boss LM-2. I never bought one, but I came across this solution many times.

 

[soul_lip_mike]

At the risk of sounding dumb what’s the difference? My ENGL FE has a button to switch between the two.

 

[Shask]

At the risk of sounding dumb what’s the difference? My ENGL FE has a button to switch between the two.

It depends on how you use it, but I like mixing in parallel in the loop of tube amps. When you run a digital effects unit in the loop it digitizes the whole signal, which messes with the dynamics and punchiness. If you run in parallel, you can keep your tube amp sound analog, and then just mix in a bit of the digital effects. It makes it sound like it just mixes on top of the sound, instead of taking it over. It also doesn't mess with the core tone like digitizing the signal does.

If running drive pedals in parallel, you can mix 2 different sounds together, to get a bit of each. You blend them together. That is way different than running one into the other.

 

[c7spheres]

A mixer type pedal or mini mixer would be the way to go.. but if you don't have that and have an Ebtech/Morley hum eliminator, (two) mono to dual mono adapters, and 2 insert y-cables you may be able to make-shift one for an experiment.

Here's some adapter wizardry if interested:
Goes something like this: guitar to female mono to dual mono male (trs) 1/4" male adapter (looks like 1/4f-1/4m headphone adapter) >to hum box input 1, hum box output 1 using male y end of insert cable1 >to ring of y cable1 to pedal input , tip of y cable1 to amp input. - Then out of pedal to y cable2 ring and amp fx send to y cable2 tip, y cable 2 trs (y) jack to hum input 2 > hum output 2 to the second mono to dual mono trs adapter, mono female end out of that adapter to amp fx return. If you have a splitter already you can just do thesecond part of this setup but might be more susceptible to hum.

- Since this is passive summing, the signal quality and balance can vary depending on the gear loads themselves and just depends if you like it. It works best with summing stereo or like mono signals but can still be used with mismatches like this and will stll usally belnd fine if you're use to dialing in stuff. One signal wll likely dominate in levels, so likely you'd want to adjust the pedal settings to blend with the normal amp settings as the amp is main sound usually. if amp adjusts fx send/return levels then you can use those to blend too.

- I've used passive summing for years and it's great. For a long time now though I've been using P-Splits for spitting and summing but before those I was doing this Ebtech thing and it works great but Lehle is on another level/better transformers. These are still really good though and I use them for hum purposes in my rig still because they sound great. All that being said an active mixer/pedal is usually the way. All I can say is start with levels off and slowy turn up. - Whatever you do don't use standard y cables that aren't insert type trs and don't do this without the hum box as it has transformers that help protect back flow (one output's signal going into the other) . If you're not familiar with passive summing also be aware the signal can go from hardly there to over taking the second signal pretty quick sometimes too, so small movements blend easier.

 

[Rev2010]

At the risk of sounding dumb what’s the difference? My ENGL FE has a button to switch between the two.

Parallel loops were predominantly used for time based effects like reverb and delay as you usually don't run those effects at 100% wet. However, for any effects that you use to fully envelop and change the sound such as distortion, wah, ring modulator, synth effects, etc then you'd want series. I prefer series anyway because you can control the blend through the effect unit themseves and I personally never noticed any horrible tone-suck with modern processors. Another advantage of a series loop is it avoids that annoying phasing sound you get with parallel loops from mixing a copy of the sound back with the original. It's another reason I modded my current and previous Triple Rec from parallel to series.

 

[Shask]

Parallel loops were predominantly used for time based effects like reverb and delay as you usually don't run those effects at 100% wet. However, for any effects that you use to fully envelop and change the sound such as distortion, wah, ring modulator, synth effects, etc then you'd want series. I prefer series anyway because you can control the blend through the effect unit themseves and I personally never noticed any horrible tone-suck with modern processors. Another advantage of a series loop is it avoids that annoying phasing sound you get with parallel loops from mixing a copy of the sound back with the original. It's another reason I modded my current and previous Triple Rec from parallel to series.

For modern processors I normally notice more of a dynamics change than a tone change. Most of them are pretty transparent, as far as frequencies and such, but they do change the dynamic feel.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

Any recommendations on a specific pedal?

Not a pedal, but I have one of these that I picked up for super cheap on ebay. It's passive, so it attenuates the signal level a tad. It's a handy little Swiss army knife, and would do what you want. Not requiring power is nice. It can split and mix.

 

[Baelzebeard]

There are many parallel mixing( xotic, jetter, gigrig,ehx,etc.) pedals that will give you the tool to mix your preamp with pedals.

I dug pretty deep into this rabbit hole recently and got my hands on a GFI Duophony to mix 4 distortions in parallel,(HM-2, FZ-2, Iron Horse, Super Crunch Box v2). It's absolutely madness, in the best possible way.