Tone loss when using Effects Loop

[erabjohns]

I have a looper in the Send/Return 1, an Echo pedal in Send/Return 3 and a 1/8 inch cable with 1/4 inch adapter in the Return 2 jacks.  When ever I add one of these into a patch, I immediately lose quite a bit of high end on my patch.  If I bypass the fx loop box, the tone goes back to normal.  In this case, the looper is using brand new 10 ft cords, the echo uses 6 inch patch cables and the phone is connected to a male/male headphone cable.

 

The sound quality coming back from the looper/echo or even the smart phone w/ 1/4 inch adapter is fine.  I can adjust the send/return signals and I hear it just fine, but the problem seems to be with the overall tone of the patch once the fx loop is engaged.  I should note that I'm using headphones, I'm not running to an amp or using 4cm.

 

Is this typically with the Helix's fx loops, or is there something I'm doing wrong in the placement of the fx loop in my patch?  I've put the fx loop in various places and using different patches and regardless of what's going out/coming back, the impact is always the same.  I go from a full dynamic sound, to a rather dull and muffled tone as soon as I engaged an fx loop.

[codamedia]

The loop itself should not be the problem... it is likely items (or cables) placed in the loop. 

 

Simply run a cable between the send/return and see if there is any signal loss or loss of high end. If it sounds pristine, add an effect to see what happens. When you add something and your sound degrades, you have found the culprit. If it degrades with just a cable make sure you try a few other cables as well. If they all fail the test, I guess there is a possibility something is wrong with the loop, or the settings in the loop.

[phil_m]

Do you have the FX loops set to instrument or line level?

 

I use two of my Helix's loops all the time, and I don't have any tone loss.

[erabjohns]

8 minutes ago, codamedia said:

The loop itself should not be the problem... it is likely items (or cables) placed in the loop. 

 

Simply run a cable between the send/return and see if there is any signal loss or loss of high end. If it sounds pristine, add an effect to see what happens. When you add something and your sound degrades, you have found the culprit. If it degrades with just a cable make sure you try a few other cables as well. If they all fail the test, I guess there is a possibility something is wrong with the loop, or the settings in the loop.

Thanks, I'll try that.  It's strange that I'd get the same drop off in tone with three different sets of cords & fx loops.  I suppose the cables could all be bad, but I never had a problem running them directly in front of my amp before.

 

In general, I shouldn't be getting a significant degradation in signal when adding one of the Helix's fx loops to a patch, right? 

[erabjohns]

2 minutes ago, phil_m said:

Do you have the FX loops set to instrument or line level?

 

I use two of my Helix's loops all the time, and I don't have any tone loss.

I'll check that tonight.  Good to know that what I'm hearing is not normal.  I'll easily chalk this up to user error rather than a defective unit at this point, but here's hoping I find the solution.

[erabjohns]

I figured it out.  The mix was set at 100%.  By reducing it to 50%, everything is so much clearer. 

 

So far, the Helix's biggest fault is me, but I'm learning.  Cheers to the Line 6 people and thanks guys for helping me troubleshoot.

 

 

[phil_m]

1 hour ago, erabjohns said:

I figured it out.  The mix was set at 100%.  By reducing it to 50%, everything is so much clearer. 

 

So far, the Helix's biggest fault is me, but I'm learning.  Cheers to the Line 6 people and thanks guys for helping me troubleshoot.

 

 

 

Hmm... Typically you'd want the Mix at 100%, as that makes it a serial loop. What are the models of pedals you're actually using?

[erabjohns]

1 hour ago, phil_m said:

 

Hmm... Typically you'd want the Mix at 100%, as that makes it a serial loop. What are the models of pedals you're actually using?

Ditto Looper and Catalinbread Echorec.  Strange, because I just played for a bit during my lunch hour and dropping the mix, at least on the Return that my phone is using completely resolved the problem.  Tone is back to normal and I can still hear the input from the effect loop fine.  As I go up to 100%, I can hear the tone from the Helix start to get muddy.  I'll take another look.  Is it possible I just have these plugged in backwards?  Considering I've never used an effects loop prior to the Helix, I wouldn't put it past me.

[codamedia]

The only reason it is getting clearer when you turn the mix down is because you are now "bypassing" the loop to a certain degree. That doesn't solve the problem you are having... it is just providing a detour for the signal to get around the problem. 

[erabjohns]

15 hours ago, codamedia said:

The only reason it is getting clearer when you turn the mix down is because you are now "bypassing" the loop to a certain degree. That doesn't solve the problem you are having... it is just providing a detour for the signal to get around the problem. 

Yup, you're right.  I can control the output on the looper and on the smart phone, so that covers the loss I get when I set the mix to 50%, but on the echorec, it doesn't come through very well when the mix is set to 50%. 

 

Still not sure what's going on.  I'll keep at it and hopefully find what ever it is I'm doing wrong here.

[bsd512]

I've noticed when I use an effect loop, especially in front of the distortion channel of an amp, there's a lot of noise. Take out the effect loop, and the noise goes away. This happens when a pedal is in the loop or not, i.e., even when there is no cabling connected to the Helix effect loops.

 

I recall other people stating that Helix effect loops are pretty noisy - so I assume it's part of the design. My solution is to put a noise gate after the effect loop block if the noise is a problem.

 

I'm not sure if this is what you're seeing or not, but it sounds similar.

[erabjohns]

1 hour ago, bsd512 said:

I've noticed when I use an effect loop, especially in front of the distortion channel of an amp, there's a lot of noise. Take out the effect loop, and the noise goes away. This happens when a pedal is in the loop or not, i.e., even when there is no cabling connected to the Helix effect loops.

 

I recall other people stating that Helix effect loops are pretty noisy - so I assume it's part of the design. My solution is to put a noise gate after the effect loop block if the noise is a problem.

 

I'm not sure if this is what you're seeing or not, but it sounds similar.

Not so much noise, but imagine adding a noticeable high cut as soon as you engage an fx loop box within one of your patches.  I'll do more investigating tonight.

[codamedia]

20 hours ago, bsd512 said:

I've noticed when I use an effect loop, especially in front of the distortion channel of an amp, there's a lot of noise. Take out the effect loop, and the noise goes away. This happens when a pedal is in the loop or not, i.e., even when there is no cabling connected to the Helix effect loops.

 

I recall other people stating that Helix effect loops are pretty noisy - so I assume it's part of the design. My solution is to put a noise gate after the effect loop block if the noise is a problem.

 

The loops and returns are not suppose to be noisy - anywhere in the chain. You should check out the "sticky" at the top of these Helix forums regarding noisy HX Effects - you likely have one of those units. 

https://line6.com/support/topic/32964-hx-effects-audio-artifacts/

 

19 hours ago, erabjohns said:

Not so much noise, but imagine adding a noticeable high cut as soon as you engage an fx loop box within one of your patches.  I'll do more investigating tonight.

 

Almost the opposite of the above problem. Under normal circumstances I would blame bad cables or the device in the loop for this. As I mention above, the first thing to do is elminate the loop or the loop settings as the problem. Grab a really short cable (pedal to pedal) and connect a loops in/out with that and try it (no devices, just a cable). If it sounds right like that (which it should) then it is the device you are connecting, or the longer cables that are the problem. 

[phil_m]

8 minutes ago, codamedia said:

The loops and returns are not suppose to be noisy - anywhere in the chain. You should check out the "sticky" at the top of these Helix forums regarding noisy HX Effects - you likely have one of those units. 

https://line6.com/support/topic/32964-hx-effects-audio-artifacts/

 

Well, he's talking about the Helix, and if you put an FX Loop in front of high gain amp model on the Helix, it can increase the noise floor. I think the issue is that the high gain amps increase the gain so much that it's raising the noise floor so much that you start hearing some of the dithering noise from the D/A conversion from the loop. This is a different than what happened with the HX Effects and the white noise issue.

[codamedia]

3 hours ago, phil_m said:

Well, he's talking about the Helix, and if you put an FX Loop in front of high gain amp model on the Helix, it can increase the noise floor.

 

Ahhh... you are right, he is asking about the Helix... Sorry about that! 

[erabjohns]

5 hours ago, codamedia said:

Almost the opposite of the above problem. Under normal circumstances I would blame bad cables or the device in the loop for this. As I mention above, the first thing to do is elminate the loop or the loop settings as the problem. Grab a really short cable (pedal to pedal) and connect a loops in/out with that and try it (no devices, just a cable). If it sounds right like that (which it should) then it is the device you are connecting, or the longer cables that are the problem. 

I did this at lunch, by plugging a patch cable into the send/return and adding that fx loop to a new preset.  Almost no drop in tone at all when I engage the fx loop.  Assume that means the Helix is in the clear or is there another test?.  I didn't have any problems running the pedals with the same cords into the font of an amp, but if the fx loop is working properly, it must be either the pedal, or the cords causing the tone loss, right?

[codamedia]

2 hours ago, erabjohns said:

I did this at lunch, by plugging a patch cable into the send/return and adding that fx loop to a new preset.  Almost no drop in tone at all when I engage the fx loop.  Assume that means the Helix is in the clear or is there another test?

 

Yes - that would indicate that the loop itself is fine, it is the items in the loop (cords, pedals, etc...) that are likely creating the problem. It can still be a combination of items, but that short test shows the loop itself functions as it should... no loss of highs or signal!

 

2 hours ago, erabjohns said:

I didn't have any problems running the pedals with the same cords into the font of an amp,

 

What kind of A/B test did you do to come to the conclusion the problem didn't exist in this situation as well? You may have setup a tone that sounds good, but did you actually A/B it with a raw signal to see if the signal was altered in any way? 

[vanbuxton]

I had the same problem adding a Ditto x2 pedal into FXloop1. I worked out the issue. It was where I’d put the FXloop block...... in front of the amp/cab block. Place it after the amp model and Bob’s your Uncle!

[Verne-Bunsen]

On 8/1/2018 at 2:32 PM, codamedia said:

 

What kind of A/B test did you do to come to the conclusion the problem didn't exist in this situation as well? You may have setup a tone that sounds good, but did you actually A/B it with a raw signal to see if the signal was altered in any way? 

This is a good question, and it is exactly the kind of detail that must be considered when comparing your amp-and-pedalboard rig to your Helix rig. If the pedals were always in the chain going to your amp and your amp was dialed in accordingly, that is different from putting them in Helix’s switchable loops, setting the amp without them in the chain, and then switching them in.

[erabjohns]

On 2/3/2019 at 4:30 AM, vanbuxton said:

I had the same problem adding a Ditto x2 pedal into FXloop1. I worked out the issue. It was where I’d put the FXloop block...... in front of the amp/cab block. Place it after the amp model and Bob’s your Uncle!

This was exactly my problem.  Seemed like every set up I saw showed the looper in the last spot before the output.  Yet, if I put the Ditto last, everything sounded like garbage.  Move it in front of the amp and I was good to go.  Same with my Echorec.  I put most HX delays towards the end of the patch, after amp and cabinet and they sounded great.  Put the pedal in an FX loop there and everything sounds terrible again.  I learned my lesson.

 

Another good point about a real A/B test.  In my old set up, everything, including the looper ran in front of the amp since there was no effects loop.  What I was doing before was not the same hence the muddy sound.  Lesson learned, never doubt the Helix.

[digband]

I know this is old but I am having the same issue as the OP - exact same drop in high end and slight volume when I use the fx loop. I have not amp or cab blocks because I use a real tube amp, and no matter where I moved the Send block assigned to the fx loop 1, it always does the same treble/vol drop. Also, I pulled every effect out of the external signal chain one at a time and then just plugged a single cable, both ends, to in/out in the fx loop and it still happened. Help?

[blackSP]

Stomp Xl user here, brand new going into a brand new Blackstar h5-MRII with 4cm.

Quite a big sound change as soon as I switch back to guitar only in front of amp. Back to 4cm setup on a new preset with no blocks, or only a fx block much brighter sound. Not good imho. Although the sound sounds ok, haha.