littlespaceman Posted March 19, 2022 Share Posted March 19, 2022 I’m a bit confused about the position of the FX loop in the Catalyst amps. I thought it was normal for FX loops to be after the pre amp (or amp voicing) or at least switchable, so you can choose whether it’s pre or post. However when I use a looper pedal in my Cat 60W, when I record a loop, it changes as I change the amp channel / patch and also when I turn on effect or reverb, even if ‘post’ is selected on the effect/reverb. I find this surprising, and it makes using a looper in the FX loop (which is surely one of the most basic and common uses for an FX loop these days?) pointless; if you lay down a clean rhythm loop, and then choose a driven sound to solo over your rhythm loop, the loop takes on the lead sound and turns to mush. Am I missing something here? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silverhead Posted March 19, 2022 Share Posted March 19, 2022 On 3/19/2022 at 5:27 AM, littlespaceman said: …. I thought it was normal for FX loops to be after the pre amp (or amp voicing) or at least switchable, so you can choose whether it’s pre or post. …. Yes, that would be normal. Seems like a pre-preamp FX Loop would be useless. It would be the same as just physically placing the external equipment in front of the amp. So, I can’t imagine that the Catalyst amp would place its FX loop in that manner. There’s likely some other explanation for what you’re hearing but I don’t have any suggestions other than the obvious. Any FX blocks that are positioned after the FX Loop in the signal chain will affect the playback of the recorded loop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
littlespaceman Posted March 20, 2022 Author Share Posted March 20, 2022 On 3/19/2022 at 1:46 PM, silverhead said: but I don’t have any suggestions other than the obvious. I agree it would be strange for the FX loop to be before the preamp. And yes if the FX blocks are after the loop I get that this would affect the playback of the recorded loop, so again you’d think that Line 6 would have put the FX Loop at the very end. When you say you don’t have any suggestions other than the obvious, what are the obvious ones? Because changing the amp channels/presets definitely changes my loop so something isn’t quite right; and it’s not like you can deep edit the position of the FX loop like you can with Helix etc. So it’s not as it there’s much possibility of user error as there are so few user definables… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
littlespaceman Posted March 20, 2022 Author Share Posted March 20, 2022 Any chance of an official Line 6 reply to this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silverhead Posted March 20, 2022 Share Posted March 20, 2022 On 3/20/2022 at 7:36 AM, littlespaceman said: …. When you say you don’t have any suggestions other than the obvious, what are the obvious ones? … I went on to mention it ….. FX blocks after the loop. That’s all I had in mind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silverhead Posted March 20, 2022 Share Posted March 20, 2022 On 3/20/2022 at 7:37 AM, littlespaceman said: Any chance of an official Line 6 reply to this? I don’t know. But there’s something in the manual that caught my eye. It talks about one of the rear panel items: MODE SWITCH – Controls the state of the FX Loop RETURN; When switched to the left, the FX Loop is engaged (as described above). When switched to the right, Power Amp In is engaged, sending the return signal directly to the power amp. This feature is great for use with external effects processors or pedals. Have you experimented with this switch? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
littlespaceman Posted March 20, 2022 Author Share Posted March 20, 2022 Good spot, but yes, I’ve used that switch. All that switch does is turn the amp into a sort of ‘Powercab Lite’ by allowing you to plug a modeller (Helix etc) in to the FX loop return socket. It then just amplifies the sound from your modeller, so you don’t get any of the amp voices or fx, everything comes from the modeller. If you have the switch on the back of the amp to the ‘Power Amp’ setting but plug something like a looper in to the FX loop, all it does is amplify the signal coming through the looper, which if nothing else is plugged in to the looper will just be a clean guitar signal. To use the FX loop properly you have to have the rear switch set to ‘FX Loop’. But it’s with the switch set this way that I’ve found that the amp channels / voicing and FX such as reverb or delay change the loop you’ve recorded, hence my original question about where the FX loop sits in the overall chain Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
littlespaceman Posted May 27, 2022 Author Share Posted May 27, 2022 I'm still having problems with this, and really not liking it. So FWIW I've posted about this in another thread that discusses the FX Loop position Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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