Help me assemble a pedalboard for my TH30!!!

[mussolo]

Hi guys,

I have recently bought a TH-30 (head + 1x12 cabinet) and after having sold my old rack system, I have bought some pedals (mostly on the used market). Since it's my first experience with a valve amp and a pedalboard (I played for 15 years with a transistor amp and midi multieffect) I was asking you the right way to assemble my pedalboard.
My effects are:

- TC Electronic SCF Chorus-Flanger
- T Rex Tremster
- Rowin LEF-614 Delay

- Dunlop Crybaby

- EH Big Muff-Tone Wicker
- T Rex Alberta

My thought was to put the three modulation effects in the send/return loop of the TH30, and the two distortion pedals in chain in the amp input...and the wah?

I know I should just try and try, but if some good guy wants to give me an advice I'd be grateful.

And finally, I want a reverb pedal, a very simple one, don't need a hundred presets or something very versatile, just a reverb that gives me that fender reverb feel...which one would you suggest?

Best
Giorgio

[Stu Cazz]

Hello.

On my TH30 I do this:

Guitar Boss TU-3 Cry Baby Mini Mooer Acoustikar Bax Bangeetar
Janus Trem/Fuzz Amp Input
Loop: EHX Cathedral

Just put the Wah first and experiment with the others.

[Boy_Narf]

I ran effects in the loop, and through the front for only a few months. Was soo sick of the cables everywhere. Hopefully you have one of those snakes

Honestly you should try both to see what you prefer tone wise. I typically only ran Delay and Reverb in the loop, as it would play nice with both clean and dirty. Overdrives should go in front, unless you want to bypass the preamp and use the pedal instead. Treat the preamp of the amp as a drive pedal. Would you put chorus/flanger before or after dirt?

I would do Trem/Dirt/Wah in front, and the rest in the loop.

For verb, how about a hall of fame, or holy grail?

[PBA]

I'd suggest do it like this:

Guitar -
- Dunlop Crybaby
- EH Big Muff-Tone Wicker
- T Rex Alberta
- TC Electronic SCF Chorus-Flanger
- T Rex Tremster
Amp input -
Loop out (preamp out) -
- Rowin LEF-614 Delay
Reverb
Loop in (power amp in) -

For the reverb - TC HoF would be my choice. I'm currently using a Digitech Polara and it's ok but I'm not convinced. I've also heard good things about the Boss RV-6 so that could be worth a try.
I would also suggest you try all of them into the front of the amp. It's simpler to set up and if you don't use high gain can be perfectly fine for the delays and reverbs. It can actually help make your guitar tone ore consistent.

Most importantly, leave enough flexibility to move things around, change out pedals or add new ones. Never forget n+1!

[Les Paul Lover]

I ran effects in the loop, and through the front for only a few months. Was soo sick of the cables everywhere. Hopefully you have one of those snakes

Honestly you should try both to see what you prefer tone wise. I typically only ran Delay and Reverb in the loop, as it would play nice with both clean and dirty. Overdrives should go in front, unless you want to bypass the preamp and use the pedal instead. Treat the preamp of the amp as a drive pedal. Would you put chorus/flanger before or after dirt?

I would do Trem/Dirt/Wah in front, and the rest in the loop.

For verb, how about a hall of fame, or holy grail?

The tremolo works better with overdrive through the loop. With just a little gain, the tremolo becomes more a slight warble. Through the loop, you got the tremolo wave effect.

[Michelle911]

I did just this last year! It's hard to know what you like. I started with a maxon808 tho, there's an orange blog that was talking about this and a few different ODs. I personally love it and sent back the OCD -I tried it too) I just buy gear and try it out, I can always send it back if I don't like it. I probly bought 20 pedals in total and kept what I thought was the best.

I found that blog link if you're interested.http://orangeampsblog.com/?p=394

[jesperbc]

I would put them in this order:

Wah -> Big Muff -> Alberta - Note that your Alberta is buffered, and fuzz pedals don't like buffer in front of them. Also, if your wah is a Cry Baby GCB95, you should have it modded for true bypass. The buffer in the GCB95 is a piece of garbage, so besides messing with the input impedance of your Big Muff, it'll suck out all the top end of your signal chain, which is exactly the opposite of what a good buffer does! True bypass the wah or get a GCB95F with true bypass and the real Fasel conductor. I replaced a GCB95 with the GCB95F and it REALLY helped! Also, if you place the Alberta AFTER the Big Muff, you can use it as a mid boost for the Big Muff. This'll help you cut through the mix in a band situation.

After the wah and drive, I'd put the trem and the chorus/flanger. Chorus isn't always very good in an FX loop. It can do wierd things to you volume levels.

Put the delay in the FX loop, so you can use preamp distortion and get your delays to sound "right". If you get a reverb pedal, put this after the delay.

Remember, these are rules of thumb, not set in stone. Do what ever your ears tell you to do, but running it this way, will yield the traditional results, if that's what you're after.

Here a link to a good, reliable source.
http://tonereport.com/blogs/tone-tips/s ... edal-order

[pedecamp]

Hi guys,

I have recently bought a TH-30 (head + 1x12 cabinet) and after having sold my old rack system, I have bought some pedals (mostly on the used market). Since it's my first experience with a valve amp and a pedalboard (I played for 15 years with a transistor amp and midi multieffect) I was asking you the right way to assemble my pedalboard.
My effects are:

- TC Electronic SCF Chorus-Flanger
- T Rex Tremster
- Rowin LEF-614 Delay

- Dunlop Crybaby

- EH Big Muff-Tone Wicker
- T Rex Alberta

My thought was to put the three modulation effects in the send/return loop of the TH30, and the two distortion pedals in chain in the amp input...and the wah?

I know I should just try and try, but if some good guy wants to give me an advice I'd be grateful.

And finally, I want a reverb pedal, a very simple one, don't need a hundred presets or something very versatile, just a reverb that gives me that fender reverb feel...which one would you suggest?

Best
Giorgio

You have a good plan, put the wah out front. I highly recommend the Boss RV-6 for reverb.

[mussolo]

I would put them in this order:

Wah -> Big Muff -> Alberta - Note that your Alberta is buffered, and fuzz pedals don't like buffer in front of them. Also, if your wah is a Cry Baby GCB95, you should have it modded for true bypass. The buffer in the GCB95 is a piece of garbage, so besides messing with the input impedance of your Big Muff, it'll suck out all the top end of your signal chain, which is exactly the opposite of what a good buffer does! True bypass the wah or get a GCB95F with true bypass and the real Fasel conductor. I replaced a GCB95 with the GCB95F and it REALLY helped! Also, if you place the Alberta AFTER the Big Muff, you can use it as a mid boost for the Big Muff. This'll help you cut through the mix in a band situation.

After the wah and drive, I'd put the trem and the chorus/flanger. Chorus isn't always very good in an FX loop. It can do wierd things to you volume levels.

Put the delay in the FX loop, so you can use preamp distortion and get your delays to sound "right". If you get a reverb pedal, put this after the delay.

Remember, these are rules of thumb, not set in stone. Do what ever your ears tell you to do, but running it this way, will yield the traditional results, if that's what you're after.

Here a link to a good, reliable source.
http://tonereport.com/blogs/tone-tips/s ... edal-order

Hi Jesper, and many thanks for your many advices.
Actually I am experiencing a problem with the effects loop. It is so noisy! I tried many combinations (4 pedals in the loop or just one pedal, different power supplies, etc.) but basically the whole amp gets noisy as I connect just one pedal to the effects loop, and the noise doesn't change meaningfully if I connect a whole pedal chain.
It's my first time with a tube amp, until a month ago I was playing with a solid state rack and a multi-effect and it was super quiet. Therefore, I don't know if it's just "ordinary" noise or if there's some technical issue to solve. Overall, the TH30 is a very quiet amp, it gets noisy only when I use the effects loop.
I am using good cables (Planet Waves, Klotz) and ther kind of noise I get is a high-tone buzz and a low-tone hum, both constant.

Please help!

[Stu Cazz]

That doesn't sound normal, my TH30's loop is silent. You may want to check the 12AT7.
It's the first row of little tubes (right behind the control panel) 3rd counting from left to right.

And how do you power your pedals? Sometimes daisy-chainig can cause noise issues.
A good power supply with isolated outputs is the solution to that problem.

[mussolo]

That doesn't sound normal, my TH30's loop is silent. You may want to check the 12AT7.
It's the first row of little tubes (right behind the control panel) 3rd counting from left to right.

And how do you power your pedals? Sometimes daisy-chainig can cause noise issues.
A good power supply with isolated outputs is the solution to that problem.

I don't use a daisy chain but a Belcat Power Master with 7 isolated outputs, and I can hear the noise even by running the fx loop with a TC Electronic SCF, which has direct 220V plug, is true bypass and I bought only two weeks ago.
I don't understand nothing about electronics, but I have heard that if you plug you amp and your effects into two close sockets you can have problems.
I'll check the 12AT7.

[PBA]

...It is so noisy! I tried many combinations (4 pedals in the loop or just one pedal, different power supplies, etc.) but basically the whole amp gets noisy as I connect just one pedal to the effects loop, and the noise doesn't change meaningfully if I connect a whole pedal chain...
Please help!

I'm sorry you are having difficulties.
First of all, I would suggest trying a single battery powered pedal in the loop. If you get the noise, then it's certainly not coming from your power supply.
Next try swapping out the cables used to connect into the loop. Does the quality of the noise change? If it's the same noise at the same volume then it's not your cables.
Following that, it would be worth checking if there is a noise source at your location. Try your rig out somewhere else - ideally in a different building.
If there is still no change, that would leave the valve. Effects loop valves do seem to be quite sensitive to noise but I lack the technical knowledge to know why.
It's worth noting that I've never encountered a truly quiet effects loop. There always seems to be some noise introduced but not at volume levels which concern me.
Good luck.

[Les Paul Lover]

A good way to check if the issue is with the Fx loop is to plug a known good cable from the fx sens to the fx return.

If just doing that introduces noise, then you know the problem is from the loop itself.