The ESP Guitar Company

The Effects loop interrupts your Preamp and your Poweramp - this is a preferred place for effects like reverb, chorus and delay since most people prefer the sound of Overdrive channels being effected rather than having distorted effects, which is what would generally happen with the effects out front.

There are 2 types of loop - serial and parallel. Serial loops are where the unit in the effects loop takes all of the signal from the preamp, processes it and then sends it out to the poweramp. Parallel loops take a portion of your signal (determined by the "mix" control on the amps FX loop), process it through the effects unit, and then mix this effected signal with the dry signal from the amp.

Your amp's instruction manual should at least state if the loop is series or parallel, if not the prescence of a mix knob or something like that by the loop is a good indication that its a parallel loop.

For series loops you ideally want an effects processor which doesn't degrade the unprocessed tone too much. Also, most loops work a lot better with rack gear rather than stompboxes - a lot of people forget that stompboxes are designed to take and process the output from your guitar, which is a lot smaller than the line-level output from a preamp. Series loops work best for things like Noise Gates and Sonic Maximisers, where you want the whole of your sound affected/fixed. A lot of people prefer them because they're easier to balance.

Parallel loops are good for more subtle effects I've found, since you can add plenty of ambience without "cutting" into your unprocessed dry signal. Nevertheless, with a good processor this shouldn't be too much of a problem, I've just had bad experience with cheap rack effects so I've got all my effects on the floor in front of the amp now, I only use the loop for noise reduction and maybe a Sonic Max in the future, but its not really necessary.

With serial loops you need to adjust the input and ouput volumes on the unit to match the volume of the amp when the processor is bypassed. With Parallel loops, it generally works best if you have the processor's output level as high as it can go, and then adjust the mix control on the amp to where you like it.

oh sweet thanks for the help man! I guess that explains why i couldnt get it to work cus i only own stomp boxes...

guitar > front of amp > speaker output > cabinet(match the Ohms with the switch if you have it.

fx loop send > INPUT of whatever fx you'd like to use-keep chaining them this way > fx loop return.

usually distortions/overdrives, wahs, tuners & eq pedals sound best in front of the amp.

while anything that alters/modulates time, such as delays, flanges, chorus, sound best here. Eqs are also permissible as well as a noise gating circuit.

there is slightly more to know, but this is fx loop 101 here.

end of story.

How about noise gate/suppressor infront of the amp vs. in the effects loop ?

A little hiss doesnt bother me, I mainly care about the guitar not feedbacking when there's a short stop in a song, so in front of the amp it is right?

I dont have over the top gain, but I do need some gain :p I try to stand far away from the amp but some of the stages I play arent that big ;)

For now Im using my friend's NS2