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3 amps, 2 fx loops,3 gcx

Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 4:24 pm
by Grinderaxe
I'm trying to make use of the effects loops in two amplifiers and I can't figure out how to wire it up!

Marshall JCM 900/ fx loop
Fender Blues Deluxe/ fx loop
Fender bassman/ no effects loop

I send my signal from a pedalboard That contains Wah pedal,Digitech whammy,Overdrives,Distortion,Comp, eq pedals,Eenie Ball volume and a Voodoo Labs Amp selector.

The signal is sent to GCX 1(guitar in)

GCX 1
Loop 1=Marshall JMP-1 Pre
Loop 2=Line 6 POD XT Pro (Can't decide fx loop or front on these two...sounds good regardless and opinions would be greatly appreciated on this matter)
Loops 3 & 4 = dbx 215 graphic eq,dbx 166 comp/limiter/gate and BBE Sonic Maximizer (These are tied together in series and seperated into channels one and two....one for clean and the other for dirty tones
Loops 5 & 6 are used for channel switching for the JCM and Blues Deluxe.
Loops 7 & 8 are unused.

GCX 2&3 handle all stompbox effects(Chorus's,phaseshifter's,Flangers,reverbs,Delays etc) all house on two sliding drawers......one drawer is programmed for instant access via Ground Control Pro and The other Drawer is programmed into the Presets 1-4)

It's these two drawers of stomps that I would like to send into both effects loops of the JCM 900 and Blues deluxe!!!

I send the signal back to the pedalboard via a feed thru into the Voodoo Lab Amp Selector!

Any advise would be greatly appreciated...as of now I'm just doin some head scratchin ....I don't want it to get to the point of Pulling Hair out.....Got lots of it but I'm not sure if it will grow back LOL!

Mitch W

Re: 3 amps, 2 fx loops,3 gcx

Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 11:09 am
by JohnClark
Three amps and two preamps... are you running these all at once or trying to switch between them on at a time?

Where in all this are you feeding the three amplifier instrument inputs?

Re: 3 amps, 2 fx loops,3 gcx

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2012 3:17 pm
by Grinderaxe
Hey John,

I feed the amps instrument inputs via Voodoo Lab Amp selector on my pedalboard.
and I do use the amps one at a time and all three at the same time,as many combinations my heart desires.This is the third time I'm redesigning this Rig.....Before I purchased the Amp selector I was using one of two GCX'S but that meant programming amps on/off in the Ground control Pro....The amp selector opened up loops in the GCX and made life a little simpler for me.
Now because I love these GCX'S so much I went out and bought a third one.....I'm addicted!!!!

Most of the time I use the JCM 900 and Blues deluxe Clean channels and if I want dirty/lead tones I'll use the JMP 1 or POD XT PRO or any of the stomps on my pedalboard.....whenever I happen to use the distortion Channels on these two channel Amps I don't need the JMP or any other distortion type of devise.....I just like to have as many options available to me as possible.I'm using the rig for studio purposes only.....for live scenarios I just take my pedalboard and an amp or two!

I always try to think things through and I can't get a grip schematically in my mind how to wire up for two fx loops....The Marshall JCM 900 has a series FX loop with a level control and the blues deluxe has a Power Amp in and a Preamp out. I never used the fx loop in the Blues deluxe, I'm just thinking about it now.In the previous rig I had all the stomps in one gcx and sent that to the front end of all amps and all rack units into the fx loop of the Marshall....easy enough but only the Marshall would see the Rack units....Maybe I'm just over complicating things for myself.

I'll be adding two Voodoo Lab Pedal Switchers and a Commander to my Pedalboard in the very near future.....Well I hope this answers your question to my original question!

Hope all is well,
Mitch W.

Re: 3 amps, 2 fx loops,3 gcx

Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 1:09 pm
by JohnClark
Well I just don't know that there is one good way to do this. You could route things in stereo using all the Left connections for one amp and the Right connections for the other amp, but this may sound funny when only one of the amps is used. Another thing you could do is to use two GCX Loops to A/B switch which amp gets the effects in its loop.

I hope that helps!