Using pedal switchers to change preamps to send fx to 2 amps

[jonthomas83]

Hi guys,

I have a dilemma, I have a Fender Twin Amp for my clean sounds and a Mesa Single rec for my crunch. I would ideally like to use all of my time based effects (effects that would usually sit between the pre-amp and power amp stages, (i.e. effects loop, of the amp) in both of the amps effects loops.

Has anyone experienced using pedal switchers to switch the signal between pre-amps? I.e. one switch would send to amp one's input, the send from amp one would go to the return of that loop on the switcher. The next switch would control the other pre-amp of amp two. The final switch on the switcher would send to the return of amp one, the output of the switcher would send to the return of amp two.

This would then allow the user to use any effects in between the pre-amp switches and the output of the pedal switcher in either of the amps. Of course, only one pre-amp would be on at any one time.

Only problem's I can foresee is ground loops etc., can anyone confirm that this is possible?

Many thanks and sorry if the post is confusing!

[JohnClark]

Attempting to share effects between two amplifier effects loops can be done but can also be quite problematic. There is huge potential for ground loops as well as other grounding issues. Also, not all amp effect loops behave the same way so there could be huge level differences between the two preamp sections.
If you want to try this out with your amps the common way to do it is to split your signal so it is always driving both preamp sections, then A/B switch which Effects Send is to feed the effects, then a second A/B to select which Effects Return to send the signal to.
On the Pedal Switcher only loop 4 can be used as an A/B as the rest of the loops are normaled and the returns are ground lifted. I suppose if you established ground on the return of loop 1 that it too could be used as an input A/B switching between the Input jack and the Return jack as the source.