Hey Gmc I'm in the middle of setting up my live rig and while I'm recording with Microphones now and really enjoy the feel from a cranked amp through a mic but when I use my Looper, it sends it back through my amp. My recordings are with the looper and lead. Id like to isolate the looper track from going back into the amp.... BUT I still want to hear it without headphones.


The ultimate goal would be to have the looped channel go directly into my recording processor but how do you complete the FX LOOP and not hear the looped signal?

I do have a Peavey Keyboard amp that I could use but it may not be loud enough.

Thanks! BTW Video, a very cool video coming hopefully today!

Hi Jim, I'm not sure I fully understand your question could you please send more details?

What kind of looper pedal are you using and what exactly would you like your signal path to look like?

Guitar>Amp>FX out on amp>Looper pedal>audio recording interface?

If you are looking for above signal path and not having the looper pedal track go back to amp, maybe you'd like to use a spliter or A/B box kind of unit?

This way you could go :

Guitar>splitter>1 output to amp, 2 output to looper pedal
Looper pedal>recording interface
Guitar amp>mic>recording interface

Was this what you were looking for?

As I don't have practical experience with using A/B boxes or splitter, I'd like to ask if someone can confirm this kind of setup doable and provide more details?

Yes very close except if I split the signal before pre amp then I won't hear the effects through the looper. If I take it pre out then both lead and looped rhythm are merged.
I'd like to have the tone from my pedals/amp combo to looper but not back into amp. That way the mic and line out won't have the mixed signals. Here's a pic of the current set up and one that Id like to have. Does that make any sense?

Thanks!

Thanks for the schematic Jim, I think I understand what you are aiming for.
Just one question, why do you need guitar signal to go through amp before sending it to the looper pedal?
Are there any effects on the amp itself that you'd like to capture.

I think what you have drawn in the 2nd picture should technically work, but it is a bit of unusual setup.

Has anyone got any comments, will it work "technically" for real?

Good question. If you take the guitar signal before any effects then you run into this scenario.

Say you play a clean rhythm guitar and you want to loop it and then play high gain lead over this is what happens. The clean electric guitar that you record will be sent through the gain stage just like your lead.

Or

Your clean guitar signal won't have any processing. I think.

Coming out of effects loop means any type of effect you'd like to have when looping is available.

Thanks for explanation, you are touching upon very interesting looper pedal usage.
Looper pedal is usually used with the same tone on the amp itself and your setup can really bring some cool stuff in the mix.

I have asked you if you are running a modeling amp with effects on it as you could alternatively put delay/wah/any other pedal in front of the amp. That way you could have : guitar>pedals>looper>amp path. Looper recording clean guitar signal with the effect applied. Yon don't necessarily need to use effect pedals in the amps effects loop. This effects loop gives you the addition of amps preamp section on your signal though.

I'm thinking if you can maybe achieve a better result with easier setup but this is indeed complicated.

For example :

Guitar goes straight to the amp
Amp is miced and it goes to input 1 on your recording audio interface

Requirement 1

You want to be able to play with looper in this live setup and be able to record on separate tracks looper signal and amp signal on their own?

Possible signal path

Ouput 1 (with signal from your amp) of your audio recording device> looper pedal input
Looper pedal output>input 2 on your audio recording device
Ouput 2 (with signal from your looper) of your audio recording device>keyboards amp so that you can hear the looper live in the room

You need to in the internal mixer of the audio recording device setup to send input 1 to output 1 and input 2 to output 2 as mono channels using included mixer or signal routing.

In case of recording, you setup 2 audio tracks and capture input 1 and input 2 simultaneously.

Would this work?

Here's is my setup, it's a long video but the first 2 min show the equipment.

Ah Bogdan I think your on to something. I think your setup may just work. There's one thing though, I have 8 track firewire processor and in this configuration I have channel 5 as the dry guitar signal before any effects. Ch 5 out to Bbe sonic maximizer to amp. From there the Cab mic and Line out from amp make a stereo channel from 3 and 4.

The goal in that was to compare software vs live setup and possibly mix both of those together. Experiment dear Watson!
After thinking about your setup I started thinking about sending guitar fx from amp into Amplitube and add some chorus or any other affect I desire.

Kind of verging on the territory of having the best of both worlds. So in one take I could record the looped track, stereo track with mic and a direct line from amp, the dry gtr signal and one track from my fx loop to add chorus ext... From Amplitube.
Haha happy days!

Hehehe this is a very adventurous setup!
It is very good that you are experimenting with this stuff as I feel you are trying to maximise your gear potential and practically which are all great benefits. If you have 8 inputs/8 outputs audio recording interface, depending on the flexibility of internal routing (patches) software, you could get some interesting stuff going on. As long as you have enough cables that is

Using effects from Amplitube with real amp would certainly be very interesting. I'm not sure I've heard anyone having them in the effects loop of the amp and my first thoughts would be - how good (realistic) do they sound in that kind of setup?

Please keep experimenting, I think you are on to something here.

Hi Bogdan hope your day is going good. Attached is a picture of all my gear. The digitech gnx4 has a load of inputs and outputs. It has a stereo out or mono out for gtr.

The goal is to be able to loop guitar and the Organ if I so choose.

I was thinking about putting a mic in front of the organ. It would hit either recording processor or the gnx4.

My other issue is volume, it's hard to keep up with a drum set and I have 3 amps and a but load of speakers. They are not being used efficiently so my question is "if you had this equipment how would you link it.

Thanks for all your help, I should be going back in a couple days to do some tests so I just want to have an idea of a game plan.
I have 3 condenser mics and one vocal mic too.

Hi Jim, I must say that I'm not sure if it is doable to have looping option for both organ and guitar.
In order to have the best possible sound I would probabbly simply the setup.

Here is one option which might in theory accommodate the the setup you wanted:

1. Connect Organ to the keyboards amp and having amp miced go to input 1 in the recording interface

2. Connect guitar to Digitech GNX and from there to the guitar amp. Amp miced to input 2 in the recording interface

3. Mix down input 1 and 2 and send it out via output 1 on the recording interface and connect it to input on the looper pedal

4. Connect output of the looper to input 3 on the recording interface

5. Route input 3 to output 2 on the recording interface and connect it to PA system if you have it?

_________________

But since you are struggling with volume I would just simplify it to a more standard setup (make sure your amps are powerful enough to compete with drums):

1. Guitar>looper pedal>amp (you can put looper in front of the amp or in the effects loop section)
2. Digitech device in the amps effects loop section for using effects like delay etc (with turned off amp/cab modelling).
You can also consider having digitech in front of the amp with or without looper pedal there (alternatively looper is in the effects loop)
3. Organ connected to keyboards amp
4. Computer recording keyboards amp via mic 1 and guitar amp via mic 2 on separate channels
5. Record room with the condenser mic (or vocals)

Well I will surely be testing some some combinations and I think your right about getting the levels correct first before adding microphones and loopers.

I like the idea of micing the keyboard amp as it will have the looped guitar and could have the organ through it.

Either way it's quite the circuit. While I am experimenting with connections I was wondering if I could take 2 guitar cables and make a Y? One cable into 2? Is that an acceptable if done right? Would that split the signal in half and only half goes to each?

That is a good question about splitting a cable. I wondered once about it in the past, wonder if anyone has experience doing that?

I know there are ABY pedal boxes which allow you to do the same, something like: Morley ABY Channel Switcher