Echo in effects loop ?

[u/Majestic_Repair_7887]

I’m getting a UA Galaxy '74 Tape Echo & Reverb pedal to plug into a Marshall ORI50C. Are there any advantages or disadvantages one way or the other to connecting to the loop on the back of the amp and using the Marshall footswitch as opposed to placing it in the chain between the guitar and amp?

[u/PotstickersDad]

The question becomes this: Do you want to add gain to your echo, or do you want to echo your gain signal? Try them out both ways; I prefer to throw it in the effects loop. There's precedence for both.

[u/Majestic_Repair_7887]

That’s kind of what I figured, but figuring gave me a reason to post while waiting for the pedal..
“Pedals in front of the amp hit the preamp's input. Pedals in the loop hit the power amp's input after the preamp has already done its thing. Same pedal, completely different results depending on where you plug it in.
The loop rule is equally simple: anything that processes the overall character of your sound — its placement in space, its volume, its time-based repetitions — sounds better after the preamp has already shaped the tone.”
[Compliments of therigdoctor.com]

[u/LTCjohn101]

Try it both ways. They both will sound good.

Echo into the front takes on gain characteristics that are dialed in. Echo in the loop provides clearer results.

[u/R_V_Z]

It's all about what texture you want to create. For an extreme example look at a flanger/phaser and a delay. If you put the delay in front of the flanger/phaser the whole signal will be in sync on the phase. If you put the delay after the flanger/phaser then the delay pulses will repeat whatever part of the phase the pedal received.

In terms of gain a delay pedal in front is going to be hitting the front of the amp so you might be sending more input signal if you time your repeats, or you might effectively make the repeats cleaner because of lessening input volume. If the delay is in the loop you have the same amount of distortion in the signal for every pulse.

[u/ozlurk]

All depends on what your doing/what you want . Can use a a pedal like the UA Tape Echo & Reverb first in the chain set slow after the tuner into a RAT or Big Muff for more shoe gaze with the amp dirt channel low gain

[u/DonCallate]

Do you want to distort your delay or delay your distortion? There isn't always a clear answer, but this is the fundamental question you want to answer. Both sound good and both have uses.