Grid structure/amp placement in signal chain ideas

Pardon me if this has already been asked - but I have not found anything via search.
From what I see the commonalities of all presets are:

compression, drives, amp + cab then time based effects

Are people commonly using the amps at the beginning/middle or end of their grids/signal chain?
Has anyone figured out the major differences between placement?
What are your thoughts and experiences for placing these blocks in different combinations.

Thank you in advance

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Technically, there is no right or wrong way for a signal chain but most use a similar format for the basics. In addition to what you indicated above (e.g. compression, drives, amp + cab then time based effects) I usually add/or use the gate first, sometimes EQ (low/hi cuts) before the amp and after the cab. There is nothing wrong with experimentation as you have a whole signal grid that can be modified within seconds to suit different tastes.

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this closely mimics a studio recording approach, and seems to be fairly common.
However, to recreate a pedalboard setup you can experiment with putting fx blocks BEFORE the amps, I do that frequently and it sounds fine. It’ll sum them to mono, but you may find the EQ-filtering of doing it this way makes it quite usable too.

Other than it being widely recommended to put pitch-shifting fx FIRST in your chain, the rest of it is ripe for experimentation; try it all and see what you like best

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I agree with both replies. Just think about what each block is doing to the sounds created by the blocks preceding it. Running time-based FX after the amp is generally “cleaner”. If you put your reverb before a distorted amp, you’ll have distorted reverb. Not wrong and in some cases, just right, but not as commonly desired.

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