It seems as all presets have the post effects after the cab . Should they not be before as it would be on a ‘real’ amp. Or is this the nature of these devices? New to this buy the way
I put my effects after the amp, before the cab. Works great for me. Do what sounds good to you.
Whatever works for you. In the analog world, live you usually have your time-based effects between the preamp and poweramp (if you’re using high gain amps), while in the studio they are usually added in the mix, so after the cab and mic.
So there’s no “proper” answer apart from “whatever sounds good to you”.
Thanks for the replies. I’ll keep experimenting
A cab block or IR is generally linear, as are many of blocks that are post amp distortion (e.g., chorus, delay, reverb, EQ, etc.). If the whole signal path from the amp block to the output is linear, then it doesn’t matter where the cab block is in the chain, it will sound the same. I have tested this in Helix Native using null tests.
However, there will be some differences for things that aren’t linear: how the delays and reverbs are driven, distortion introduced in delay or rotary blocks, a compressor, etc. If you have a lot of these, you’ll have to try it to see if the difference is significant to your overall tone.
Where this is an issue is if you need two outputs: one to FOH with a cab block, and one to a backline amp with no cab block. The easy way to do this is to put the cab block at the end of the signal chain and split there to two different outputs, one with the cab block and one without it.
Just depends if you want your time-based effects to be colored by the cab. Obviously IRL, they would be, but not on a studio track. Do what works best for the situation.
Time based effects will be colored by the Cab/IR regardless of the position before or after the effects as long as there’s no clipping or distortion. EQ is linear (usually). If the Cab/IR is before the time based effects, it effects the signal into them, which effects what reverbs reflect, what delays repeat, etc.
Well, of course the signal will still be processed by the cab either way, but cabs tend to have frequency rolloffs that a delay/reverb might not. But you can definitely make them sound almost identical, especially if the cab is stereo.
What do you mean by that? That the EQ is linear?
the output varies with the input based on a function that does not vary over time and does not distort. That is, how the block responds does not depend on different input levels or time.
When I was running an amp, I would use the FX loop on the amp for my wet FX. This put my compressor and drives in front of the pre-amp and the wet FX between the pre-amp and the power amp. In my QC, I put the wet FX after the cabinet/combo. I mainly use combo captures, so if I used a amp + cabinet configuration, I might put the wet FX between the two, but I don’t play enough of that configuration to make the change meaningful.
The reason I put the wet FX after the cab/combo is that I generally don’t like the overtones that are created when the wet FX get distorted/overdriven, unless that is the specific sound I want for a particular context. I prefer all of my saturation effects to happen first and then be fed to the wet FX rather than the other way around.
Yeah, and there’s no way to replicate the wet effects being affected by the power amp as they would be in an analog setup (at least no modeler has bothered to create this feature yet), so even if you put a delay beween the amp and cab, it’s still not exactly accurate to analog rig, so might as well put it where it sounds best through stereo monitors