Effects loop volume drop in Prosonic

[sanchez]

Hi guys. Sorry for this longish post. I hope you can help me.

On Friday night I had the oppertunity to finally give my rig a workout for the first time since I bought it. I've had my Fender Prosonic for 2 years now but have not had the oppertunity to play with a band at full volume with it.

My setup is as follows:

Guitar, Dunlop Wah, Fender Prosonic head with JJ tubes, TC electronic G-major through effects loop.

Now, I get a great tone from this set up. I had the amp in Class A/B (50watts) and had the volume on 6. The other guitar player had his Marshal MG/valve state 50Watt head on 4. He was telling me to put mine louder. So I put it on 7 and thought to myself, something is not right. This thing should be bringing the roof down at this volume.

I also noticed that when the g-major was running through the loop it was peaking out all the time. So I turned the input and output levels down a little and that solved the problem but it also lowered the volume which meant I had to have the volume over 7.

I hit the bypass botton and the volume stayed the same. So I thought that I would unplug the g-major and when I unplugged it the volume on 7 nearly blew the roof off the room and almost gave everyone bleeding ears.

So I put the volume down to 3 and it was still dame loud but it had so much feed back that it was unuseable. I was playing my White Jem at the time.

My amp has no effrects loop level. It is a straight plug in. So I thought I would run the g-major through the front of the amp. I found that the volume was ok but I could bearly here the effects. I also tried to run my Wah through the effects loop and I could barely hear the wah!!!!

So after all of this I now wonder what is the real problem???? Is it that the Prosonic's effects loop reduces the over all volume?? Or is my g-major not set up properly??

How does an effects loop work? I assumed that it takes the preamp sounds from the effects send throught the processor then back into the amp then goes through the power amp stage. If so how then can it reduce the sound level???

Any help would be most welcome.

Sanchez

[frankfalbo]

Probably if the G-major was clipping, you should have turned the input level down, but then the output level up to compensate. You don't need loop send/return levels with the G-major because it has it's own. Unless it started distorting the effects return section, you could have turned the output knob up until you nearly matched the sound with the effects loop unplugged. The bypass on the G-major would still retain your in/out levels.

Don't put a wah in the effects loop.

Also check your manual to see if the Fender's effects loop is parallel (50% summed) or series (100%) one way to check is to plug a cord into the effects send and see if the amp's signal cuts in half, or shuts off completely. You might have to plug something into both the send and return to get the loop to completely engage.

If it's a 50% sum, that's something you need to know. Then you'll have a "wetter" effects mix on the G-major. You also won't be able to make complete use of EQs and level boost/cut within the programs, because half your signal will still be coming out the amp without having been processed by the G-major. (dry).So you'll have a mix of the two. Good luck, I recommend doing a good web search for general knowledge on gain and effects loops.

[sanchez]

It is definately serial.

I will try to adjust the input/output levels on the front of the g-major.

I have borrowed a Boss ME-30 from a friend so I can run it in the loop and see if it too changes the level of the sound. If so I assume there is a problem with the loop.

Thanks

Sanchez

[sanchez]

I tried teh ME-30 last night and there was not volume drop. Clearly that tells me it is the g-major.

I looked up the TC support page and everything they recommend I do didn't help at all.

Any other ideas?

Sanchez