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Okay, pardon my ignorance here - I've had amps for years and the last couple have had FX loops on them -but I've never really understood or known how to use an FX loop

So I have an in/out (send/return) sockets....

KC

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To err is human, blaming someone else shows management potential

I put my Holy Grail reverb in the loop of my Twin. The amp has a mix control so I can set how much of the effect is added to the dry signal. Basically, I want the sound of my amp to be effected rather than the sound of my guitar so I use the loop for reverb. For distortion I use a pedal between the guitar and the amp.

The best thing to do is just experiment and see what you like best, but you'll probably find that reverb and modulation type effects will sound better in the loop than between guitar and amp. However, if it sounds good, it is good.

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https://darrenriley.cargo.site/

Yeah pretty much as Pancho says. If you think of your amp as being something that colours your tone in a certain way, be that giving it some overdrive, distortion, adding high end, or some other quality. There are certain effects you might want to be done before that gets added and those which you want adding after the amp has done its processing of the sound.

Chorus, delay and reverb pedals are good examples of pedals that might be best suited in an fx loop. For example if you are relying on your amp to add some distortion crunch, you wouldn't want to be distorting your reverb sound, better to add the reverb fx after the distortion, by adding it in the fx loop.

Thanks guys! Okay, lets see if I'm getting this?

The FX loop adds in effects after the amp has amplified the guitar signal but before speaker.

It is best suited to modulation type effects -delay, chorus etc as opposed to distortion.

I'm not sure how to use it - do I take a lead from effects loop out to pedals and then from pedals to FX loop in?

Before I've just strung everything betwixt guitar and amp.

cheers
KC

_________________
To err is human, blaming someone else shows management potential

Yep sounds like you've got it. Although technically the fx loop usually allows you to put effects after the pre-amp and before the power amp sections of your amp.

To use it you take a lead from the fx out of your amp and plug into your stompbox/s input jack socket, and then run one cable back from the output of your last pedal in the loop into the fx return/in socket. Then you can add as many effects as you like here, my current setup is:
fx out -> chorus -> delay -> reverb -> fx return

Also worth noting that fx loops can either be wired in parallel or series. Most are series but some have parallel which means you often get a potentiometer to decide how much of the effects loop effects you want in the mix! Still most good delay/rever/chorus pedals have an effect level pot so this isnt really a big problem if you have a series fx loop.

[edit] yes this means that my signature pic (below) is an incorrect representation of my pedals as it doesnt include the fx loop! (It also doesnt have my 3 new BYOC pedals in there either)[/edit]