What the Heck Is an FX Loop and Should You Be Using It?
Go get your amp right now. I’ll wait.
Okay, now turn it around and look at the back. Do you see a pair of 1/4” input jacks with the words “send” and “return” next to them?
If so, congrats! You are the proud owner of an FX loop! …Except, what the heck is an FX loop?
If you’re like me, an FX loop is an enigma wrapped in a mystery. For a long time, I knew they existed but had no idea why. Send what? Return how? I had an idea you were supposed to plug some pedals into it, but I always ran my pedals straight into the amp with no problems. So what was I missing?
Well, today we’re going to find out.
A primer on FX loops
In order to understand what an FX (or “effects”) loop is, you have to first understand how an amp is constructed. (This is important, I promise.)
The key is this: your guitar amplifier is actually two amplifiers put together.
When you plug a guitar into the front of an amp, you’re really plugging it into a preamp. This preamp takes your guitar’s signal, or instrument-level signal, which is very weak, and boosts it so that the second amplifier, the power amp, can make use of it. The power amp then takes this boosted, or line-level, signal and uses it…
