jimmarchi1's forum posts 8022

http://equipboard.com/pros/raptis-elias

the black album was like my third or fourth album purchase.... I bought it when it came out along with ride the lightning... or maybe kill em all, I forget now

I finally got to really listen to this at volume on some decent speakers and I am really digging it. Very old school. I don't know what trap music is, I am an oldster, but tis reminds me of the kinda stuff I wanted to hear spinning at the outlaws I threw in the 90s.

not my kinda dance music (as I no longer imbibe anything but alcohol in very limited quantities), but its very well executed in tis idiom, well played sir.

oh, and there's also Bowie's live record from the Tower theater here in Philly that I grew up with.... awesomeness abounds!

the deluxe edition's the badass version too... cleanest dirty guitar sound ever! or the dirtiest clean sound, either way.The whole performance is a glorious display of bare bones rockin' out. The live version of "Tommy" makes the LP sound wimpy and overproduced. Oh the dynamics!

I've been chasing an approximation of this sound and Brian May's for years. I only got close to both recently, but the way the may tone is achieved means I can't use the 100% version of the queen sound simultaneously with Pete's tone because the treble boost has to be the 1st thing the guitar sees to get may's tone.... the ac30hw hot channel gets close though, and my traynor 4 channel only gets close to Live at Leeds stock, though I could probably mod it to nail Pete's signature live sound. Plus I have 1 80s Fane and a CTS in the cab and I probably need some older Fanes in a matched pair.... we'll see how this latest ebay auction turns out. My Voxes are equipped for maximum Queen though, just need to tweak the mini-who rig more.....

I am way off on a tangent.

if Live at Leeds doesn't do it for you check out Miles Davis live at Newport, Portishead live at the Roseland or the 2 disc Allman Brother live at the Fillmore East as a next purchase. Can you tell I have been on a live album kick lately, delving into my collection?

Next: Not sure. Suggestions?

Do you have "Live at Leeds" yet?

I forgot first and last...

last was Portishead's Third on vinyl (just tog et it signed really)

my 1st was probably a 45rpm single either one of the tunes off Billy Joel's "Glass Houses" LP or maybe a Cure or U2 single (I am that old and that's why I am not 100% sure, we are talking 30 years ago)... 1st CDs I got I remember, they were "Classic Queen," U2's "War" and.... I don't remember all of them, shnapp, maybe a Genesis album (it was 1988 or 9, after all... no Nirvana)... but I got them all on the same day with Christmas money from the Northeast Philly Tower records or maybe the Sam Goodie in the mall just north of the city line.... I think the year before my parents had gotten a CD player as a gift from a friend and after listening to all their Beatles and Steely Dan stuff for awhile I started wanting my on records like I had had on vinyl as an itty bitty. I want to say my folks got that CD player for x-mas in 1987....

N/A... I have more records and CDs than I listen to.

barely... there are 4 English 'pubs' in Philadelphia. 3 are owned by the same English ex-pat and all the other Limeys in Philly hang out at them. There's another one that is more touristy and lame. I thin I had a drink there ONCE. That was enough.

I used to hang out at one of the good ones, the Dark Horse, when I lived in town. They were always watching "football" at the bar and I used to get a pint of bitters (or 2 or 6) and find an out of the way table to watch everyone freak out when Man U would score! The other two establishments owned by this same guy were more resturanty and not as authentic (I've been to London), though the bar areas were consistently loaded with English football hooligans. I just preferred the Dark Horse even though the Slaubghtered Lamb was closer to my house.

We also have a small chain of Irish pubs called Fado, if you want a crazy breakfast with beans involved, bacon and bangers and a pint of stout Fado is worth a visit, but its kinda tacky and lame. It is not popular with Irish ex-pats. The other Irish bars are more Bostonian here. There are Irish ex-pats working there (probably IRA bombers in hiding), but they are very Americanized. The USA has its own vesion of Irishness.

or he could mean live.... most big tour FOH guys process the vocals pretty heavily these days.... in pop music they even take the rackmount auto-tune on the road! But in clubs you often get jack and shit.

@cheever_chad If you want control of your own vocal processing for live work in small clubs though, your best bet is to build your own rack of vocal effects and bring your own mic that flatters your voice and just give the sound guy a line out for the bard. Stay away from EQ though as every room is different and any low roll off or high end sweetening is best done by the FOH engineer to suit the room and mix. But you can sure as heck have your own pre-amp, compressor and ambiance effects. Another option is that TC Electronic processor for vocalists. Helicon, I think??? It comes in a floor pedal, but the original version was a rack unit and a studio I worked for that also did live sound had one in the live rack for lead vocalists. Preamp sounded hella good by live sound standards and the effects were incredible. I used at a million outdoor, hire gigs with great results.

When I did FOH at the Northstar here in Philly every weekend I really liked guys who had their own processing as long as they kept reverbs and delays fairly dark so that if I wanted to add sizzle to the vocal sound I couldn't be making the ambiance harsh. Either that or I would take a separate dry and wet line from their processor if it gave that option, that way I could EQ the 2 signals separately to suit my mix and really control the level (as well as ride the fader on echo and such for dramatic effects between verses and choruses). The guy with their own gear saved me a lot of hassle trying to get a nice 'studio' vocal sound with the house gear during overly short soundchecks. Most FOH guys in clubs can't even be bothered beyond a little verb or slap back for this very reason. If you can't provide separate wet and dry feeds, make sure you have your vocals properly gated or expanded as well because a single feed w/effects will make your vocal impossible to gate cleanly at the FOH console.

For a while at small shows my band that toured heavily would bring (I think) a presonus eureka and my Yamaha spx90 racked with the wireless mic's receiver and give the FOH guy the dry signal and mono or stereo effects feed depending on what he was feeling good about. I think when we first experimented with our own vocal rack we would use a cheaper pre and my modded alesis 3630 and the god awful midiverb (I was using the SPX90 in my guitar rig for a little)

in microphones for heavy music I highly recommend the Audix i5, its like a 57 or 58 if they were any good. It takes more SPL, has better dynamic range across its full bandwidth before distortion, is well built and while it has decent presence it is not overbearing like the stage-standard 58. It has really low handling noise too.... if you leave your mic on the stand because you play the guitar or bass as well as sing then I recommend the discontinued Blue/EV collaborative stage microphones from a few years ago. There's a dynamic and a condenser. The Dynamic is great for heavy music with lots of scream to whisper dynamics. I thought it had the best attributes of an EV RE20 broadcast mic (one of my studio favorites) and a modern beyer.

for wireless the 58 will do... and AKG has some decent wireless hand-helds, depends what you are shooting for. I would stay away from anything but shure and akg wireless due to the wireless units being so good. I have had bad experiences with sennheiser's wireless units.

a song 'peaks'.... what, like an acid trip? where faces are melting and you think you are superman and your friends have to keep you from 'flying' out the window?

where do you get this stuff?

anyway, you can probaly handle the metal zone tasks with all the junk you already have.... check this:

or is that VHT gadget not a drive/distortion? Maybe its a reverb and trem?

I'm about to give you a piece of brilliant advice which is THIS

they rarely come up for sale because they are well loved by their owners (I had been lookin for mine for months and months when one finally turned up on flEaBAY) and always go for about $200. I don't know why TC discontinued them. Once you start to understand its capabilities it will blow your mind. If only it had a less traditional overdrive or distortion combined with the RAT or TS9... but still, wow.

There's not a demo on the web that illustrated what this little preset box can REALLY do. Its advanced features are super-personal and idiosyncratic it would be ahrd for a Pete Thorn to illustrate them well in 5 minutes :-(

buy one and set aside a weekend to sit with the manual and your imagination.

I meant to say AC, you aren't following, nevermind

just gut everything and start over.... if it persists get new humbuckers

you already have like 2 high voltage tube overdrives....

wow, 9 pedals? the boss looper is not the best, The TC stuff schools it but it can be costly unless you catch a blowout sale or really trawl ebay and reverb like I did for my flashback.

Your description of the oil can simulation sounds like a real one, warts and all. I am glad people are finding a use for that sound and I am also glad the simulation is non-toxic. Interestingly the toxic "oil" dialectric fluid is not black as I recall, but black fountain is a cooler sounding name than Adineko.

before I slam on your pedal use I will have to check myself because I currently have a decent amount in my rig with polytune, 80s DOD chorus, Superfuzz, Nux MIDI A/B looper Radial ABY (also used non-midi for a global mid-boost if I want to boost a low output in a way that gives me more of a P90 response, so that can count as 2 pedals), TC Flashback X4, TC Nova drive and the MIDI footboard to control it all... plus the 3 amplifiers probably count as an effect what with my switching and stereo layering abilities...

That said, everything gets out of the signal chain and delay is an un-buffered dry pass through. I am mainly just using 2 patches, heh; a tiny bit of stereo tape echo (2 repeats, dotted quarter setting) mixed low into the matchless and the traynor for cleans, and a nice rhythm crunch with the same delay into the dirty Vox at half power and hot mode and then the Nova drive with a parallel drirt/boost setting hitting the Traynor for a good Pete Townshend thing. Oh, and the superfuzz is a riot into my heavy analog echo setting for soling if it ever comes up. Just jamming with buddies I really don't have a lot of call to step out in front of the band like that, its just a trio riffing or playing covers in a garage for kicks. The rig was really overkill for what I'm up to lately, but when my son gets a little older I'll be glad to have it worked out for the next band.

I guess I'll keep the chorus as its not hurting anything. I think I could easily go mono with just the Hiwatty tone right now and lose everything but the nova drive and jam out quite happily. That's mostly how I play at my house lately. If I wnt a different sound I have guitar options at home...

EDIT: I'll stop busting everyone's balls about effects though because I really enjoy having presets with all these effects if I really want them

honestly I don't know because I was always told they are a pain in the ass so I never built one... fuzz, boost, sure, wah not so much (I still use and enjoy the PTP fuzz face I made myself).... then again whenever I have a wah, no matter how nice, I fail to remember to use it and when I do my wah skills for anything but porno funk are pretty weak

but I always heard wahs were a pain to build well, though maybe its to do with sourcing good parts, especially the specialized housing... a kit would be fine if that's the case (pun intended).

think about it, how many boutique builders offer a wah wah? not many. There's fulltone and then the guys who specialize in wah and do nothing else like Teese...

how can you play rhythm with all that gain? how can you hear your playing and dynamics?

then again you aren't driving your speakers at all, are you? My ac30s only have like 30 to 40 watts handling total and the sealed cab is only up to 80 watts from 50 because my Traynor ate a greenback last week. Fuck Chinese clestions. FUCK EM! I like to have my power tbes compressing and my speakers growlin' and cruncin' whenever I dig in. That's man's distortion.

Now on to speakers that ADD to your tone:

I think you would like a Fane, this speaker has subdued but bell-like highs reminiscent of a G12H, really defined lows without thump and a super aggressive but brit midrange but without the 'presence peak' of a lot of the celestions with aggressive mids that exibit upper mid-spikes that cut the mix but are described by players as sounding beamy and fatiguing. This is more subdued like a greenback, but without the mushiness in the mids and the compression in the lows. Plus when the speaker starts growling the treble doesn't disappear like a greenback. Its like having a 65 watt creamback mated to an EVM12L or something. Hard to describe. It has a lot of character in its breakup character but manages to sound flatter and more hifi than most other aggressive speakers like celestions and jensens. TMI? Anyway, this speaker would suit you. I like the 50 watter a lot, not too dirty, not too clean, good medium efficiency rating at 98dB

try some old fanes, you probably have better access to them than I do. Its a struggle to find them here in the states. The real deal ones are early 80s Classic series or anything full-range from the 70s. There are lots of varitions with differing magnet weight, gauss, voice coils, dust caps and cones, but they all have a similar character from what I can tell. I am sticking with fane classic from the 80s since they were imported to the USA in larger numbers than earlier (and built into 1st gen Laney AOR cabs and combos that were popular when I was a kid) and also because you can find the published efficiency specs to pair them with other brands effectively. Some time in the late 80s fane had a fire and went into receivership and all the secret recies were lost and they aren't even the same company now.

sorta... a scone is a scone here, but ours are sweeter and less dry, popular at gourmet coffee establishments, plus threre's the itaian biscotti popular in said coffee shops... an American cookie is what you call a biscuit, but we have some cookies that will blow your biscuits outta the water, though some of your 'tea biscuits' have their charm... your lain flavored biscuits are called shortbread cookies here (to distinguish them from more badassed cookie varieties unique to north America)

in America a biscuit is something they eat in the south with fried chicken (also popular in a mass produced form as the bread for a sandwich with egg, cheese and breakfast meat), it is sugar free and made with buttermilk in the batter

"D Minour"? Does that voicing have a lot of "colour"? Would you like a scone? Wait, don't the Brits spell it "Minor" too? Liam?!!!! I need you to answer a limey spelling question! Get on here.

octave pedals DO sound different than playing the note in the same octave just like D3 will sound different as an open, closed on the 2nd string or closed on the 1st string. I am sure this guy had a good reason to do this. I mean look at the video, he's obvious very cool! Just look at how cool he is! He must have a cool reason for using an effect over his fingers that uncool guitarists like me couldn't possibly understand. This whole band looks too cool for a mortal like me to question.

I think the bang for buck factor will really depend on your soldering/electronics skill and how much value you place on your free time versus how much fun you find soldering to PCBs to be. Because of the transformers all of this stuff is still a little pricey. I hate working on PCB so for me the value of my time really outstrips my savings. I could just as easily spring the ectra $200-500 for a pre-made unit. The neve portico range is darned cheap by Neve standards and sounds great. But the pride of building stuff yourself is awesome. If you need a bunch of channels it will be cheaper to source parts yourself. My buddy proved that with his modified Hamptone. But it was only the massive number of units he was willing to solder that made his bulk purchasing through Mauser worthwile versus the kit.

My buddy bought 4 of their API style kits but has been on tour and unable to build them yet. I'll let you know what he says about the build process and sound quality next time I see him.

another good option is the Hamptone (I think) stuff that' modified Altec JFet and Tube circuits. Another friend sourced his own parts and made some cicuit tweak for their modified Altec-style JFet preamp and built a bunch of oards up recently. He still needs to source transformers and rakc them all up, but the single prototype he built with whatever transformers he ahd laying around sounded great to me, much better than a real 60s solid state altec (which actually sounds okay).

nice! wahs are a tough build

its probably the guitar, something in the guitar's wiring is maybe passing DC voltage to your effects chain, something weird going on in there.... could be any of the parts including pickups.... its probably not enough DC to hurt anything, but maybe it is.... don't buy from Indonesia or China. Then again I bought 2 Behringer devices lately, but I spent $100 total on both!

could be related to your pedals if turning off the delay helped.... lots of stuff means more places for breakdown....

scratch everything I said abut playing my pedals loud, I just realized you said your Rat's output is dimed. You are a gainiac. You hve tone of gain and boost from the gain knob and you slam the front end of your amp for tube saturation. Over the top for anything but soloing. Volume jump would piss off a lot of FOH engineers too!

Holy hell, FANE!

What a great sounding ceramic driver for rock. Fairly flat down to bottom E, aggressive, pretty early breakup (50 watt speaker paired with a 40 watter being driven by a 50+ watt EL34 amp with over-spec transformers at 3), full but defined bass, puncyy attack, compressed decay, chimey but subdued top end... god's midrange. All celestions have some sort of presence peak in the upper mids and are either flat in the lower mids or in the case of more modern models they are scooped from 1k c/s down to like 300 c/s. Not the Fane 50 watter. Its got a wider, less steep mid-boost from like 800 c/s to maybe 3k c/s? not sure, but I hear the thicker midrange and like it. It would flatter a lot of amps, especially a blackface fender. The highs re a bit too subdued for me so I am glad I have bright, aluminum dome USA alnico with this speaker. It balances things a bit, but I am a treble junky and one of the differences between the Traynor and a Hiwatt CP103 is that 2 out of 4 of the hiwatt channels are bright channels voiced for treble while all 4 of the Traynor channels are flat. Also, the Traynor's 1st stages are grid leak biased, which sounds cool as hell like a tweed fender, but the Hiwatt is modern cathode bias preamp tubes across the board.... Slightly different sound that along with the voicing makes a difference in treble response. I'll bet if I added bright caps to channel 1 & 2, changed them to cathode bias and reduced their coupling cap sizes for less bass into stage 1 of V 3 (the resistive mixer triode) I might be able to get away with 2 fane 1250s.

also I have purchased an A/B true bypass looper from NUX with MIDI implementation and in loop A I have an old DOD chorus (CE2 with shittier bypass) and in loop B I have a behringer superfuzz which really nails my old univox when the tone controls are set flat. I am shocked at how well Uri and the other fuckers who work for his evil empire copied the old pinkandblue BEAST while lowering the noise floor. But its a pretty simple circuit even compared to a big muff.

Effects/amp rig is thoroughly MIDI implemented and I'm programming presets and its 99% analog and a mix of all sorts of shit that works:

Nux looper

DOD Chorus FX60

Behringer Superfuzz

Radial Switchbone active ABY in Y

TC Electronic Flashback X4

Stage left (Hiwatty side)

TC Electronic Nova Drive

'68 Traynor YVM1 head set to be mainly clean

sealed 2x12 w/Fane classic 12/50 and CTS 40 watt alnico from '68

Stage right (vox side)

Radial Bones passive ABY in Y

Vox ac30 handwired in hot mode at half power, cranked

Matcless HC30 in full power using the Pentode channel at the brightest 'click' setting set to be mostly clean

Weber Head Switcher

Stok AC30HW combo cab with a celestion G12 Blue RI and a WGS Reaper 30 bass cone speaker

all program changes commanded by Behringer FCB1010

still working out my presets

truth be told I am very happy with dry using any amp combination or just a little fak tape echo tapped into time....

turns out I blew the Celestion greenie, not the CTS. Cheap Chinese junk. One of my vintage, UK greenbacks coulda taken way more abuse and it woulda sounded better, okay, maybe I would blown it.... but not at 5 or less.

So the CTS went in with the Fane Classic 50 and they compliment eachother really well. The CTS has nice compression, slightly earlier breakup and a chinier top, the fane has THE mids from heaven. Wow, I get it. With the dying Celestion out of the way the bass tightened up in a great way. Its got plenty of low end, but its punchier and more dynamic with no boominess. Greenbacks aren't so hot unless they are 60s/70s ones. The vintage freaks are right. I was wrong! Shoulda sold this one with the other post-90s greenies I unloaded recently, woulda made an extra $50-100.

The flatter fane speaker suits the amp a lot more than the celestion. Its not as clean as all that, its definitely growls in the mids and a little in the lows. Some of the grunt n the Who's "Live at Leeds" was the speakers. I have the amp set to just start growlin' as I dig in, but the speakers are giving up growl and crunch as they are pushed.

with a little research on goggle I found the CTS can handle 40 watts and the Fane can handle a good 40 without issue (its rated at 50, but Fane had a tendency to overrate their guitar speakers, Pop 50s blow at 30 watts.... the joke is they call 'em Pop 50s because if you show 'em 50 watts they POP). So the 2x12 can now handle my Traynor at full tilt. Its a glorious Hiwatty sound with the Fane in the mix. I wonder if two fanes Classic 12/50s would be better than the Fane CTS combo.... the CTS has great treble paired with a smoother speaker though.... hmmmm.... tempted to drop 100 bucks on another 8 ohm Classic from 1983.

also, http://equipboard.com/forums/general/topics/complaints-concerns-errors-suggestions-and-ideas

ross/dyna based? they mostly are! The whole ross/dyna thing will feel really great and be a never-off effect for awhile, but I found I eventually missed my straight amp tone and dynamics, but YMMV. The slight presence lift on this type of pedal is really helpful to cut a mix if you play in a larger band with keys and/or horns. When they mod the circuit to be flatter it looses something in a dense arrangement, though its great otherwise.

Congrats!

Narcist DESTROY ALL ITEMS! SMASH!!!!!

I had the same problem on my phone.

I go off the shelf for certain iconic axes, but anymore in guitars I gravitate to the rarities if they are actually decent instruments! Note my LP Platinum (super rare), 70s Greco Mick Ralphs and Anne Wilson model Washburn. I never see anyone else playing these and they are really great guitars. Not cheapies at all. Helps you stand out on stage mixed in with something more iconic like a blackguard esquire or cherry SG. I am still looking for an SG Platinum at a decent price, or one of the rare 90s SG specials in silver. I Passed on a silver special a month ago and am kicking myself, price was good. Shoulda bought it just to have a silver SG. I could get one off ebay right now that looks like a great guitar other than the poorly repaired headstock crack and its only listed $100 cheaper than the one from samash in Tennessee. Still tempted to lowball the guy.

Folks, take care of your set-necks!

also check ebay, there's a guy I know who lives out by my ex-wife's family in Ohio who cranks out some beautiful, unfinished tonewood bodies on the cheap that look really good with a French Polish finish using shellac. My best friend likes to buy bodies from that dude and necks from USA customs. Hes built some cool super strats that way.

I keep thinking about doing a Precision Guitar LP Special in hand rubbed shellac. I wanted to do a bound flat top with a layer of maple and a ply of silver sparkle drum wrap, gretsch style, I just can't quite drop the money for such a pricey build. I have a thing where I don't want to build anything I can get off the shelf, even if the build is cheaper. I would rather build something unique like my parts Tele (which has a lot of little features I would have to custom order).

1) just get a new switch that's right for the job, forget I said anything about reusing the old coil tap. Its probably the only acceptable component in the thing, but its a pain to desolder a mini toggle switch.

2) Alternate tunings are fine as long as you are not going very far UP from standard on the wound strings strings.... when going DOWN you may even want to gauge up from 11. They make special mixed gauges for drop tuning guys now. Look up Mastodon's methods, they pull the drop tunings off well. But for open tonings for lside, the preffered one for electric guitar is typically open G with the E as a D or removed. Keith Richards anyone?

I have a lot of real life problems but things have been calming down enough in my world that I can putter with my guitar rig all summer. I'm still fudging with the MIDI effects setup and amp-switching configuration. I keep fip-flopping on what amp should be the "always on" amp... I will need to do some loud, band playing to really hear if my current setup with a Voxy side and a Hiwatty side is viable with bass and drums or if I should just use the Traynor for clean only.

I actually managed to cram the fucking Fane in today after I blew out a 70s CTS alnico in that cab while rocking out at volume (25 watts power handling my ass! she did sound great the last few weeks as I was destroying the voicecoil though. Nothing sounds better than a speaker pushed into meltdown, at least for awhile)... I am not sure how I feel about about the Classic 1250 yet, I think she wants to be driven pretty hard. Now the Cab's got the 50 watt fane classic series from the 80s and a celestion greenback. Its lost some compression and bite, but its still a chimey cab overall. I need to get her blasting tomorrow with the Traynor and Matchless and try to bond with the all-ceramic speaker arrangement. Hopefully it will please me more than 2 greenbacks. I only ran her with the master at 1 for testing purposes as it was getting late by the time I finished coaxing the speaker in. The clean was a bit bass heavy and kicking in my Nova Drive didn't have the same lush, natural drive tone it had with the CTS/greenback combo.... then again I was at 1 and there's a massive volume/presence jump turning the Traynor up past 2 that will probably get the Fane singing. We shall see.

I know this, the Fane is not voiced like a Celestion, nor does it sound like a Jensen, JBL, EV or any other old American speakers.... it has a thick midrange, but no upper mid spike like most other brit drivers. I'm not sure if that's a good thing. I'll have to listen carefully as I pummel it at real man volumes.

for a lot of versatility but easiest wiring just do 2 push pull 500k audio tapers on the volumes for coil taps, then do 2x 300k pots for tones so you have a little smoothing when tapping coils.... the phase switch I would stick on whatever pickup is closest to it to keep the wire run as short as possible. Looks like neck pickup?! You could probably just clean up the stock switch and use it for phase.

I try to disseminate info on EB

I thought so...

admins....

one of them just had twins and the other is his best friend so they are caught up with family stuff, bump this thread periodically so they see it when they are back in action.

remember, not everything should be reduced to formula/function mathematically just because it can... I had a really classical education that was logic-heavy, but not everything life can or should be reduced to a logic problem.... I had trouble with this until I was 30. Furthermore, what you suggest is terribly democratic. Truly direct democracy is flawed on a lot of levels, but mainly because it is dependent on prompt participation. On the internet its an epic fail. The people like me with ample time to putter from work while we're on hold with insurers and such will skew the vote on who is pro and who is not until other folks have time to cast dissenting votes. The level of disorganization this will introduce will make the duplicate items problem look like nothing. There's a human, social element to what you suggest that you have completely failed to analyze... which would be tough due to the unpredictable factors involved in a timely user participation in decisions.

Don't mod it! Blackface fenders don't benefit from an fx loop and there are too many hacked bassmans around. They have a completely different preamp design than a tweed fender or modern fender. Less gainy! Much less...

Heres some thoughts:

If you are driving the amp at all with your dry signal, most of your distortion is coming from the phase inverter or power tubes so an fx loop really won't help you. I would play the amp bone clean at 3 or 4 and use my pedals OR i would ditch the reverb and just use some tasteful slapback for ambiance and let the amp generate my tone. Maybe a little tubescreamer or fuzz. Or you could bi-amp and dedicate your modern fender to ambiance. Get a DI box and put it between your bassman and speakers. Then take the line level feed out to your delayset 50% to fully wet and run that into the clean channel of your modern fender with the reverb cranked and the amp eq set to taste. You can dome cool things shaping your delay and verb this way. Its like a toned down wet/dry/wet rig... I used to do the w/d/w thing with a showman and plexi. Its a lotta hassle without roadies, but a loud dry amp and tamer wet amp can work well... Experiment.

Me? I eschew reverb live. Its usually lame. Delay sounds fine into light amp od with a tubescreamer or fuzz out front. I actually run my flashback x4 before a nova drive into an already crunchy hiwatt style amp. It sounds right to me. The delays are less pristine but they sound good being distorted a bit!

Effects loops are for high gain guys like satriani.

Don't you already have a multi amp rig for stage work?

EDIT: you comment that the amp is SO CLEAN. Whats the problem then? Run it all out front. Or are you concerned with switching multiple pedals? There are solutions for that. There's nothing in my rig right now that does not have MIDI implementation and preset capability though my dry signal is 100% analog, only the actual echoes from my delay pedal are digital, everything else including drive is MIDI controlled analog. You could drop some of your gear in favor of MIDI enabled stuff, get a MIDI footboard and get a small looper for any traditional boxes you can't do without. I see you have an SD1, that has a mediocre buffer, it might be better in a loop... I just picked up a MIDI controlled dual loop to incorporate fuzz and analog chorus into my rig. Its doable, you just need to be a smart shopper!

great, you're set with those 2 pieces of software, both are solid.... got songs?