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When I asked a question here where I also described my setup, there were two comments that suggested that there was something wrong with my setup. Which is like this:

Eventide Space (reverb) and BOSS DD-500 (delay) guitar pedals connected to outputs and inputs of the RME Fireface UCX II sound card. And to me, everything seems to be working fine. I have made this setup because there is a video at RMEs YouTube channel which shows this kind of arrangement and to me, it seemed like a good solution (to get all my guitar pedals in easy use).

Now I would like to use the same technique and connect my other guitar pedals in a similar way to the Behringer ADA8200 sound interface which is connected to the UCX II with Adat / Toslink. So I would connect the ADA8200 XLR output to a guitar pedals input (with unbalanced XLR to TS cable) and then guitar pedals output back to ADA8200s input. I haven't done this yet because the comments here got me a little worried... better safe than sorry...

So, my concerns are:

  1. Can I damage a guitar pedal with this kind of arrangement?

  2. What's wrong with this setup? (I was told here nobody would recommend this kind of setup)

  3. How would you recommend me to change this so it would be more correctly and professionally put together?

EDIT:

I have currently connected the setup as follows:

BOSS DD-500 delay:

  • RME Fireface UCX II sound card OUTPUTS 3 and 4 ---> INPUTS A and B of BOSS DD-500 delay
  • BOSS DD-500 delay OUTPUTS A and B ---> INPUTS 5 and 6 of the UCX II sound card

Eventide SPACE reverb:

  • RME Fireface UCX II sound card OUTPUTS 5 and 6 ---> INPUTS 1 and 2 of Eventide SPACE reverb
  • Eventide SPACE reverb OUTPUTS 1 and 2 ---> INPUTS 7 and 8 of the UCX II sound card

I will probably move the BOSS and the Eventide pedals to Inputs & Outputs 5-8 of ADA8200 as it's commonly good to have a reverb as the last in the chain. Then I can connect my other pedals that are not in use right now to the UCX II Outputs 3-6 and Inputs 5-8.

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    Please describe, ideally with a diagram, how you currently have them connected, and how you think you want to connect your other pedals. It sounds from your description that you will end up with delay or reverb in the middle of a chain somewhere - not very usual...
    – Rory Alsop ♦
    Commented Oct 25, 2021 at 15:57
  • @RoryAlsop : I tried to make a diagram but it looked horrible so I just edited and wrote the connections to the post. And my main concern here really is that is it safe to connect the ADA8200 XLR outputs to the guitar pedal inputs?
    – Cybsilon-π
    Commented Oct 26, 2021 at 13:31
  • Sounds like you're describing a send/return FX loop. If you're using Cubase then you should be able to set this up in Cubase through either the Studio or Workspaces menus (I can't remember which) - You should be able to find tutorials via Google (look for "Cubase External FX" or something similar) and here's a quick link from Steinberg: steinberg.help/cubase_pro_artist/v9/en/cubase_nuendo/topics/…
    – 7HzResearch
    Commented Nov 27, 2021 at 17:34

2 Answers 2

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It will not cause any damage to your pedals - as you can see from that video, you can pop effects in there quite happily as an FX loop.

Having delay or reverb in their own effects loop isn't necessarily wrong, it's just not very common, as it usually adds complexity to a setup. If you have enough ports, you could have all your effects hooked in and do your routing within your DAW, and studios may offer a lot of this - but even then, guitarists typically go for the much simpler route of having one FX Loop, and a pedal board with their effects and any routing switches.

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  • "If you have enough ports, you could have all your effects hooked in and do your routing within your DAW, ..." Hmm... hooked in how? To where? I do have Cubase... I just don't understand what you mean with this.
    – Cybsilon-π
    Commented Oct 27, 2021 at 7:05
  • I would be mainly interested in making electronic music. I have four synthesizers, a drum machine and a drum module (with pads + kick pedal). With this kind of system I have described here I can easily add each pedal effect individually to any of my instruments, hardware or software (and adjust the amount of the effects individually), by using RME TotalMix FX software mixer. I can then record all of this on Cubase. Maybe it's complicated but I'm not aware of any other system that would make it possible for me to use all my pedal effects at the same time so flexibly and easily.
    – Cybsilon-π
    Commented Oct 27, 2021 at 7:05
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A recommended setup would include impedance matching and voltage matching (line/mic) there’s not a risk of damage but for cleaner recording and less noise you should use direct boxes between XLR and TS connections. Look into re-amp boxes and DI boxes for the best results.

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