Anyone use mixer aux send/return as an chained effects loop?

[amos]

So I was thinking... if I ran a a modest pedal chain through a mixer's aux send and return loop so that I could share the effects with the other input sources other than bass... would this work? I know most of these boxes are instrument level, not line level.. I would imagine the only thing I'd be dealing with is extra noise, right?

is it inadvisable to hookup a chain of pedals in aux send/return loop as opposed to a single pedal?

a possible plan is two use one of the two aux sends for a chain of two stereo, line level, midi controllable effects (which might be cool on bass), and maybe use aux 2 for my bass effects (that also might be cool on synth or voice).

Comments, criticisms, suggestions?

 

[chrism2sych]

T

 

[jewbageled]

Absolutely. I use a cheap 25$ 4-channel mixer when I record to blend different distortions.

 

[amos]

Sweet, thanks.

 

[lowfreq33]

It's not ideal, but it can work.

 

[bongomania]

I've done it lots of times--in fact for a couple of years I was half of an electronic music duo where my "instrument" was a rack full of effects all routed via a Shure Matrix Mixer, essentially a bank of 8 aux loops. There definitely can be challenges getting the right signal levels: without added gain in the loop, some channels may be too quiet; but with added gain there may be extra noise. Also aux loops may not have as much headroom as the main mic inputs, so there can be clipping sometimes. And of course there can be phase issues. All of these things are solvable by throwing more gear at it; yet not of them matter very much when you are making crazy ambient freakout music as I was.

tl;dr Yes it will work, sometimes it's a hassle.

 

[amos]

I've done it lots of times--in fact for a couple of years I was half of an electronic music duo where my "instrument" was a rack full of effects all routed via a Shure Matrix Mixer, essentially a bank of 8 aux loops. There definitely can be challenges getting the right signal levels: without added gain in the loop, some channels may be too quiet; but with added gain there may be extra noise. Also aux loops may not have as much headroom as the main mic inputs, so there can be clipping sometimes. And of course there can be phase issues. All of these things are solvable by throwing more gear at it; yet not of them matter very much when you are making crazy ambient freakout music as I was.

tl;dr Yes it will work, sometimes it's a hassle.

Thank you this was really helpful, I may end up returning certain stuff to spare channels for a little more control.