VT Bass into Effects Return

[WhiteNinja]

Hey all,

Search couldn't help me with this specific "problem"... at least, I couldn't find the answer to my problem in any of the threads I found.

So I heard (read) that a lot of people use the VT Bass as the preamp straight into the power amp of their amplifiers, bypassing the preamp stage of the amp. The way to do it is by plugging the VT Bass into the effects return of the amp, correct?

Now my questions:

Does it have to be a straight clean signal from the pedal to the effects return? Would it work with true bypass pedals in between the signal?

I was thinking that if you use it as a preamp, it should go last in the signal chain, am I correct?

So the signal chain would go like:

Bass -> Pedalboard -> VT Bass -> Power Amp (via ER)

I use a Squier P with 1/4 pounders and an active Stingray copy and a Hartke HA5500 amp through 2 115 cabs (410 is kaputt )

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[tech21nyc]

Yes. Just plug the pedal into the efx return of your amp. There is no problem running effects before the Character Pedal. You can also run certain effects after the pedal but you have to be aware of the output of the Character Pedal. Since it can produce line level output, it can easily overload a pedal that is meant for instrument level only. In that case you would need to set the output of the VT Bass for unity gain. That means the level of the pedal when engaged is at the same level when it is bypassed. The only downside to that is that you may not have enough level to drive your amp's power section.