Amp input or effects loop? Where to place your pedals

It depends on the pedal — and you can use either spot, or both. - Overdrive and compression should always go before the amp's input. - Reverb, chorus, and delay sound best after your gain stage. If you run your amp clean, they'll work fine in front of the input. If you're using the amp's own overdrive, put them in the effects loop. One caveat: effects-loop levels vary from amp to amp, so we can't promise every pedal will play nicely in every loop. As a rule of thumb, if other 9V-powered pedals work in your loop, ours will too. If you run into trouble with instrument-level effects in your loop, a line-level shifter (like the Ebtech LLS2) can help match levels.