Hi All,
I moved on to a (sort-of) amp-less FRFR setup last year. I was playing with a covers band and running the PA so I had a good idea of what I was working with as it was my stuff! I tend to go for a fairly pared-down setup anyways as all that fiddling around with pedals just gets lost when it's in the middle of a band. So I was just running through a Peterson Strobestomp into a Laney Digbeth with chorus in the effects loop and a DI into the PA.
At home my setup is a bit different for recording because I recently discovered TC Helicon's SCF. Stereo effects! It was like the first time I heard a Sony Walkman! The home / recording setup is Peterson strobostomp into an Ampeg PF-500 amp head (got to love an Ampeg!). I take a DI feed out of that to one channel of my Zoom R16 and another feed out of the effects send. That goes into the TC SCF (which has its own line level preamp) then into Vortex Flanger - Flashback 2 Delay - Hall of Fame 2 Reverb (all of these are line-level stereo pedals) into a stereo channel on a Mackie pro-FX 8 mixer. The stereo output from that goes into two channels of the Zoom R16. I have a boss EQ20 which I can use after the tuner if I need, but I get most of my EQ from the Ampeg. I'm waiting for a TC Dark Matter distortion pedal to arrive to play around with. I can use most of that setup for guitars and my violin too - I use the boss EQ into a DI pedal to take a separate dry feed to the Zoom R16 and it only takes a minute to switch over.
You would have thought that would create a lot of noise but it's actually astonishingly clean and clear of hum. That might be down to the Joyo noise canceller on the power supply or the MyVolts crazy chain power leads, not sure.