H9 Clipping in Effects Loop

The H9 is designed for a guitar in and will handle about 9V peak to peak, which would be a VERY hot guitar. It is NOT designed to handle a high level line input – this is presumably what you are giving it.

Your first approach would be to contact the amp manufacturer and see if there is any way to get the effects loop down to a reasonable level – you are probably not the first person with this problem.

If this fails, you could try a pad or "volume box", or have a techy friend make one with two resistors. Hopefully one of our users can recommend one.

FWIW

I am running the H9 in the loop of my EVH 5150III 50w head and it runs beautifully.

I can't turn the volume up past about 1 o'clock on my EVH 5150III 50w head before it clips the H9.

Try cranking your volume up and I'll bet you see it clip as well.

I've tried putting an EBTech Line Level Shifter in the loop and it seemed to help, but I ended up just deciding not to turn the volume up past 1 o'clock because it's simpler in the long run.

I understand that the H9 was designed to be run before the amp, but most of the effects I use (Chorus, Delay, Reverb, etc.) are typically better off after the gain stage.

Hopefully Eventide will take this into account for future (guitar-oriented) products and give us some more flexibility here.

Past 1 o'clock? it might be so… but that would be crazy loud. 🙂 I have never had the Blue Channel past 12 o'clock and I normally have the gain at around 1 o'clock even on a decent size stage. Anyway, it works great with my setup anyway.

Yes, it's crazy loud indoors, but outdoors, I can use the wattage.

Also, I use a volume pedal in the effects loop so I'm attenuating the signal before it goes back to the power amp most of the time anyway.

In any case since many amp loop levels are line level (+4dBu) and the H9 is apparently designed for -10dBV, you have to be careful not to clip the H9's inputs anytime you're using it in an amp's effects loop.