Soldano FX loop revisted again

I had always thought the FX loop in the SLO was part of the sound. But I recently found that Soldano does a loop bypass mod and I listened to some comparison clips and tone was very similar. Some (allegedly including Mike himself) prefer the amp with the loop bypassed.

So I was thinking; if we can bypass the loop and get 'the same' tone then we have two unused triodes. Better yet, one is already setup as a cathode follower (great for a SEND stage) and one as a typical gain stage (great for RETURN stage). The issue now is that the tone stack is after the last stage and that last stage needs to be a cathode follower (in order to properly drive the tone stack). Our new last stage is now the RETURN stage which is not a cathode follower. So our RETURN stage isn't exactly what we want as our last stage as-is. So why not move the tone stack so it's after the first cathode follower (i.e. - at the very end of the 'preamp'), then to the SEND stage, then to the RETURN stage, then to the MVs, then to the PI.

This puts two cathode followers back-to-back though (with a tone stack in between). Is this a problem? Can I go straight from Treble wiper to SEND grid? Maybe a 1M from SEND grid-to-ground as well? Not sure if this will load the tone stack in some weird way such that this won't work. Anybody know any issues with this? Thoughts? Tips?

MY SLO is a home-brew and I made my own layout and circuit boards. So while it sounds a bit involved it's actually very simple.

Full frontal:


Knobs go to 11:

Hack, that is great work. How does it sound? CLIPS!!

Thanks, it took a while but I enjoy it. TBH, I like it when I haven't played it for a while but not so much when I have. But I generally play it 'Warren Haynes mode' with bright cap off (I added a 3-way bright switch for Lead channel not shown in pic) and gain only at 4-5. And I don't play it loud enough.

The SLO loop is part of the sound of that amp. The loop as a plain effect loop is not linear or transparent. The cathode follower on the loop adds compression and the return (stage) side is overdriven slightly especially when using the crunch or lead mode. With he loop bypassed, the amp will have less overall sustain and be drier for a better word. Whether or not that is desirable or not is up to the player.

I find the best results are to leave the loop as is and make it a hard connection, ditch the input and output jack, and add a loop right after the master volumes and phase inverter. Several reasons, one this how most loops are done, and it is post tone stack so the tone stack won't tune your effects like it does on the real SLO, also the levels are more manageable. You could use a Metro loop or equivalent to accomplish that. You could do the same to a real SLO but most aren't interested in modding that amp that way.