When no one else can help...I need to hire the JB team...

if you wanted delay for one and reverb for the other, I'd put them in front of the amp, in between the amp switcher and the amp.

SO
                                                           A= delay->amp
Guitar -> (all your pedals)->amp switcher=
                                                           B=reverb->amp2

- Nic from Detroit... posting on JB's Forum since 6-2-2006
Ask me about my handwound Great Lakes Guitar Pickups
Since 2010, Bonamassa fans have taken advantage of my JB friend discount = my cost + shipping.

Dave

Delay works fine in the front end of an amp. David Gilmour has alsways done it that way, more or less, and his delay tones are awesome.

If you look at the Joe's Reverbricated Tone sticky, I've posted at length about how you can seperate two signals into wet and dry.

Nevertheless, I accept you q is a little different.

Re the switching, Lehle is the industry standard. If you get phase hum then get a gigrig Humdinger which will sort most of it. Lehle make a very good unit.

IMO, the best ABY box out there is the Pete Cornish one (yes I sound like a broken record) but please note that in his ABY box you have 2 Cornish buffers, which are the best thing known to mankind IMO, and will so allow you to worship at the alter of retained tone! it's no coincidence Clapton is using only one of these to switch all his rig (it's a custom rack job, but it's basically the same circuit inside.

And, unlike most of his stuff, he'll build it pretty quickly- normally 4 weeks- AND- you'll always get back what you paid for it and maybe more.

http://www.petecornish.co.uk/SAEABCBox.html

PS- re creating your own loops through the Lehle, why would you bother? True bypass and bypass loops are IME, tone drainers. better to try and get unity gain through your signal path through good buffering.

Dave- the Lehle's are great. Really very well made and top drawer- gold palted contacts, hand wired etc. The only advantage (it's a big one!) the Cornish offers are the buffers, which are truly amazing. I always think my signal is so strong it's gonna cut through the amps and laser itself to the centre of the earth!

Re pedals and what- always trust your ears and not reviews. Give you an example- Joe's love of Tubescreamers- if you use a TS9 in front of a cranked amp with good volume levels then it'll sound like honey-  there's not much that's better, maybe a Klon? Play it on a 40w amp with the vol at 2 for bedroom use and you'll wonder what all the fuss is about and think the TS9 is a pile of crap, tinny and glassy.

Don't be frightened of using the front end of the amp to run your signal into. Every song recorded up until say 1977 had almost certainly most of the FX in the front end- those are the tones we tend to aspire to.

There are two great articles about FX I always refer to- on the Cornish site look at the Bypass notes- he is SO right about this, and also www.thegigrig.com - look at the top tone tips. Very useful indeed.

Re Delays- my choices are this- budget get a Made in Japan DD2 or 3. (I prefer the 2, others the 3). Simply the best DD ever made- Cornish's Tape Echo Sim uses the DD2 chip, as does the £1000 Skydstrupt DDL. DD2 or 3 = £100 on ebay. MAKE SURE YOU SEE THE INSIDE- the EPROM chip is notorious for burning out and if it's been replaced you'll see soldering on the back of the PCB. The other beaut is the MXR Carbon Copy, which is cheap, and brilliant at analogue.

Boutique price- I have never found anything better than the TRex Replica. I love it. Second hand £200, new £350, or a vintage Memory Man.

Serious bucks price- I'd sell my left testicle for an original SIB Echodrive- it is the concorde moment of delay! Awesome, awesome awesome. It uses two of the original vintage Memory Man chips. They can make £1000 + on eBay. The red re-issues are nowhere near as good. Others are the MXR Delay II rack (my fave) but £1.5k + for a proper one, Cornish TES (£1k), Skydstrupt DDL(£1k). and, if you want a nuclear weapon to crack a nut, a TC2290, which is just about THE industry standard (good one with extended memory and software updates, £1k)

One unit that looks the nuts, right brand etc, but is, IMO, awful, is the TC Nova Delay. I find them very coloured and mess with your signal. Others like the preset features- you pays yer money and takes yer choice.