Is there any reccomendation for signal hottnes when going towards the pedal? I'm using the outs of my befaco output, but always checking with my interface that the signal doesn't peak etc. How would a pedal I/O module modify the signal (except from also accepting somethingback from the outside)
-- zuggamasta
Pedal send/return modules (if designed right) do TWO things. One of these, of course, is level matching; modular and "instrument" levels are VERY different, and as a rule, a direct output to something expecting the sort of level that would be incoming from a guitar pickup would result in a lot of distortion...and even if you could deal with this appropriately, there's the OTHER issue: impedance.
Impedance differences can majorly screw with your sound. They can skew frequency response, mess with level matching, and/or potentially introduce noise into a patch (some of that depends on the stompbox in question, though). So a properly-designed S/R module needs to address both the level AND impedance mismatching to be optimally effective. The only time you might want to circumvent this would be if you're shooting for a really nasty, overloaded sound...and if you do, I would STRONGLY recommend running a compressor as the first thing in the stompbox chain to get some control over the level swings. Still doesn't fix the return levels, though, unless you've got an actual input module.