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* Guitar > Tube Screamer > Amp > Chorus (in effects loop) > Amp
→Practice
Thinking in terms of analog gear, take the relatively simple example chain of:
Even here, the Screamer has two gain stages - Drive and Output. The amp likely has 5 - Drive, Channel Volume, Loop Send, Loop Receive, and Master Volume. The chorus pedal likely has 1 - Output. You have 8 gain stages to tune, so that they all work in harmony. The Chorus does not have an attenuator on its input. You must set the effects loop send volume low enough to keep it from clipping. You probably want the Screamer to have low Drive (its "hot" gain stage), so that it only provides a touch of distortion, but you want to dime its Output (which stays clean). You want most of your distortion from your amp's preamp. So you crank Drive there. You don't want much power amp distortion, so you set Master Volume just below where the power section starts to break up. Channel Volume likely stays clean even at high settings, so you crank that up fairly high, but it's main purpose is to balance one channel's volume against another - you may have to keep it lower than 100% for that.