Who's running a stereo rig? (not FX)

[Van Noord]

Amp blending, so to speak.
What two amps and why?

I read how Adam Jones used a Recto for the lows and a Marshall for the highs and mids. Anyone have luck doing that?

Thinking of picking up a Radial Twin City ABY since I had some fun with one recently and giving it a go

[blueman335]

Re: Who's running a stereo rig? (not FX)

A friend of mine did that with a 2x12 Fender and a 2x12 Peavy. He had stereo effects pedals and that gave him a bigger sound. Since they were placed close to each other (and him standing in the middle), he was the one that got the most benefit from it. One day I'd like to do that with the amps spaced further apart, and try some panning too.

Of course, you wind up dragging more gear along, and on most stages, there's hardly enough room as it is.

[dd12939]

Re: Who's running a stereo rig? (not FX)

Amp blending, so to speak.
What two amps and why?

I read how Adam Jones used a Recto for the lows and a Marshall for the highs and mids. Anyone have luck doing that?

Thinking of picking up a Radial Twin City ABY since I had some fun with one recently and giving it a go

Adam Jones has used both Marshalls and Rectos but IIRC the magic puzzle piece is the Diezel VH4. A little off topic, but just FYI.

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Who's running a stereo rig? (not FX)

I used to split my pedal chain into two Gorillas - a BabyGorilla on one side and a TC35 on the other (granted it's not a Recto and Marshall...). Each chain had its own distortion, fed by a BOSS SuperOD out of a Y-cable - MXR Dist+ on one side and a RockTek distortion on the other. Got a decent "twin guitar" tone. Better than running the same sound into two amps, it actually sounded like two completely different signal chains (because for all intents and purposes, it was).

[frankfalbo]

Re: Who's running a stereo rig? (not FX)

This is my recipe for the last 20 years. I use preamps though, and the "stereo" is really two parallel signal paths. I can EQ them differently, and use different cabs. You have to manage phasing issues, and you can't introduce any latency to one side without the other. In other words, if one side patches through a digital multiFX, it's difficult to match phase when recording, especially if you're not hard panning them.

[karpathion]

Re: Who's running a stereo rig? (not FX)

I did when I was using 20w or less amps. It's the way to go with lunchboxes.
I'd love to give it a go with 2, 50 or 100w heads, but man that's gonna be loud.

[indie folk guy]

Re: Who's running a stereo rig? (not FX)

I sometimes run my two egnaters together I have a rebel 20 and a tweaker 15 head each runs respectively to a 2x12 egnater cab loaded with alnico 50 watt weber pre-rola dope blue dog/silver bell speakers. I also use a Radial ABY pedal.
my tweaker has 6CA7 tubes and the rebel lets you mix between el84 and 6v6 tubes. Between the various power tubes and all the fun tweak switches and such there is a lot of variation I can do. I also run a lot of pedals so having the ability to do stereo delays, stereo modulation, and stereo reverbs is pretty cool. I can also run stereo out from my ravish sitar pedal. So yeah I must say I love the stereo.

BTW on tight stages/spaces I just flip my 2x12 cabs on their sides so it takes up what a typical half stack takes up. I use Heil PR-30B mics for my cabs.

So yeah I guess it depends on what type of thing you are after you can use two different amps like what I do to get certain freq content from each amp, one amp clean and one amp dirty and blend to taste, or for effects.

[Van Noord]

Re: Who's running a stereo rig? (not FX)

Adam Jones has used both Marshalls and Rectos but IIRC the magic puzzle piece is the Diezel VH4. A little off topic, but just FYI.

Yeah, the VH4 gave his tone a more modern and complex sound. Opiate and Undertow was Super Bass and Dual Recto though. When I saw Tool last year, he was using two VH4's & two OS Recto cabs.

[erksin]

Re: Who's running a stereo rig? (not FX)

I've been playing a dual amp rig for the past 25 years or so - a '63 Gibson Falcon alongside a '64 Fender 6G2 Princeton with a '65 6G15 Reverb Unit on top or a '65 Ampeg Reverberocket.

The benefits IMO are a few things - first the fact that by blending two amps with different EQing and Gain profiles you can get a much bigger more 3-D type sound. I'm also a fan of blending speaker types so I can have a smoothness that still has a good deal of punch and clarity.

[Red_Label]

Re: Who's running a stereo rig? (not FX)

I used to have a pair of Traynor YCS100H heas running into a pair of Marshall 1960 cabs in stereo. The sound was big, but one-dimensional.

Then when I replaced one of the rigs with something different, the sound got HUGE. The biggest tone I got with two different rigs was my Bogner XTC running into a Bogner Uberkab, and my VHT UL running into a 1960B.

But my favorite dual rig for big sound was just slaving-out of my XTC, into a Rocktron Velocity 300 watt SS power amp and that was plugged into the 1060B. That way I got all of the hugeness of dual half-stacks... but only had to tap dance for ONE head. MUCH nicer and no sacrifice in tone.

At any rate... yes... in a stereo rig, it's always best to run two different amps that compliment each other. It makes the tone bigger and fatter and more organic.. Where as a true stereo matching rig just doesn't seem to do that.

[LatsMcGee]

Re: Who's running a stereo rig? (not FX)

Used to run my 68 bassman in stereo with my Pittbull 45 years ago....Real monster tones....

Recently ran my 6505 in stereo with my friends Knucklehead....sounded huge and crushing.....

[jeremy]

Re: Who's running a stereo rig? (not FX)

at least once a month i run a tweed deluxe and bf deluxe reverb. i use a radial twin cities a/b/y for the phase inversion. its very addictive playing thru two amps at the same time when they mesh well.

if i had roadies i would totally run a rig with two amps on all the time

[JOLLY]

Re: Who's running a stereo rig? (not FX)

I do on occasion. When I run my 5150 stack and JVM410H stack together it is just absolutely amazing. That's the only way I can describe it.

[Powdered Toast Man]

Re: Who's running a stereo rig? (not FX)

A friend of mine did that with a 2x12 Fender and a 2x12 Peavy. He had stereo effects pedals and that gave him a bigger sound. Since they were placed close to each other (and him standing in the middle), he was the one that got the most benefit from it. One day I'd like to do that with the amps spaced further apart, and try some panning too.

Of course, you wind up dragging more gear along, and on most stages, there's hardly enough room as it is.

Yeah, this setup is cool, but seldom practical. Not to mention if you're in a larger club you need a sound tech who's going to bother micing both amps and then panning them. That's a rare thing.

[XSSIVE]

Re: Who's running a stereo rig? (not FX)

I ditched my single head W/D/W setup to go back to running to heads and am running my 5150III 50w and stock '79 JMP boosted via a Furman PQ3 both into Splawn 4x12 cabs. Loads of fun and cool tones with this mix of amps.

Highly impractical if I were still gigging but for home use it kicks ass to have all of it cranking at once. Thank God there's no such thing as "bedroom volume" guitar playing in my house!