A Second Amp for Wet/Dry Rig set-up?

[DarthTangYang]

I have recently become aware of a term and concept that I suspect many of you here are already familiar with - The so called "Wet/Dry Rig" and even "Wet/Dry/Wet Rig", referring to setting up 2 or more amps and running all the "wet" pedals (delays, reverb, chorus, modulators etc.) through one or two amps and then the "dry" pedals (gain, distortion etc.) through a second amp. The idea is (as far as I've understood) to enable you to keep the tone and attack while still being able to have a lot of effects going on at the same time, without the sound turning to mush.

To me this seem like a good idea but I have no experience with it and if I want to go into it fully I would have to buy a second amp and I just don't know what I should be aiming for. The amp I'm currently playing through is a 100W Hughes & Kettner Vortex Black Series top and its 4/12 cabinet. Would I need to buy something that is equivalent to this, i.e. another 100W amp top with a 4/12 cabinet, or could I get away with something smaller, like a 50W combo? And if so, how should I approach it? Should I run the "dry" through my H&K and the "wet" through the smaller one?

Another question that obviously relates to this is - does anyone have any suggestion on what amp brand would best complete my H&K for a wet/dry set-up?

 

[SlyFoxx]

So many ways to do this and I'm sure others will chime in. For me if I wanted to do this with as few components and wires as possible I'd look for a stout 2 channel acoustic amp with a good compliment of on-board effects. (That way you get power, speaker and effects all in one box. A guitar modeling amp loaded with different effects could work a treat too.) Mic the dry cab and feed it to the acoustic amp mic input. Use the direct out that I assume your HK has to drive the instrument input of the acoustic amp. If the acoustic amp has an effects loop you could add out-board effects too.

If you are going to gig the rig I'd make sure the wet rig is powerful enough to keep up with the dry rig. Just remember that 15-50 watts could/should be more than enough for the wet rig if you're not cranking up your 100 watt dry rig.

 

[beaubrummels]

Either use identical amps and cabs, or use a really clean (almost like a P.A.) for the wet side. The latter only works if all your dirt and distortion are coming from pedals before the amp and you aren't depending on the amp for most of your tone. But the most preferred would be to use identical amps/cabs. The main point is clarity by separation - each amp and set of speakers is only responsible for reproducing their portion of the signal, so the effects side will be clearer and so will the original dry signal. Also has the side benefit of having a really big, wide sound in the room.

 

[PFDarkside]

Are you using an effects loop and do you use the amp for gain or external pedals exclusively? What’s your total chain as of today?

 

[Mincer]

Steve Morse does this, and it sounds amazing when he does it. The 'effects' amp is a duplicate of his dry amp & cab. That way the tone doesn't change.

 

[DarthTangYang]

Are you using an effects loop and do you use the amp for gain or external pedals exclusively? What’s your total chain as of today?

I plan to build a pedalboard and will probably run all effects, wet as dry from that. As of today I only have a Roland VG-88 which I probably won't be using. I sold all my pedals years ago as I only used the midi effects from the VG-88 at the time but have now decided I want to build up a more traditional, analog set-up again. So I have started diving deep into everything I would need to get the really fat sound I've always wanted.

As I'm still researching pedals I'm not 100% set on which ones I will invest in but the pedals I am currently considering for the new pedalboard build are:

Lehle Mono Volume Pedal
Dunlop Crybaby GCB95
JHS Little Black Buffer
Diezel VH4-2 Pedal
Strymon Riverside
MXR Micro Amp M133
TC Electronic Flashback 2 Delay
Boss DD-3T Digital Delay
Boss GE-7 Equalizer
Boss BF-3 Flanger
Boss CE-5 Chorus Ensemble
Lehle Little Dual II

If anyone has any suggestions or ideas on any of these I am more than open to hear about it but perhaps that's a subject for another thread.

 

[Bogner]

Another thing to consider is the Komet AmbiKab. A very cool piece of gear.

If you are looking for some pedal suggestions to look into as well, (I saw your list which has some awesome pedals listed) but I would encourage you to look into the Revv pedals for gain. Most amp like pedals I have owned and I am not a gain pedal guy. I prefer the drive to come from the amp. As far as reverbs and delays, etc. I can't express how nice the Free the Tone products are.

For MANY MANY years I have run two amp rigs for blended tones etc. I will help answer any questions you may have (or try to). When you get all the pieces right, it is a wonderful thing to hear. Good luck!

 

[PFDarkside]

I plan to build a pedalboard and will probably run all effects, wet as dry from that. As of today I only have a Roland VG-88 which I probably won't be using. I sold all my pedals years ago as I only used the midi effects from the VG-88 at the time but have now decided I want to build up a more traditional, analog set-up again. So I have started diving deep into everything I would need to get the really fat sound I've always wanted.

As I'm still researching pedals I'm not 100% set on which ones I will invest in but the pedals I am currently considering for the new pedalboard build are:

Lehle Mono Volume Pedal
Dunlop Crybaby GCB95
JHS Little Black Buffer
Diezel VH4-2 Pedal
Strymon Riverside
MXR Micro Amp M133
TC Electronic Flashback 2 Delay
Boss DD-3T Digital Delay
Boss GE-7 Equalizer
Boss BF-3 Flanger
Boss CE-5 Chorus Ensemble
Lehle Little Dual II

If anyone has any suggestions or ideas on any of these I am more than open to hear about it but perhaps that's a subject for another thread.

Looks good, the Little Dual will work if you want to turn off the wet amp completely. The CE-5 will split nicely as well, in stereo one side is dry, the other is vibrato.

I’m also inclined to say another of the same amp.

 

[dystrust]

I ran wet / dry briefly, but abandoned the rig because it was a pain to set up and required A LOT of hardware. I tried both a rackmount preamp and multi-channel head and mic'd the dry amp and used a mixer / PA setup with a rack processor. It produced a very hifi tone that reminded me of David Gilmour circa The Division Bell.

 

[Mincer]

I would also think that doing this in a live setup would be difficult on multi-band shows where you can't bring your own sound person and have to trust the person doing sound to get the mix right (and give you more than 1 channel for guitar). It is much easier to implement in your house, or on a recording that you have control over.

 

[dystrust]

I would also think that doing this in a live setup would be difficult on multi-band shows where you can't bring your own sound person and have to trust the person doing sound to get the mix right (and give you more than 1 channel for guitar). It is much easier to implement in your house, or on a recording that you have control over.

That's a great point. I never actually played a gig with my wet / dry rig; just trying to use it for a couple rehearsals was a big enough PITA.

 

[DarthTangYang]

I actually found an episode of That Pedal Show where the question of how to go about choosing amps for a wet/dry rig is addressed

Their conclusion seem to be that it doesn't really matter which two you choose (with a couple of exceptions).

Firstly, depending on what sound you're going for you might want to consider using two amps with similar gain levels as it won't sound very good when you step on your gain pedal. And since I am a metal guy, high gain is my thing, so that's definitely something I need to consider.

Secondly, don't use a digital amp with an analog amp as the digital amp will introduce quite a bit of latency which puts the two amps out of phase. You can use an analog transistor amp with a valve amp, so that's not a problem. You might even be able to use two digital amps if they are both the same type, thus having the same latency. But since my Vortex isn't digital I need to either get another transisitor amp or get a valve amp.

Wattage doesn't seem to be a problem either. In the video they ran a 100W amp together with a 5W amp and it worked fine, so that doesn't seem to be an issue at all. Now, I'd never buy a 5W amp but it shows that I don't need to neccessarily get another 100W amp for the wet/dry rig to work.

Any thoughts on this?

 

[Mincer]

I would think that it would be better if they are both the same. The basic tone would match. Again, I would have concerns doing this live when you have to depend on someone else to do your sound. I would almost guarantee that the 'wet' amp would never make it to the PA system.

 

[VinceT]

I actually found an episode of That Pedal Show where the question of how to go about choosing amps for a wet/dry rig is addressed

Their conclusion seem to be that it doesn't really matter which two you choose (with a couple of exceptions).

Firstly, depending on what sound you're going for you might want to consider using two amps with similar gain levels as it won't sound very good when you step on your gain pedal. And since I am a metal guy, high gain is my thing, so that's definitely something I need to consider.

Secondly, don't use a digital amp with an analog amp as the digital amp will introduce quite a bit of latency which puts the two amps out of phase. You can use an analog transistor amp with a valve amp, so that's not a problem. You might even be able to use two digital amps if they are both the same type, thus having the same latency. But since my Vortex isn't digital I need to either get another transisitor amp or get a valve amp.

Wattage doesn't seem to be a problem either. In the video they ran a 100W amp together with a 5W amp and it worked fine, so that doesn't seem to be an issue at all. Now, I'd never buy a 5W amp but it shows that I don't need to neccessarily get another 100W amp for the wet/dry rig to work.

Any thoughts on this?

Mick and Dan have been covering this on and off since their channel started, so dive deep into their vids. I love wet-dry, at home in my studio, but I wouldn’t even think of attempting it in the local live shows I do play.


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[IMENATOR]

Split your main amp FX send signal so you keep most of your original amp tone from its Preamp section. Send one split thru your effects and into the FX return of one amp for the Wet sound and send the second split into the FX return of a second amp for the Dry sound. However if you need individual control of the volume on each amp then be sure the master volume is on the power amp, in some cases like the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe when you plug into the FX return it works at full volume all the time. For example you can use a Magnum 44 power amp pedal or ISP Stealth Ultra Lite into a cab and control the volume individually. As with any other dual amp rig, be aware of solving potential phasing and ground loop issues.

Edit: I just read you have a 4x12 ¡ Not sure how loud you really play man but if you don't really crank it maybe you can try a couple of 2x12 or even 1x12 with a smaller amps. Take a look at Rebea Massad rig, yes he uses two amps for stereo but he uses a couple of 2x12, easier to carry and you can always separate them a bit for a better spread of the stereo image.

 

[DarthTangYang]

I just read you have a 4x12 ¡ Not sure how loud you really play man but if you don't really crank it maybe you can try a couple of 2x12 or even 1x12 with a smaller amps. Take a look at Rebea Massad rig, yes he uses two amps for stereo but he uses a couple of 2x12, easier to carry and you can always separate them a bit for a better spread of the stereo image.

Yeah, it's quite loud. I bought the H&K Vortex and half-stack in a package deal about 19 years ago when I was still playing in bands and needed something a bit bigger that I could gig with. So I naturally did the only rational thing anyone can do in a situation like that,and bought something that can pulverize concrete
These days, married with children and being more of a bedroom-shredder :headbang: I don't really need a 4/12 cab or a 100W monster. Don't get me wrong, I love cranking that thing up from time to time but I would definitely be perfectly fine with something a bit less conspicuous. But since I have it and don't really like the idea of splitting up the amp and its cab by selling the cab I'll just have to work with it.

Funny though, I'm actually looking at a used Randall RX120Rh with a RX412 cab that someone is willing to sell for only $240. It's a sweet deal but I don't think I can fit both of those monsters into my house, unless I stack them on top of each other. And besides, if I'd crank them both I might hurt myself

Yes, I'm familiar with Rabea and his dual Kraken. They sound absolutely awesome. If I had the space I guess I could get two 50W amps and two 2/12 or maybe even two 1/12 cabs and setup a Wet/Dry/Wet rig. That would probably be an awesome setup. Space is an issue though so I probably need to think about this a bit.

 

[Drak]

Oh yes, I've gone down that path most definitely.
So long ago I've had time to go down the hole, root around for carrots down there, climb back out and fully rehab myself out of it.
Today, years later, I still run a stereo setup, but those amps are parked and not moving, and only in that room, and I could easily just run one amp and be perfectly happy.
At the time of my full blown realization, I was running a full W/D/W setup.
The amps, the pedalboard, how the pedalboard worked best in what config, I figured it all out on my own terms looong before Mick and Dan ever did a show about it.
I mean I slogged through the whole thing having to figure out what worked, what didn't, and why, by myself.
But I love doing stuff like that and I enjoyed the whole experience, but I would certainly caution others going in.
And really, although it's been awhile since I watched their YT, I remember disagreeing with a few of their points.
It's not like they know everything, although they know a lot.

My first tip to you:
Don't buy a damn thing you can't easily turn around and resell. Keep resell in mind before laying out cash.
In other words, don't stick yourself with a ridiculous pricetag at the end of it all if and when the desire just completely vanishes.
If this is just a jolly you have to experience (and I get that), arm yourself with a plan to extricate yourself Up Front.
Plan for resell, even if you don't think it will come to that.
Before you commit to a bunch of musical boat anchors if and when the urge is satiated and you're done with it all.

Because, as was said above, the day will probably come when it 'was' just a jolly and you'll be over it.
So plan it out going in to be able to get back out again with minimal loss.
WHY?
Because chances are, as was said above, Even If you work it all out and it sounds great (mine did)
It is So Much work and So Much equipment and it takes up So Much Room, you'll probably tire of it.
I mean, unless you run a studio or something and it's never going to move and you have the room to fully commit to it.

So, disclaimers out of the way, I'll give you the 3 absolutely essential 'tricks' that I learned the hard way.
And the basics are actually pretty easy and straightforward once you know them and experience them.
You can build the pedalboard up to MegaTrain, ...or just run a few pedals.
With the basics understood, you can modify the rest to hell and back and it will always work, and work well.

So there are only three pedalboard basics that I uncovered that needed to be in place every time, no exceptions.
And I re-worked my boards many, many times over, and as long as I kept to these 3 basics, it always worked perfect.

One: a Switcher pedal up front, first in chain. I used a Radial Tonebone ABY Twin-Cities. Love that pedal.
Don't buy some cheap-shit passive switcher, that will be your first big mistake.
The Radial is a Powered Switcher with Options that you may very well need.
Don't waste money on the wrong tool, buy a powered, quality switcher.
Buy once, buy right, buy what will work for you, not hinder you and cause problems.

The switcher switches between (or both) two pedal chains (hopefully on the same board) your wet chain, and your dry chain.
Wet chain goes out stereo to your two wet amps, dry out to dry amp (in the middle most likely).

What you choose to put in your dry chain and wet chain is all up to you and what you want to hear.
Generally, dry chain is all dirt and boost variants and any pedal you want to have an effect on your dirt sound (like a phaser or wah)
Wet chain is obviously modulation, delays, reverbs, but the rules are not set in stone, you can build it any way you want.

Two: Somewhere in your wet chain, a volume pedal. I use an Ernie Ball MVP which, again, is powered, not passive, but that's up to you.
Doesn't have to be first, and depending on your setup, maybe it shouldn't be, just depends.
But a volume pedal somewhere in the wet chain is a Must to make it work right.

Three: The last pedal in the wet chain has stereo outs (if you're going full-on W/D/W).
On my boards, the bottom row of pedals was always the dry path, and the top row was always the wet path.

In the end, it was just all too much horrah.
Too much trouble, too much work, too much space, too much hassle.
But, I loved every minute of it for 2-3 years, then moved on.

 

[Bogner]

Truth ^^^^^

 

[DarthTangYang]

Oh yes, I've gone down that path most definitely.

(REDACTED)

So there are only three pedalboard basics that I uncovered that needed to be in place every time, no exceptions.
And I re-worked my boards many, many times over, and as long as I kept to these 3 basics, it always worked perfect.

One: a Switcher pedal up front, first in chain. I used a Radial Tonebone ABY Twin-Cities. Love that pedal.
Don't buy some cheap-**** passive switcher, that will be your first big mistake.
The Radial is a Powered Switcher with Options that you may very well need.
Don't waste money on the wrong tool, buy a powered, quality switcher.
Buy once, buy right, buy what will work for you, not hinder you and cause problems.

The switcher switches between (or both) two pedal chains (hopefully on the same board) your wet chain, and your dry chain.
Wet chain goes out stereo to your two wet amps, dry out to dry amp (in the middle most likely).

What you choose to put in your dry chain and wet chain is all up to you and what you want to hear.
Generally, dry chain is all dirt and boost variants and any pedal you want to have an effect on your dirt sound (like a phaser or wah)
Wet chain is obviously modulation, delays, reverbs, but the rules are not set in stone, you can build it any way you want.

Two: Somewhere in your wet chain, a volume pedal. I use an Ernie Ball MVP which, again, is powered, not passive, but that's up to you.
Doesn't have to be first, and depending on your setup, maybe it shouldn't be, just depends.
But a volume pedal somewhere in the wet chain is a Must to make it work right.

Three: The last pedal in the wet chain has stereo outs (if you're going full-on W/D/W).
On my boards, the bottom row of pedals was always the dry path, and the top row was always the wet path.

Hello Drak!
I've been away from the forum for quite some time and now saw you had written some good advice for me so I thought I should at least give some update to you and all the other people who once wrote in this thread.

I decided to use my existing Hughes & Kettner Vortex 100W with a 4X12 cab as one of my wet rigs instead because wouldn't you know it - I actually managed to find an identical one online for sale for only $150. So I bought it and now I have two identical 100W amps with two 4X12 cabs. So... yeah, I've already had to dedicate quite some space for this project.

I've also begun collecting the pedals that I want for the W/D/W rig and so far I've only bought TC Electronics Vortex Flanger and an Electro Harmonix Green Russian Big Muff (which I absolutely love btw). I definitely will need a lot more pedals but the next step is to find the amp that will carry my dry signal. I thought I had decided on an Orange Pedal Baby but since I came across the Orange Terror Stamp I'm unsure which one to get. Someone said a Pedal Baby needs a dedicated preamp in front of it in order to work properly and that a distortion pedal isn't enough to do the job. I do find this a bit weird since I understood the Pedal Baby to be just that - a neutral and clean pedal platform that allows you to shape the sound using whatever pedals you want to do the job, but then again I'm no expert. I was planning to get a Friedman BE-OD Deluxe as the distortion but it's not a preamp pedal, so now I'm thinking perhaps I should get a Diezel VH-4 v2 instead (which actually was my plan to begin with before coming across the Friedman pedal). Since the Diezel is a preamp pedal it should work if I'm not mistaken. But then again the Orange Terror Stamp is even cheaper than a Pedal Baby and it is a real amp that even has a valve/tube preamp in it so... then the Friedman pedal would work well, but I'm not sure right now. I'm doing as much research I can into this issue. I've even written to Orange to get their take on this and I'm awaiting their reply. The difference between the two amps apart from the whole preamp issue is that the Terror Stamp is only 20W while the Pedal Baby is 100W. Don't think that will make or break this setup though, not for a bedroom rocker.

The plan for the rest of my wet pedals after the flanger are as follows:

* Boss (Waza Craft) Dimension C DC-2w Chorus.
* TheGigRig's Wetter Box with an expression pedal (Boss FV-500-H) hooked up to it, allowing be to blend between reverb and delay.
The Wetter Box is then connected to reverb and delay, which are:
*Boss RV-6 Reverb(stereo)
*Boss DD-8 Delay(stereo)
These two are both connected to a second (dual) expression pedal (Boss EV-30), allowing me to play around with the amount of effect in both pedals simultaneously.

And I'm also planning to get a volume pedal (like you suggested) to go in front of all the wet pedals, before the flanger. Not sure which one to get yet though. Maybe a Lehle.

I've also settled on a cab for the dry amp and it will be a Harley Benton Vintage Vertical 2X12 which has two Celestion Vintage 30's and I've only heard good things about it. It's a very cheap cab ($280) for what it's packing.

I also plan to get a Dunlop Crybaby and a Boss GE-7 EQ on the dry side of the board, and since all those Boss pedals are buffered I'm unsure whether or not I'll need any buffers as well. I guess I'll tackle that when I get there.

I'll also need an ABY pedal with an isolated 2nd output to go between the wet and dry sides of the pedalboard and first I was planning to buy TheGigRig's Humdinger but now I'll probably get one from Bright Onion instead. They're a small company based in the UK (Brighton) and seem to have great stuff that are quite affordable.

And for isolation for the two wet amps I'm planning to get a Palmer PLI-05 Isolation Box. However, if anyone has a better option for this I'm all ears.

When it comes to switchers I still haven't decided. I know it's an important part of any pedalboard. Being able to group pedals and assign each group to one switch is essential in my opinion. But it's a quite heavy investment and it will probably be the last thing I get. While getting the pedals I want the plans might change and develop and I might end up with more or less pedals than I first thought. Once I know how the board will be set up I'll dig deeper into this topic. I don't want to end up with a switcher that doesn't have enough switchers for my board.

 

[El Dunco]

So many ways to do this and I'm sure others will chime in.

It’s even very possibly just with a splitter/A-B box, which is very similar to how I get blended, dual amp sounds using preamp pedals. Sometimes, a single 4x12 if wired correctly can become a tight, but fantastic wet-dry rig.

One of my favourite lives tones, I used a Digitech RP1000 which I really only use as a switcher/amp/pedallooper with multi-fx, though I quite like the “spank” clean amp model. Anyway, about this tone. For hi-gain, I always have my preamp of choice in the amp loop or the 4CM hookup for my amps of choice.

On this occasion I had a very clear, punchy Blackstar preamp in the amp loop with the clean sounds with mild effects camingout of one side of the 4x12, then with some clever routing, my Dual Rectifier was hooked up to come out the other side of speakers, just dry for my heavy sound!

I still have the soundboard recordings from that show and that rhyhm sound was everything I wanted for a l long time. Both the massive sound and “push” from the DRs, mixed with the absolute precision, clarity and definition of the Blackstar. It’s what got me into and virtually committed to blending amps in the studio. Not to mention it’s easy to sit perfectly in the mix without sacrificing any punch and cuts through for leads without necessary redlining the channel strip.