Induced Latency when Bi-Amping

[sosomething]

In a mere couple of days my Splawn and Bogner should return from the shop, and I intend to run them both in a bi-amped live setup for ego and vanity maximus.

I have a question though - has anyone ever tried to intentionally create latency between the two amps? Like having the signal hit one amp 4-6 milliseconds later than it hits the other? I imagine that if the waveforms coming from both amps were too similar there would be some crazy phasing-type junk going on, but if that's a problem I could invert the phase of the signal hitting one of the amps and fix it.

I just wonder if this wouldn't be similar to double-tracking a rhythm part in the studio.

Has anyone tried this? How could I do this?

 

[Kosh Naranek]

Re: Induced Latency when Bi-Amping

That's easy to do with most digital delay units. Run a dry output to one amp, a delayed out put to the other.

I think with a short delay and one amp on each side of the soundstage, it might sound OK. I have heard doubled vocal and guitar parts on albums that sound terrible though. Old Ted Nugent tunes like Free For All and Cat Scratch Fever come to mind.

Actually, in my home studio, I've tracked guitar parts through two amps or two direct preamps, panned one right, one left, not delayed either one, and got a nice big stereo guitar sound just because the two guitar tones were different.

Also, inverting the phase of one signal may improve phase problems, but won't necessarily get rid of them.

Pro guitarists do this kind of thing, though I haven't heard of any doing it for a doubling effect. Steve Morse uses multiple amps for echo. One for the dry tone, another one or two for the delayed outputs from his digital delay.

 

[sosomething]

Re: Induced Latency when Bi-Amping

Thanks for the reply.

To be clear, I'm talking strictly about a live setting. In the studio I'm a very firm believer in actually playing/tracking the part twice (or more) and panning them wide in stereo.

I'm talking about a very, very slight delay. The tones should be different enough that there is minimal phasing occurring. The Splawn will be running through a ported 2x12 with V30s, and the Uberschall will be running through a 4x12 with Eminence Redcoats, so they'll be pretty different tones. I'm not sure if your typical delay pedal is capable of producing such a slight delay to the signal, though I'm certainly willing to try.

 

[Rich_S]

Re: Induced Latency when Bi-Amping

You can do it, but 4-6 msec. isn't going to give you an appreciable delay, it will just cause phasing problems. For reference let us turn to the 80's-vintage Boss ad hanging over my desk, from the Understanding Technology Series, Understanding Time Delay Effects. According to them, flanging effects use delays from 0-12 msec. Chorus is from about 10-25 msec.. These short delays give comb-filtering effects, and pitch-shifting (when the delay time is moved around).

Echo-type delays are longer than that - I think you're going to need 50 msec or more before you start to hear doubling rather than filtering.

 

[SlyFoxx]

Re: Induced Latency when Bi-Amping

If you have pitch shifting capabilities you might try running one amp shifted down or up a few cents. It gives a chours type of effect but without the modulation. (Think EVH Hagar era tone.)

 

[Gr8Scott]

Re: Induced Latency when Bi-Amping

Run a stereo chorus and get 10-25 ms of delay between amps for some sweet comb filtering and shiny metallic 80's sheen on your tone.

 

[Virtual Kevorkian]

Re: Induced Latency when Bi-Amping

Alex Peterson of Testament does something similar live... He runs a DD3 in the loop with a really quick delay mixed in about 50% and set to repeat once - really beefs up his live tone, but I've tried doing the same recorded, and it came out really muddy.

That said, that dude would put delay on a snare if you let him - he's more obsessed with it than Phil Collins was!

 

[ParameterMan]

Re: Induced Latency when Bi-Amping

I've messed with it a bit, and have a friend that used to do the same thing in the 80's. In fact, Rocktron now makes a pedal for that.

You need a delay pedal that will go 100%(no dry signal) wet and put in in front of only one of the amps. In my experience, 20-30ms is about right. What you get is a big stereo double-tracking sort of sound. It really gives palm mutes a life of their own. He used it to get a stereo spread from a CE-2. It really made the CE-2 sound a bit like a organ- just a big, thick sound.

 

[muttonchopsrule]

Re: Induced Latency when Bi-Amping

try it with no delay at all, and you'll probably be pleasently surprised.

i've never heard of phasing issues from playing out of two amps. i don't think it should be an issue. besides, where you are standing in relation to the amps will have a larger affect on their apparent phase relationship than putting a delay on the signal would.

 

[TheArchitect]

Re: Induced Latency when Bi-Amping

In a mere couple of days my Splawn and Bogner should return from the shop, and I intend to run them both in a bi-amped live setup for ego and vanity maximus.

I have a question though - has anyone ever tried to intentionally create latency between the two amps? Like having the signal hit one amp 4-6 milliseconds later than it hits the other? I imagine that if the waveforms coming from both amps were too similar there would be some crazy phasing-type junk going on, but if that's a problem I could invert the phase of the signal hitting one of the amps and fix it.

I just wonder if this wouldn't be similar to double-tracking a rhythm part in the studio.

Has anyone tried this? How could I do this?

Stereo Chorus with the modulation turned down. At 4-6 its probably closer to an unmodulated flanger though.

 

[ParameterMan]

Re: Induced Latency when Bi-Amping

i've never heard of phasing issues from playing out of two amps. i don't think it should be an issue.

I have experienced it, and if the amps are somewhat close together it's not really pleasant at all. All the mids just withered up and died, leaving me with a distant, choked sound. If the amps are something like 10' apart it can give a really deep faux stereo sound that can really twist your head if you stand in the exact middle. My solution was to reverse the spade connectors on the speaker in one of the amps, and viola- much better. Any thought I had that I was imagining things went away immediately.

 

[sosomething]

Re: Induced Latency when Bi-Amping

You can do it, but 4-6 msec....trimmed......

Echo-type delays are longer than that - I think you're going to need 50 msec or more before you start to hear doubling rather than filtering.

Thank you. Very informative! :bigthumb:

You need a delay pedal that will go 100%(no dry signal) wet and put in in front of only one of the amps. In my experience, 20-30ms is about right. What you get is a big stereo double-tracking sort of sound. It really gives palm mutes a life of their own. He used it to get a stereo spread from a CE-2. It really made the CE-2 sound a bit like a organ- just a big, thick sound.

Thanks! The Tsunami looks like a cool pedal. It does more than I would need it to do, but it def. looks like it would get the job done.

try it with no delay at all, and you'll probably be pleasently surprised.

Last night, that's what I did. It was amazing.



I didn't even use a fancy buffered AB-Y switcher or anything. My tuner has a regular muted output and a bypass output, so I ran one to the Uberschall and the other to the Pro Mod. Worked great. No noticeable phasing issues. Once I got them each dialed in....

oh my god.

the SPLAWGNER was born.

I'll never be the same.

 

[ParameterMan]

Re: Induced Latency when Bi-Amping

oh my god.

the SPLAWGNER was born.

I'll never be the same.

Haha :friday: I'm seriously addicted to the dual amp sound. So much smoother and fuller. Try a ping pong delay next- you'll be

 

[sosomething]

Re: Induced Latency when Bi-Amping

The two amps have such a different tonal characteristic but they blend extremely well.

The Bogner has a much wider frequency footprint, but it's pretty even across that footprint. A huge, thick, clear sound. The Splawn has a narrower footprint with lots of peaks and valleys to the EQ, especially in the mids, so that it almost sits "inside" the Bogner's tone and augments the midrange and adds a lot of harmonics to the overall sound.

I've set it up so the Splawn's clean channel is just dead quiet so I can mute it with the footswitch and leave the Bogner running. I use the Bogner's clean channel when I need that sound. The biggest surprise was running the Splawn dirty and the Bogner clean, especially on the neck pickup. Talk about a big, rich sound! It's like a clean tone that sustains and responds like an OD'd tone, or an OD'd tone with the attack and shimmer of clean. Amazing.

I'm so hooked. I'm going to feel naked if I ever have to run just one amp now.

 

[That90'sGuy]

Re: Induced Latency when Bi-Amping

The two amps have such a different tonal characteristic but they blend extremely well.

The Bogner has a much wider frequency footprint, but it's pretty even across that footprint. A huge, thick, clear sound. The Splawn has a narrower footprint with lots of peaks and valleys to the EQ, especially in the mids, so that it almost sits "inside" the Bogner's tone and augments the midrange and adds a lot of harmonics to the overall sound.

I've set it up so the Splawn's clean channel is just dead quiet so I can mute it with the footswitch and leave the Bogner running. I use the Bogner's clean channel when I need that sound. The biggest surprise was running the Splawn dirty and the Bogner clean, especially on the neck pickup. Talk about a big, rich sound! It's like a clean tone that sustains and responds like an OD'd tone, or an OD'd tone with the attack and shimmer of clean. Amazing.

I'm so hooked. I'm going to feel naked if I ever have to run just one amp now.

I'm too scared to try that for fear that I'll need it and then I'd need to drag around two amps for me. :wall:

 

[Lazarus1140]

Re: Induced Latency when Bi-Amping

My amps are nowhere near the level of gear you're talking about, but I am still totally sold on a two amp rig. My Deluxe Memory Man has a dry output that I run to a 5 watt Class A amp while the wet signal runs to a 45 watt 6L6 class A/B. I don't switch between the amps at all. Whatever I add on the front end like overdrive or compression or flanging effects both amps. The delay and tremolo miss the Class A, but the blend of the two very different amp voices is seductive at any volume, clean or driven.

 

[mediumpimpin]

Re: Induced Latency when Bi-Amping

Dude you have one of the sickest rigs out there, I'm seriously jealous. If I did it my my, I'd probly get a thunderverb instead of the splawn, but that's just cuz I love oranges. Have you posted any clips of you playing thru that setup? I bet it's hard to play thru anything else now that you've played the SPLAWGNER, lol.

 

[sosomething]

Re: Induced Latency when Bi-Amping

Dude you have one of the sickest rigs out there, I'm seriously jealous. If I did it my my, I'd probly get a thunderverb instead of the splawn, but that's just cuz I love oranges. Have you posted any clips of you playing thru that setup? I bet it's hard to play thru anything else now that you've played the SPLAWGNER, lol.

Thanks man! No clips yet, but the time is nighe because today my band starts getting ready to track the guitar tracks on our full length. We finished up tracking the drums in the studio yesterday... talk about a huge drum sound... my God. It's like the Black Album almost. Just huge, huge drum sounds. So I'm very excited to swathe the whole thing in massive guitar tones.

I'm too scared to try that for fear that I'll need it and then I'd need to drag around two amps for me. :wall:

I have, in effect, screwed myself. Dragging around one half stack is a big enough pain in the rear. Now I've got another head and a 2x12 to worry about as well.

My amps are nowhere near the level of gear you're talking about, but I am still totally sold on a two amp rig. My Deluxe Memory Man has a dry output that I run to a 5 watt Class A amp while the wet signal runs to a 45 watt 6L6 class A/B. I don't switch between the amps at all. Whatever I add on the front end like overdrive or compression or flanging effects both amps. The delay and tremolo miss the Class A, but the blend of the two very different amp voices is seductive at any volume, clean or driven.

Cool! You're running more of a wet/dry rig than I am - not completely, but I'll bet the tremolo and delay on one amp only really adds a ton of depth to the sound.