Show us your stereo, w/d and w/d/w rigs!

[Sirion]

So, I will be getting an extension cab later this summer to run with my JVM205C, and as I have plenty of power amps lying about, I'm definitely going to set it up as a w/d rig.

Here, I was just curious to see what the rest of you are running. What do you use the different "channels" (for want of a better term) for? What does it do better than a regular mono rig? I have a pretty good idea about how I want to set it up, but it is nevera bad idea to hear what other people are doing.

 

[Little Pigbacon]

Re: Show us your stereo, w/d and w/d/w rigs!

How dry is dry, anyway? It’s not clean, is it?

 

[Sirion]

Re: Show us your stereo, w/d and w/d/w rigs!

Well, I'd say that any w/w, w/w/w or whatever rig is fine as well, as long as it is doing something beyond regular mono.

 

[dystrust]

Re: Show us your stereo, w/d and w/d/w rigs!

How dry is dry, anyway? It’s not clean, is it?

No, he means an amp or cab with no effects.

I set up a w/d rig for a while in the Summer of 2009, but I didn't care for how hifi it sounded. I also wasn't crazy about the idea of hauling that much extra hardware, so it never left the rehearsal space.

 

[ErikH]

Re: Show us your stereo, w/d and w/d/w rigs!

Can't say I've ever ran a W/D setup before. However, to get that with your amp, as you probably know already, you'll send from the Preamp Out to the external power amp and then to the extension cab. BUT, if you use the effects built in to the amp, they will probably feed to that Preamp Out feed as well giving you a W/W setup. You'd need to run your amp dry and have an external effects unit before the power amp to get the desired results. You have to completely separate the amp and effects to do this, and it's usually post-amp where it happens.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Show us your stereo, w/d and w/d/w rigs!

I generally do stereo out of my AX8 into our PA. Each side gets a different modeled cabinet. It sounds really good. I don't think if I were using a conventional rig, it would be stereo- way too much to carry for me!

 

[justFred]

Re: Show us your stereo, w/d and w/d/w rigs!

Stereo is sooo old....gotta get working on a 5.1 surround set up...will check back when I figure out what I’m talkin’ about...

 

[jeremy]

Re: Show us your stereo, w/d and w/d/w rigs!

i love the idea of it but im way to lazy to carry that much stuff. last night was an outdoor gig, tonight good size music venue, tomorrow big bike rally outside, sunday bar gig. deluxe reverb, overdrive pedal, and guitar for all of em no way id want to carry two or three setups that much but a good w/d/w rig sounds awesome

 

[Sirion]

Re: Show us your stereo, w/d and w/d/w rigs!

Can't say I've ever ran a W/D setup before. However, to get that with your amp, as you probably know already, you'll send from the Preamp Out to the external power amp and then to the extension cab. BUT, if you use the effects built in to the amp, they will probably feed to that Preamp Out feed as well giving you a W/W setup. You'd need to run your amp dry and have an external effects unit before the power amp to get the desired results. You have to completely separate the amp and effects to do this, and it's usually post-amp where it happens.

I do indeed know. For the time being I will most likely split the signal in the effects loop, although I might experiment with a Suhr ISO Line Out, which taps part of the signal post-power amp, at some point (it might be possible to get a more tube-like response from a lighter solid-state power amp this way). There are no effects in the amp itself save a reverb.

 

[Sirion]

Re: Show us your stereo, w/d and w/d/w rigs!

i love the idea of it but im way to lazy to carry that much stuff. last night was an outdoor gig, tonight good size music venue, tomorrow big bike rally outside, sunday bar gig. deluxe reverb, overdrive pedal, and guitar for all of em no way id want to carry two or three setups that much but a good w/d/w rig sounds awesome

That is fair enough. That said, I wonder if people overestimate how much extra gear is required. Granted, you will always need the extra cabinet. Beyond that, however, all one really needs is an extra power amp, at least if one runs effects after the preamp, and those are getting really small (SD Power Stage anyone? ). For myself, I got tired of the limitation of a pedalboard and ditched it for a rack solution some time back, so there really wouldn't be any extra boxes involved beyond the second cab here.

 

[SlyFoxx]

Re: Show us your stereo, w/d and w/d/w rigs!

Never fooled with any kind of stereo live but in the attic I've got quite a few options.







I can mic a cab and/or run direct to the board. From there it can get routed to the Elac towers and sub or the Equator D5' or to the other side of the room to the Yamaha's or the EV sx300's. I have a lexicon fx unit in the rack that I'll run in dual mono to get delay out of one engine and reverb out of the other. Having a large mixer I can now send anything anywhere...delay to one side of the room, reverb to the other...whatever you like. 400ms delay to one side, 800 to the other. Add another fx unit and you can get really whacked out. Run the reverb through a chorus...no problem. Pitch shift a reverb return? Have at it. Pitch shift your delay repeats up an octave or down? Now we're talking!

One lovely trick is to add massive amounts of low end to the reverb. Guitar cabs start giving up at 70hz or so but distorted guitar can have all kinds of info down through 20 or 40hz. Bend a string up to meet its neighbor in unison....just before you get them exactly matched all sorts of beating goes on waaayyyy down low. If you've got a good subwoofer you can reproduce that stuff and the eq at the desk can really shape the sound too. Having all that extra low end can give you a kind of "rumbling of distant thunder" sort of thing.

 

[ErikH]

Re: Show us your stereo, w/d and w/d/w rigs!

I do indeed know. For the time being I will most likely split the signal in the effects loop, although I might experiment with a Suhr ISO Line Out, which taps part of the signal post-power amp, at some point (it might be possible to get a more tube-like response from a lighter solid-state power amp this way). There are no effects in the amp itself save a reverb.

The ISO line out would work. Since your amp has a load on it already from the speakers, you shouldn't need to connect anything to the speaker out and you can tap off one of the other speaker outs. That would give you exactly what you need.

 

[NecroPolo]

Re: Show us your stereo, w/d and w/d/w rigs!

In the bands where I'm a single guitarist I'm always on the mission to make my guitar more 3D live.

A decade ago (with functional spine) I used two half-stacks, a Marshall to side A and generally speaking something else to side B. The guitar signal was split with some chorus pedal, with very subtle settings. I think the most effective stereoiser was a Rocktron Tsunami in ambient delay mode. Crushing. For spine, too.

A couple of times I made some sort of mid-side thing. I used a splitter where branch "A" went straight into a Marshall half-stack and branch "B" ran into a guitar floorboard unit with amp/cab sim and gentle stereo chorus engaged (things like POD XT / AX3000G / Boss GT, you get the idea). The PA got 3 signals: the Marshall rig through an SM57 to be mixed to the middle + two outputs from the floorboard through a stereo DI box, to be hard panned L/R. Smashing. Still too heavy.

These days I'm buliding this one:



It is a simple suitcase DI stage rig using a TC MIMIQ that slaps the signal in two for the AMT preamps. Their hardwired CAB SIM outputs run into a stereo DI box and that's it, it goes directly to the PA and compact FRFR wedge(s) from there. It is straightforward as hell.

 

[NegativeEase]

Re: Show us your stereo, w/d and w/d/w rigs!

I'd be curious what the different goals of a multi channel or stereo rigs people post are.

Mincer's is obvious -he's creating stereo for a stereo PA for a live audience.

But I imagine for most clubs or venues with a house PA, stereo may only benefit the band onstage or maybe no one. -so are they for recording, for blending, or for other things?

 

[NegativeEase]

Re: Show us your stereo, w/d and w/d/w rigs!

My favorite tones (high gain rhythm guitar) often come from two or more complementary amps blended together. So I’m not looking for a stereo image or anything like that.

yep, That's why I usually do it if I do it, but with "Stereo" in the thread title, I wanted to hear about uses for sure.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Show us your stereo, w/d and w/d/w rigs!

If I am patching into a club's mono PA, I run mono. Most festivals I play at with provided PA are in stereo, though.

 

[Sirion]

Re: Show us your stereo, w/d and w/d/w rigs!

I'd be curious what the different goals of a multi channel or stereo rigs people post are.

Mincer's is obvious -he's creating stereo for a stereo PA for a live audience.

But I imagine for most clubs or venues with a house PA, stereo may only benefit the band onstage or maybe no one. -so are they for recording, for blending, or for other things?

I would primarily use mine for mixing effected and un-effected versions of the same amp signal. This, incidentally, is one of the places where having a digital multi-fx rig can benefit one greatly: set up patches for both occasions, and once you do switching to mono where necessary does not even require changing a single cable.

 

[NegativeEase]

Re: Show us your stereo, w/d and w/d/w rigs!

If I am patching into a club's mono PA, I run mono. Most festivals I play at with provided PA are in stereo, though.

Yeah I would say stereo is pretty easy to come by in a rental PA situation like festivals or events -where stereo DJ audio will also be needed.

So I can see utilizing stereo effects in these scenarios would be a lot of fun.

 

[NecroPolo]

Re: Show us your stereo, w/d and w/d/w rigs!

If I am patching into a club's mono PA, I run mono. Most festivals I play at with provided PA are in stereo, though.

Absolutely valid point about the mono system, still it's a little strange to me to hear about something like that now'days. I think I met a mono PA last time somewhere around the early '90s or so.

(...) But I imagine for most clubs or venues with a house PA, stereo may only benefit the band onstage or maybe no one (...)

Of course it makes a difference. For years and years of testing during soundchecks, playing in both single and dual guitar bands, going mono and stereo, experimenting with single (mono) and multi mics (stereo) and different type of pannings, trying to put the "album wide" guitars to stage environment and such things, I concluded that to my best knowledge the best solution I could come up with is having two very tight rhythm guitarists playing two slightly different rigs, panned L/R (tailored to the room/stage acoustics). When I play as single I try to emulate an another me on the other side of the PA. Don't think about ping-pong delays, ambient reverbs and such, I mean simple baseline rock rhythm guitar riffs.

For recording I think the best solution I can come up with is to record separate takes to the left and the right instead of a mono guitar tricked into stereo. A stereoised single guitar works and is okay-ish but it will also add some artificial flavour while 2 separate and tight R/L takes remain natural. There are many exceptions (Van Halen) who make an awesome superwide stereo guitar field from a mono source but that never worked for me for recording.

 

[NegativeEase]

Re: Show us your stereo, w/d and w/d/w rigs!

Absolutely valid point about the mono system, still it's a little strange to me to hear about something like that now'days. I think I met a mono PA last time somewhere around the early '90s or so.



Of course it makes a difference. For years and years of testing during soundchecks, playing in both single and dual guitar bands, going mono and stereo, experimenting with single (mono) and multi mics (stereo) and different type of pannings, trying to put the "album wide" guitars to stage environment and such things, I concluded that to my best knowledge the best solution I could come up with is having two very tight rhythm guitarists playing two slightly different rigs, panned L/R (tailored to the room/stage acoustics). When I play as single I try to emulate an another me on the other side of the PA. Don't think about ping-pong delays, ambient reverbs and such, I mean simple baseline rock rhythm guitar riffs.

are you saying you were playing clubs/venues with Stereo PA? What kind of clubs? because all of it works with a Stereo PA -my question isn't for that of course because you can weight the effect in a pan and take advantage of stereo,

but in my experience, most or many Rock clubs do not run true stereo and most professional FOH mixers -may mix in stereo or to dual mono but the most regular clubs aren't doing true stereo -for a multitude of reasons. - but event spaces, small bars with small PAs, and festival event PAs and things like this stereo is pretty standard. So my point was -if you playing Mono clubs, is there still benefit to running stereo on stage for the group or do you abandon it?