who runs 2 amps at once?

[ksmith63]

well i am in a new band and i am the only guitar player. the other day it occured to me that i 1. have a delay pedal with wet & dry outputs and 2. i have 2 amps i can use.

been using the budda dry and with both clean and dirty channels. the line 6 is on clean only and wet. MAN THIS SOUNDS COOL! the distortion has an extra clean 'chimeyness' to it and the clean sound is really 3-D.:wow: also the effects arent overpowering + mainly add some background atmosphere.

if you get the chance try something similar. i am never going back to just 1 amp.

 

[jeremy]

Re: who runs 2 amps at once?

running two amps sounds awesome but volume and me being lazy usually keeps me to only one. i used two for years, first as clean and dirty (or both at once ) then one on each side of the stage which was very cool.

 

[HowlinFox]

Re: who runs 2 amps at once?

if you get the chance try something similar. i am never going back to just 1 amp.

Most don't.

 

[Tor]

Re: who runs 2 amps at once?

Uh-oh....... Once I read your thread title, I thought 'I've got two amps right now (one will go out for the choir I play in tomorrow), and I have a DD-20 and a Verbzilla, both with stereo outputs. I have never tried stereo setups before. Hmmmmmmm.'

Thanks!

 

[J Moose]

Re: who runs 2 amps at once?

I used to run a Twin reverb reissue & a 50 watt JCM800 & 4x12 cab as clean/dirty with an Ernie Ball stereo volume pedal set to pan between them...

Each side had it's own delay/FX too... sounded great!

Way too much krap to lug around for the most part and it took up too much physical space on some stages...

Sometimes I still run two amps, AC30 on my side & a Pro Jr or something small on the other side of the stage as a monitor for them. Works great in smaller clubs too... fills the room nicely.

 

[sosomething]

Re: who runs 2 amps at once?

Get back to me on this....

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: who runs 2 amps at once?

Way too much krap to lug around for the most part and it took up too much physical space on some stages...

+1 . . . I only had to set up a two amp rig a few times before I decided that it was too much of a pain for me . . .

 

[ksmith63]

Re: who runs 2 amps at once?

Way too much krap to lug around for the most part and it took up too much physical space on some stages...

i went from a 2 guitar band to a 1 guitar band. all the equipment is mine and i was the only one who could set everything up correctly anyway. it will pretty much be the same amount of work....

 

[ratherdashing]

Re: who runs 2 amps at once?

I played a few shows with a Mesa DC-3 and a Fender HR Deluxe through a Danelectro Cool Cat (a seriously underappreciated chorus pedal). I wired it like this:

Guitar -> Pedals -> DC-3 input -> DC-3 fx send -> Cool Cat => DC-3 fx return / HRD fx return

Basically, the DC-3's preamp was acting as the preamp for the entire rig, and the HRD was running as a power amp only.

The tone was MASSIVE. I loved it. You wouldn't know I was using two 1x12 combos. The power amp of the DC-3 (4xEL84) perfectly complemented the power amp of the HRD (2x6L6), which handled the MESA's preamp very nicely. Even with the chorus off, it was a seriously big tone. With the chorus on, it was stereolicious.

I concluded at that moment that I'd much rather have two small tube amps than one big one. Not only can you get seriously nice tone by running them stereo, you also have a great deal of versatility in terms of the spaces you can play in. If it's a small club, bring one amp. If it's bigger, bring both. No need to haul a huge amp everywhere only to have to turn it way down most of the time.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: who runs 2 amps at once?

I've been playing through two amps at once for many years. It's the only way to go, IMO.

I tend to play through two smaller 22 watt amps, like two Fender Deluxes or Deluxe Reverbs. Lately I've been playing through a Deluxe Reverb and a Princeton Reverb.

Only thing to watch out for are ground loops or one amp being out of phase with the other.

The way to tell if they're in phase is: place both amps face to face and see if the tone gets thinner when the two speakers are placed right up against each other. If the tone gets thinner reverse the wires on one speaker only to correct the problem.

Some thimes the out of phase issue is because the speakers are wired out of phase but sometimes it's because one amp has one more gain stage in the preamp.

Lew

 

[J Moose]

Re: who runs 2 amps at once?

I
The way to tell if they're in phase is: place both amps face to face and see if the tone gets thinner when the two speakers are placed right up against each other. If the tone gets thinner reverse the wires on one speaker only to correct the problem.

Some thimes the out of phase issue is because the speakers are wired out of phase but sometimes it's because one amp has one more gain stage in the preamp.

I dunno about gain staging there... more like amp design.

Anyway, an easy way to check phase if you can see the speaker is to thump on the low strings or put a 'sharp' signal through there (like a snare from a drum machine) and look at which way the speaker moves... in or out.

Ideally you want to be pushing out rather then sucking in...

Touching a 9 volt battery to the speaker leads will reveal it as well...

 

[jerryjg]

Re: who runs 2 amps at once?

Why not-a-mus?

 

[lex666]

Re: who runs 2 amps at once?

Yeah, I've done that before as an experiement and it blew me away. The sound was full and lush and had somewhat of a 'surround sound' effect.

Too bad my rehearsal space isn't bigger, I'd probably like to keep this set up running all the time if I could...

 

[Hot _Grits]

Re: who runs 2 amps at once?

I do for larger gigs. I'd love to for all gigs, but one of my bands is 9-12 piece, so stage space can be at a premium. It's more realistic (and suitable) for my four piece rock band.

 

[Dr.Mavashi]

Re: who runs 2 amps at once?

My project for next year is to run my AOR stereo with some mutant of an SLO kind into my 4X12.

 

[metalmike]

Re: who runs 2 amps at once?

this is a fun metal thing to do. I split the signal with a stereo effect (either a flanger pedal or a Rocktron) in the loop of a XXX, with one side going back to the loop return, and the other side going to a Roland Jazz Chorus 120, chorus on of course, and the Roland plays whatever channel the XXX is on. When I switch to the XXX clean channel, it's nice. The Roland does metal surprisingly well. Hearing myself through 3 types of speakers is cool: 4 Genz-Benz 75w, 2 Celestion Vintage 30s, and the Roland's stereo pair, which I guess are 60w each. Let's see, wattsat add up to, 300 + 120 + 120, I guess 540 watts?

It's all very 3-D. The Roland doesn't have to be turned up very much at all, just a little bell-like tone, but it adds a lot of open space to the sonic image. It's not very cold, either.

One day, I was feeling naughty. I split the guitar signal with a stereo flanger, and sent one side to the entire mess above, and the other side to a solid-state Ampeg SVT-400T bass amp, which drove a Paradise cab with Celestion 75s. It was just disgustingly big in the prettiest way. It was pure metal. The result was perfectly formed bricks in my shorts.

The flanger does not have to be on to split the signal, but the Rocktron does. I'm going to try the same thing with a Moog phaser and a delay instead.

I haven't been in a band for a while. This is my studio, and I get to be a mad scientist.

Hope this inspired at least one headbanger out there.

I guess I could have just written, "see my sig," and saved everyone some time.

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: who runs 2 amps at once?

I dunno about gain staging there... more like amp design.

I think it's similar to bridging the normal and vibrato channels on a Fender, the extra half tube of gain puts the signal out of phase.

Great post earlier, it sounds fun!

I've run my two amps at the same time a grand total of once. It was pretty heavenly, the chunk and grind of the Mesa compliments the crunch and muscle of the Splawn. Clean it was very three dimensional too.

I used to run two Line 6 Spyders in stereo, just to try out the stereo outputs on my pedals, some are much better than others.

 

[FAC]

Re: who runs 2 amps at once?

Yep. I am addicted to the two-amp setup. I have been running that way for the last two years. I generally use one for clean and one for dirty, but they are both on most of the time, just at different volumes. Having a little clean signal in the background of a distorted sound is simply mesmerizing, and visa versa. Adds a whole new dimension to the sound. Currently, I run a tweed deluxe style amp with a TopHat Club Royale (a "british" style amp, I suppose) and they complement each other beautifully...where one lacks, the other fills in. I'm hooked.

I use a Lehle Dual to switch between the two. It's a passive transformer isolated split so I don't usually have ground loop hum issues. In retrospect, it was kind of expensive for a passive split, but it works great.

 

[J Moose]

Re: who runs 2 amps at once?

I think it's similar to bridging the normal and vibrato channels on a Fender, the extra half tube of gain puts the signal out of phase.

Great post earlier, it sounds fun!

Ahhh... gain/amp design... Same sorta thing to me!

Anyway, my dual amp rig was lots of fun... A few years earlier I had been using a midi rig & really came to hate the 1/2 second mute between patch changes, even when the only thing changing were FX...

Having a clean/dirty pan was great... very organic. Delays from the dirty side & 'verbed cleans would spill over into each other & being able to "morph" between the modded Marshall grit & the sparkly blackface clean was amazing! Smooth, no huge "jump" like every channel switching rig I've played. If I were touring & had cartage I'd jump right back to that style rig without hesitation!

I still set that kind of thing from time to time anyway... But I'm just as content to carry one Rivera head and a 2x12 to the handful of gigs I still do every year!

Takes up less space in the car... lol

 

[12guitdown]

Re: who runs 2 amps at once?

Absolutely! Two amps are killer dude. I typically run one dry and one wet with the exception of delay, which isn't on all the time. Both amps are slightly broken up to begin with, so when I roll the vol. back to 8 or so, everything's clean. I run an Analogman chorus through the wet amp's effect loop(among others) and a Throbak Strangemaster boutique clone up front, through both. And can nail, almost, Rushs' Hemispheres sound. Incredibly HUGE SOUND!!! I have many other effects, some through the effects loop and some up front through both amps. For now this works for me.
The journey to find the ultimate tone is half the fun.