any opinions? im tinkering with the idea of adding another side to my current rig. just thought id ask you guys before i start shelling out more money on stuff i may or may not need.

i like the idea of Steve's stage setup, one side semi clean one side totally overblown. sounds like an interesting concept.

lates

Is that really Steve's setup?

That's not what it seems like in my mind anyway.......just thinking of his sound.

If adding another side to what you've got running sounds good then you should do it.

well im not talking specificly about Steves sound but more his signal path and it being split into essentially 2 seperate amp rigs. i might give it a try if i can find another cab and amp of decent quality cheap. so far the only con i can think of is more gear to lug around haha.

Lot's of people do it this way (Tool for exemple, who use - i've read this - 3 different amp at the same time for the dist part).
I've saw a good hard core band a few months ago : Kylesa and the 2 guitarist plays with two amps (Krank + Marshall if I remember well).

Plusses:

Different range of sounds
Louder

Minuses:

Can be too loud
Heavier/ bigger pain in the ass to gig with


I just about always play through two amps. I like having a setup where I can drop in some distortion or boost on just one amp, or where rolling back the volume knob cleans up one amp more than it does the other.

Is this proper to call it "biamping" though? I've never heard the word "biamp" used outside the context of a crossover network with one amp for the low frequency and one for the high. I guess "bi" means two, and "amp" means amp and everything. It just seems weird to call it biamping, rather than "playing through two amps".

i use two amps together, ivp through a 10 + 15. 64 bassman through 2 x 12. i find the highs and mids on the ivp are awsome. very defined whilst still being driven but the lows dont seem to be much to speak of. the bassman has awsome lows and the most beautiful fuzzy tone when cranked (being 50 watts its not too loud either), so together its like the best of both worlds. lugging is alot lighter as the boxes are smaller than a quad. but there is more gear to lug.
possible earth loops can be a problem but there are ways around it. in-house engineers that dont have an extra mics and leads (or say they dont because they are lazy) to mic up both boxes are a pain in the arse. looking in to getting my own mics so this wont be a problem.
cheers
Gary

Hey, Gary, what kind of power amp do you use along with the IVP?
I also have an IVP and I'm looking for a good power amp, that is not too expensive.
Any advice?

Gary,

Does it bother you that you are basically a clone of Steve? A carbon copy of his equipment, and his music? Wouldn't you rather figure out who you are, and try and be you, rather than try and be a xerox copy of him?

Scott

Pros - sounds better

Cons - ground loop hum from some venues

Actual bi-amping (as Scott/TMH has noted) -

Trace Elliot made a power amp for guitar (I think) called the RA 500 Super X. It's a dual channel amp that could be run in stereo, bridge or bi-amp mode. I run a Marshall head's line out into channel A and use the thing in bi-amp mode. (The power on this Marshall amp is then run into a 4 x 12, but a pre-amp would work just as well). It has a fixed frequency crossover that happens to work well with a heavily distorted guitar.

The biggest advantage to this approach is that it allows me to play with the relative power levels of the hi and lo channels on the power amp, adding definition in whichever part of the frequency spectrum I want to emphasize. Figure it's almost like another type of tone control on your amp. Any potential phase issues are insignificant to my ears.

It's a lot to lug around, but I don't care. We've got much worse shit than that in my band.

= Justin