I've gone back to the duel amp thing, but no longer the duel half stack insanity of my twenties. 50 watt Traynor with a 2x12 cab and a 1x12 combo amp (a poor man's tone dentist amp: the Dr Z Jetta). It's been really fun. The stereo delay feels exciting when I kick it on and I don't have to struggle to hear myself on weird stages.

I had the combo stacked on the 2x12 but lately I've been spreading them out to opposite sides of the stage for better power trio width. My guitar nerd friends have been saying that they noticed how great it sounds. Only catch is I have to really watch the volume cause I have way more power than I really need and our band is supposed to only be kind of loud, not crushing.

I'm still running 3 Randall Switchmasters, and they all have their own quirks that make each one different. I think this is mainly because they all have different speakers in them, and as we all know speaker selection is a major part of an amp's tonality. Each head also seems to have different properties, which may have to do with the lifespan of their components or something, but their sweet spots are not all in the same place. Also, the fact that two speakers cannot exist in the same space and therefore will interact differently with the room and mics means that having different types of amps is not necessary to get a good multidimensional sound.

losthighway wrote: Sat Dec 09, 2023 11:59 pm The stereo delay feels exciting

Creating natural chorus between two amps is also fun. One amp has vibrato on it and the other doesnt and voila, chorus in mid-air.

I never really messed with the Rick-o-sound output on my 4003, so I set it up today. Bridge p/u to the B-15, neck to the Traynor YBA-3A into the SVT-212AV I just picked up. Sounds huge, especially when you switch in a very slow & shallow chorus on the bridge signal. Need to try messing with a delay there also.

ChudFusk wrote: Sun Dec 10, 2023 6:53 am I'm still running 3 Randall Switchmasters, and they all have their own quirks that make each one different. I think this is mainly because they all have different speakers in them, and as we all know speaker selection is a major part of an amp's tonality. Each head also seems to have different properties, which may have to do with the lifespan of their components or something, but their sweet spots are not all in the same place. Also, the fact that two speakers cannot exist in the same space and therefore will interact differently with the room and mics means that having different types of amps is not necessary to get a good multidimensional sound.

thank god you're running these all at the same time and not switching between them.

Had a crazy dual amp thing happening here, hoping one of you smart people can tell me how this was possible:

Guitar--pedals--JHS active ab/y box--amps

Amp 1 is a Mesa mk5
Amp 2 is a Mesa studio preamp going into the effects return of a Mesa studio .22

Both of those are going through Bugera power soaks on the way to the cabs. I take line outs from the Bugeras into the computer and use speaker IRs.

If I played amp 2 by itself, no problem. But if I played amp 1 by itself, I was getting signal on channels 1 AND 2 on the computer. WTF? If I played both amps together, same thing, channel 2 would be a mix of both amps. HOW? Everything was fine coming through the cabs, the problem was just on the computer.

Troubleshooting this was a hella PITA but I traced the problem to the Mesa studio preamp, if I plugged directly into the studio .22 everything worked fine.

I took the top off the preamp and the problem went away. Uh, ok. I put the top back on the preamp but not screwed in and it was still fine so that's how I left it.

Hopefully that all makes sense. Any ideas?

TylerDeadPine wrote: Thu Mar 07, 2024 6:38 pm

ChudFusk wrote: Sun Dec 10, 2023 6:53 am I'm still running 3 Randall Switchmasters, and they all have their own quirks that make each one different. I think this is mainly because they all have different speakers in them, and as we all know speaker selection is a major part of an amp's tonality. Each head also seems to have different properties, which may have to do with the lifespan of their components or something, but their sweet spots are not all in the same place. Also, the fact that two speakers cannot exist in the same space and therefore will interact differently with the room and mics means that having different types of amps is not necessary to get a good multidimensional sound.

thank god you're running these all at the same time and not switching between them.

I considered switching between them, at least for recording, so I can have clean/dirty/excremental. But I prefer the 2.1 stereo setup (the cleanest one acts like a sub and the other 2 are L/R) that I'm running now.

ChudFusk wrote: Sat Mar 09, 2024 9:19 am

TylerDeadPine wrote: Thu Mar 07, 2024 6:38 pm

ChudFusk wrote: Sun Dec 10, 2023 6:53 am I'm still running 3 Randall Switchmasters, and they all have their own quirks that make each one different. I think this is mainly because they all have different speakers in them, and as we all know speaker selection is a major part of an amp's tonality. Each head also seems to have different properties, which may have to do with the lifespan of their components or something, but their sweet spots are not all in the same place. Also, the fact that two speakers cannot exist in the same space and therefore will interact differently with the room and mics means that having different types of amps is not necessary to get a good multidimensional sound.

thank god you're running these all at the same time and not switching between them.

I considered switching between them, at least for recording, so I can have clean/dirty/excremental. But I prefer the 2.1 stereo setup (the cleanest one acts like a sub and the other 2 are L/R) that I'm running now.

you would need a switch-master for your switchmasters to switch your master switchmaster

Bumping to share my recent experience going two-amp on guitar.

My two amps are a Quilter Aviator Cub and a Quilter Pro Block 200/BlockDock 12HD combo. For most shows I’ve played live I’ve only gone one amp, but recently my band and I have had concerns about my volume getting washed out by everything else on stage.

Several months ago I bought a TC Electronic Mimiq to split my signal to a dual-amp setup but also get an ADT/“Two Guitarists Playing In Unison” sound, somewhat akin to if you split to two amps with a delay with one output set dry and the other with a slight delay.

I’ve tried it a handful of times but with a batch of several shows coming up and me not wanting to buy a 4x12, I think it’s time to get used to it. The only time I tried it out live I had both amps right next to each other and I couldn’t really hear much of a difference. At our last practice this week I set up both amps with the Mimiq and spread them apart about 1 foot, tiltback legs on both amps up and then angled inward slightly towards each other. In terms of volume and stage coverage it definitely made a difference. The Mimiq effect does happen to be something you can tell more of when you A/B it on and off.

We’ll see how it goes at our next show to see if I have enough volume and coverage on stage, and if the Mimiq effect makes a substantial impact on my tone but so far I’m pretty happy with it.

One thing to note - there are no phase or ground lift options on the Mimiq as you may find on an A/B/Y switch. I haven’t heard any obvious problems using this setup FWIW and hopefully that carries through.

So, after somehow killing 2 morley ab/y pedals, I've been on the lookout for a better solution than what I have, and read about the radial shotgun yesterday morning on the reddits, so I started checking it out. Lo and behold there was a used one at a GC not far from me, so I went by and grabbed it last night. Able to run 4 signals buffered, with ground lift and phase switch.

https://www.radialeng.com/product/shotgun

Big, big difference from the Morley. I was running 3 amps last night - traynor mark III full stack 8 x 12's, and AC30 combo and a super reverb, each with their own independent signal chain running through a couple fuzzes, delays and phasers. Volume pedal at the front of the chain.

The phase flip and ground lift really help a ton. It just seems like less signal loss, I'm sure it's the buffering doing it, but man. Very glad I did this, it's just too bad the only walls I'm collapsing are at my practice space lol.