Page 2 of 2
Re: dual/stereo guitar rigs
Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2025 10:15 am
by DaveA
Kniferide wrote: Tue Jan 21, 2025 2:19 pm
I think I mentioned this in a Tech room thread but once I recorded a dude with a 3 amp rig that had different pedal setups for each amp with a fancy midi switcher to switch multiple shit on and off at the same time. The issue was, different pedals will flip your phase. So sometimes in the middle of a song, amp 3 would be 180 out form the other 2, then 2 would go in phase with 3, and 1 was out, then they all would be back in phase. I had to keep my ears on a swivel the whole time and cut and flip phase on portions of the tracks every time he hit his stupid switches. Add to this the bass player came in with a 70% is good enough but only played 56%, and it became one of the worst projects I've ever worked on. Crap.
On par with
The Adventures of Mixerman ^^^. Would read again!
I enjoy these kind of anecdotes, not so much because they're schadenfreude fodder, but because they make me feel quietly relieved not be involved in a convoluted production. Like paging through that book
The Worst Gig, which makes leading a simple life seem pretty pretty pretty good.
Re: dual/stereo guitar rigs
Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2025 11:18 am
by Frankie99
ChudFusk wrote: Tue Jan 21, 2025 3:12 pm
Plenty of ABY pedals and other switchers have phase switches on them nowadays so that shouldn’t have been an issue. If dude had an elaborate setup then he should have invested in phase correction.
I picked up a shotgun that has 3 (4?) outs and phase correction/grd lift for like $140 used. It's a proper investment if you're gonna be doing that kind of stuff. The ground lift alone....I mean, huge improvement.
Re: dual/stereo guitar rigs
Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2025 4:01 pm
by llllllllllllllllllll
Frankie99 wrote: Wed Jan 22, 2025 11:18 am
ChudFusk wrote: Tue Jan 21, 2025 3:12 pm
Plenty of ABY pedals and other switchers have phase switches on them nowadays so that shouldn’t have been an issue. If dude had an elaborate setup then he should have invested in phase correction.
I picked up a shotgun that has 3 (4?) outs and phase correction/grd lift for like $140 used. It's a proper investment if you're gonna be doing that kind of stuff. The ground lift alone....I mean, huge improvement.
Those are cool, but I don’t think it’s that easy. If your phase changes depending on what pedal is on at the time, correcting it still sounds like a mess with even a small pedalboard going out to a few amps.
You would have to assign the Shotgun outs to different effect pedals, correct phase, then break them out again to get to the multiple amps, maybe correcting phase again?
Re: dual/stereo guitar rigs
Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2025 10:17 pm
by Frankie99
I don't know enough to comment on that scenario specifically, just that this solution exists and for me, it works. My AB/Y sitch was wonky as shit, and humm-y as shit. Shotgun solved those issues, and I haven't noticed any pedal / phase interaction since I got the amps in line without anything engaged. YMMV.
Re: dual/stereo guitar rigs
Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2025 9:30 am
by Krev
An old bandmate used a Twin and Jazz Chorus in stereo. It didn't sound good, but likely could have if he had EQ'd them properly. I suggested getting a second Twin.
Re: dual/stereo guitar rigs
Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2025 7:52 pm
by losthighway
Krev wrote: Thu Jan 23, 2025 9:30 am
An old bandmate used a Twin and Jazz Chorus in stereo. It didn't sound good, but likely could have if he had EQ'd them properly. I suggested getting a second Twin.
Yeah, that's not the sweet and salty. It's just salty and salty, you need the tube amp to be mid heavy and bloom/saturate/compress. It's like using a black pen on a watercolor painting. Follow me for more guitar rig poetry.
Re: dual/stereo guitar rigs
Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2025 4:41 am
by twelvepoint
I had a JC77 for a while, but gave it to a friend. It was kinda cool, but I don’t quite get the love for a jazz chorus when a decent pedal and clean fender does 90% of that sound to my ears. The reverb was meh and the distortion actually sounded good but again, nothing better than what’s on my pedalboard right now, and I can easily swap it out. I think if you’re gonna do a dual amp setup, a JC is a bit “why bother” compared to a modern “fx plus clean amp” rig.
The times I’ve bothered to string up multiple amps, I think what I like quite a bit is simply the complexity of adding more speakers.
Re: dual/stereo guitar rigs
Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2025 1:42 pm
by Krev
losthighway wrote: Thu Jan 23, 2025 7:52 pm
Krev wrote: Thu Jan 23, 2025 9:30 am
An old bandmate used a Twin and Jazz Chorus in stereo. It didn't sound good, but likely could have if he had EQ'd them properly. I suggested getting a second Twin.
Yeah, that's not the sweet and salty. It's just salty and salty, you need the tube amp to be mid heavy and bloom/saturate/compress. It's like using a black pen on a watercolor painting. Follow me for more guitar rig poetry.
I think it would have worked better as an A/B setup, but he wasn't equipped to split up the effects. Distortion into a JC isn't a pleasing sound. He later had the Twin on a 4x12, and had no need to be that ear-splitting-ly loud.
Re: dual/stereo guitar rigs
Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2025 4:21 pm
by blnkbnkr
I experimented with using an EQD Swiss Things to run all the stereo FX split out to my main amp and a Quilter. It was more about the stereo spread than the tonal mixture, but now I want to try again with that in mind. Like, the main amp at its usual breakup settings, the Quilter scooped and clean. But then that'd probably ruin the ambient dreamscape.
In practice (and for practice), one combo amp is plenty because stairs.
Re: dual/stereo guitar rigs
Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2025 4:39 pm
by ChudFusk
It sounds like most folks here who tried this were going for a combination of sounds as opposed to a true stereo setup. I have four of the same amp so I'm not trying to get anything but a good wide stereophonic room-filling sound, which I think I got.