1 guitar to 2 different amps?

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rondo

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I read once that my favorite guitarist, Vernon Reid of Living Colour, used to run the same guitar signal to two different amplifiers. And then have two different effects on each amp. Like one amp would be distorted, and the other would be clean. Each amp would be miced seperately to it's own track. I believe this is called "Running Parallel".

So my question is this: Does this method do anything negative to a recording? I keep hearing about signal cancellation and things like that in other forums, but wouldn't this be the same as recording two guitar tracks?

Any input to this newbie would be appreciated!
 
You're refering to phase cancellation. That would occur if the two recorded signals where 180 degrees out of phase with each other. And depending on the phase relationship of the two signals, the phase differential other than 180 degrees can create what's known as comb filtering, which can either work for you of against you. As long as the two amps were spaced more than three times the distance apart as the distance the mics are from the source, you shouldn't have a problem with it. Use your ears if you do this and listen to see if it sounds wrong to you. If it sounds good, it is good.
 
How you do it: you just use an Y cable, that is the signal goes from your guitar to 2 inputs, easy as that.

Problems with this: you can get groundloops. Both amps are grounded, and using the Y cable, you also connect the ground of both amps. The solution is to disconnect it somewhere. Pretty easy. But not as easy as it seems, one of my friends had a problem with this and had to disconnect the ground of one of his amps, which can be pretty dangerous... handle with care...

cancelation etc: dunno... don't think it would be that much of a problem. Depends on the positioning of the mics, the delay in your amps and effects, ... But you can work around that with the phase-switch...

Difference between this and recording 2 guitars is that the signal source is completely different, and doesn't just have other coloration (coloration of your amp us just adding/rearranging harmonics)...
 
I actually did use this setup for a while and had no problems. BUT I wasnt recording. It was just for jamming. I liked having the option of having one amp distorted with a clean amp backing it up.

I dont think I had a problem with the ground... tho I really dont know what the problem is to look for it.... What kind of problems did your buddy have?

Is there something particular I should be listening for (for both the ground issue and phase cancellation)?

Or are there just too many variables? (Which is what I think the answer is).

Thanks!
 
No, not too many variables. If you have a ground loop you'll hear a humm that won't go away. You can avoid that by making sure both amps are plugged into the same power source. That'll generally do it but if you still have a humm problem you can put a ground lift on the patch cable that links the two amps. A lot or direct boxes have one built into them and you could put that in line on this cable or you can even modify the cable in question with a ground lift. It involves interupting the shield of the cable with a resister at the point where it's soldered to one of the connectors.
If you have phase problems on the recorded tracks, when you pan the two tracks to mono it'll become apparent if there's something wrong. It'll sound tubey and strange or the bass response will go away.
 
Voila.... Trackrat said it all...

Rat, are you smart too?? Just a little, I mean? :cool:
 
Naa, I ain't a smart man...and that's all I have to say about that. I wish I was smart.
 
Cool! Makes sense now ....

I've been in a band for a long time now, but am just getting started in this "home recording" arena.

This forum is the best!!!! Thanks all!!

BTW - I like that word "tubey" :) cool name for a band! Tubey and the Blowfish ??? No - wait - that's already taken ....
 
I had a friend in the late 80's who was into this big wall of sound type of thing. He played similiar to Johnny Marr kinda stuff. He used 5 amps and had different effects through each one.

As I recall he had 2 JC120's, 1 VOX AC30, 1 mini VOX, and a Fender. We never really recorded him but for hitting the bong and jamming it was an amazing sound. You should have seen the look on the soundman's face when he tried to explain the rig at a live show. The soundman was pretty pissed that he wanted 5 mics instead of the usual 1.
 
5 AMPS!!!! HOLY CRAP!!! Really makes for an original sound tho.

I was just playing through a Peavy Backstage Plus and a Fender Princeston Chorus. I could toggle the chrous and distortion on and off for the Fender while have a "smaller, tighter" sound through the Peavy. PLUS I could distort the crap out of the Fender and still have the Peavy to punch through with a clean tone. Not a huge monsterous sounds, but it made for some really interesting stuff.

Now I only play through the Fender, mostly because of the size constraint of our practice area (10' x 10'), but there are still some tones that I used to get with the two amps that I cant get with my Fender and effects .... it is fun to mess with tho.

I can imagine that the 5 amp setup would be really hard to record. Would be an interesting mixing session!!!
 
Tom Hicks said:
Shades of SRV and Eric Johnson!
Click to expand...

shades of... I don't think EJ or SRV ever ran all the amps at once.
I run a JC120 and a Marshall at once occasionally, but mainly for cool spacial stereo effects. Sometimes it's pretty hard to dial in a good sound for both and then have them sound good on their own as well.

didn't Brian May run a bunch of AC30's at once on stage?
 
zappa used lots of amps too

I read that Zappa (Frank) used a slew of amps for live too. He had some kind of custom multi switcher and used different combinations of amps for different effects.

I found the article....Guitar Player October '95(paraphrased)

"On the '88 tour Frank used a combination of Marshall, Carvin, Seymore Duncan, and Acoustic 100 wattheadsin stereo and mono configurations. All of the amps had parralleled, hot-rodded inputs doubled into the the bass channel, and each setup had a characteristic tone that Frank could blend in or isolate at will using his relay switcher.
For a nasty tone, a single Marshall JCM 800 drove two 1x12 cabs. The wet signal from the (pedal effects) drove a pair of Marshalls into ttwo open back 4x12 cabs. The clean signal from the Roland GP-8 was fed from two Carvins into twp 4x12 Marshall cabs. Another wet signal from the GP-8 and DDL's was sent to a pair of Acoustic amps into two closed-back 1x12 cabs. All of the speakers were kept under the band riser pointing towards the rear mic'd with Sen.421's - and it was LOUD>"

.....Of couse Zappa recorded all of his shows but Rondo you could try recording a nice clean (possibly direct) track and then run the signal out to what ever amps you might have of be able to borrow.
I like to do this for experimenting and learning mic technique.
It gives you a fixed reference point and if you have enuf track space you can always blend the different sounds later.


....-mike
 
JR -

Yes, Briam May did (still does, AFAIK) use 12 (!!!) Ac-30s on stage, but the fact fo the matter is, "only" 3 of them were active and miced. The others were pretty much just to make it look big.
He did use weird effects with those 3 amps. One would play a dleayed signal, and the others won't, and so on. A good example of it is Brighton Rock on Live Killers. Awsome guitar work.

Oren
 
au contrair mon frer...
Last time I saw EJ here in town he was running two plexis and two deluxes.My info on SRV came from a Guitar Player type article where they were discussing his recording with a combination of amps simultaniously including Marshall,Dumble and Fender.VERY high SPLs.
 
I find it interesting how many people use this kind of a set-up.

Anyone know of any articles, techniques, or tutorials that deal with recording a multi-amp setup?
 
I used to mix a saturated distortion into one channel of my twin and a tube crunch thru the other....best guitar sound i ever pulled.
 
interesting idea .... I'll have to try that on my Fender amp.

No I've got myself thinking about going back to that setup :)
 
I guess a lot more people use this type of setup than I thought .... leave it to those big artists to make their setup so crazy that nobody can mimic it!!! Oh the joy of sound!
 
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