Tube Amp Question

[fender1999]

I recently bought a Fender '65 Deluxe Reverb Reissue and a friend showed me how you can "bridge" the normal and vibrato channels together. (By plugging your guitar into the normal channel/input one and then connecting normal channel/input two with the vibrato channel/input one.) Does anyone do this? What are the bennefits? Furthermore, how do you control the amp? Have any suggestions?

I'm new to tube amps but absolutely love the sound of this little hummer! Any help is much appreciated.

rjb

 

[foo]

It's been a while (a long while) but I believe that it gives you a 'master volume' type of setup, with the first channel (the one on the left) being the pre-amp and the main channel being the power amp. Basically it means you can control the distortion levels by putting the volume control on the 'pre-amp' high, and control the output volume with the volume control on the main amp.

It will not give you the 'sheets of sound' type distortion that is available these days from most amps, but will give you a fairly dirty overdriven type sound.

I think?

It is not something that is commonly done - using myself as an example, I have used tube amps for 20+ years and have never done it on a gig - so I guess I didn't like the sound when I tried it.

Your experience may be different.

Bottom line - play around with it and if you like the way it sounds - cool.
If you don't - don't do it.
Tube amps are pretty forgiving - you're very unlikely to do any damage to anything as long as you only plug a guitar into it.



foo

 

[Daddy-O]

You are basicaly slaving the vibrato channel to the clean channel and doing this will give you a way to have a type of master volume set up. However, because you are plugging into both input jacks on the clean side, the amp is mutted in the EQ range----kinda like turning the tone control down on you guitar. If you are needing better volume control---I would use a volume pedal and plug into the vibrato side of the amp aand forget that the clean side is even there.

 

[Major Tom]

This was a fairly common practice 25 or more years ago, before the pre / post gain amps. The reason was to get more volume. It will NOT be like a master volume setup, because all you are doing is splitting your input into the input of both preamp circuits. You would control it by adjusting the volume and tone controls on both channels. You may get a little extra gain by slamming the power tubes with the output from 2 preamp channels, but your signal will also be weaker per channel because it is being split( unless you are feeding it with line level signal). I tried this a couple of times,never noticed much difference. One Fender amp I had would sound terrible with this, like the two channels were out of phase or something. It won't hurt your amp though. You would have to take the amp apart(soldering iron in hand) and run the OUTPUT from channel 1 into the INPUT of the second channel to get any pre / post gain functionality, (this was also done 25 years ago, usually by amp repair guys). IMHO, if you want more gain or volume, boost your signal before the input of one channel with an E.Q. pedal or preamp.