a couple weeks ago I did a video about combining the sounds of two guitar amps to create one monster sound Since that video I’ve gotten quite a few questions So in this video I’m going to try to answer all that I can Hi I’m Steve Welcome to my studio Since that video I’ve gotten several comments both here and on social media about running multiple amps together Some offering cautionary tales about phase issues Some reminding me that the frequency blend can be a bit gnarly and not so good which I do think I addressed in that last video And then some people just asking how I split my guitar signal And several people commented about their own favorite amp lens some of which made my mouth water and my bank account tremble So I wanted to make a quick little follow-up video to address some of this stuff and show how I’ve got it all hooked up so that it works with a minimum of fuss Also I wanted to expand a bit on the last video and add some stereo effects I mentioned last week that all of my amps and cabs are connected through my KHE ACS 8×4 and ASX8 Here’s a refresher on how some of these combinations sound [Music] [Music] So I got a few questions last week on how I’m splitting my guitar signal into the KHEs Well when I made that video I had a little cable running from the tuner out of the first KHE unit into the rear input of the second KHE unit and that worked great for chaining all the amps together But running it this way didn’t give me the ability to run stereo effects in front of the amps which I sometimes like to do So shortly after I made that video I switched things up The first thing I wanted was a stereo chorus And even after all these years the Boss Super Chorus still sounds great I really love how a chorus effect can sweeten up a clean sound especially on some nice picked quarter lines I’ll use my old 1970 Fender Band Master and my Marshall Vintage Modern for this [Music] Sometimes though I really like how it could fatten a nice thick driven sound and make it sound more wide as well [Applause] [Applause] [Music] Heat Heat [Music] Having this stereo chorus in here is a really nice addition and I love it But I’ve also been digging on this stereo double tracker pedal from Mr Black and I wanted to get that into the rig Now this pedal is somewhat unique in that in addition to splitting a single input into stereo outputs it can also handle stereo inputs making it fit really well into a stereo pedal setup Now the idea of this pedal is to sort of emulate the effect that’s created when a guitarist records two identical tracks of the same part and then pans them hard right and left Now to my ears one of the best sounding double and triple track guitar sounds was John Sykes on the White Snake 87 album And this pedal gets me kind of close [Music] [Music] Heat Heat [Applause] [Music] Yeah Heat This doesn’t even scratch the surface of what this pedal can do Now a full demo is beyond the scope of this video but I think you can see how effective this pedal can be If you’d like to see more on this pedal let me know below in the comments Another issue that was brought up on social media was the possibility of the amps being out of phase Now to be completely honest before doing that video my experience running multiple amps was very limited So I hadn’t even considered that possibility And when I made last week’s video I got really lucky All the amps I used were in phase But just the other day I was trying a combination that was recommended in another comment on social media the triple rectifier and the Marshall Jubilee I plugged in turned them on and the sound was really thin and nasely It just sounded weird It was a textbook example of phase [Music] misalignment Now in a nutshell I think this is what happens I could be wrong If I am let me know When a guitar signal passes through a tube amplifier it passes through various tube gain stages Now the preamp tubes are two-sided meaning that the amp is using each side of the tube independently as its own gain stage or for whatever purpose Now as I understand it each time the signal passes through a gain stage the phase of that signal is inverted So theoretically an amp with five gain stages may be at a phase with an amp with six gain stages or not It depends on the amp Now in a studio situation there are a few ways to handle this Most interfaces consoles and preamps feature a phase switch on each mic channel So if I hit the phase switches on one of the channels bingo problem solved This is probably the most common way to handle this and it works fine but I’m a firm believer in fixing issues at the source And in a live situation it’s often more practical And it just so happened that when I reconfigured my pedal setup I added this little orange box It’s called the Psplit from a company called Le or Ley or Lelay I’m not sure how to pronounce it but they make fantastic products And the Psplit is recommended by top engineers everywhere I’ll leave a link in the description Its intended purpose is to split a signal in two running one side through a highquality custom wound isolation transformer to help remedy ground loop issues It also features a ground lift and a phase switch So when I encounter this issue all I have to do is hit this little switch Boom Problem solved [Music] again So all in all this setup really gives me a lot of tonal options and I’m constantly discovering new sounds When combining amps I usually start out thinking like for like For example if I’m playing through my triple rectifier chances are it’s going to be a heavy sound So I’ll pair it with another amp that does good for the heavy stuff For instance my Marshall JVM 410H [Music] [Applause] Heat Heat [Applause] [Music] And if I’m looking for a more classic crunch kind of sound I might go with my Marshall vintage modern and pair that with my Messaboogie Mark 7 on crunch [Applause] mode Heat Heat Heat Heat [Music] Or maybe switch over to the MarkV mode on the Mark 7 and combine it with the Baby Plexi for a killer lead sound [Music] [Applause] Heat Heat [Music] [Music] So that’s a quick and dirty rundown of how I’m using two amps to create some really great tones and how it’s all set up How do you set up your rig for blending amps let me know down below in the comments And as always please like and subscribe Thanks for watching I’ll see you next time [Music]
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