Question for Guitarists – Using Multiple Amps

[Sputnik]

So I was listening to Stevie Ray Vaughn a little while back… always a humbling experience. I love his tone, particularly how he gets such a nice gritty sound, but retains such good clarity. I find when I start to add a bit of overdrive to my sound, the top end starts to lose definition, getting worse as the overdrive increases.

So it popped into my mind while listening to Stevie that it was almost like he is getting sound simultaneously from a clean amp, and a dirty amp, and blending the tones, because the girt is there without the definition loss. Whether this is the case or not, I don’t know. I know he uses .13 gauge strings, which obviously has a huge impact, but is not something I’m going to do. But it sounded to me as if he were employing multiple amps simultaneously.

So I got a simple Y splitter and tried running my Blues Junior clean simultaneously underneath my little Blackstar HT-1R, from which I get my basic tone which has a little grit in it. I then layer on overdrive pedals for more grit as needed which affect the Blackstar but not the Blues Jr. (I split the signal after compression and noise reduction but before the overdrives). The experiment worked like a charm! I now retain much of the “sparkle” that gets lost with the Blackstar by itself, and don’t lose that "grit."

It struck me that rarely, if ever, have I seen a guitarist using multiple amps in this way. I know some guitarists (mostly big names on big stages) switch between amps for different tones, but I wondered if anyone uses multiple amps to get their basic tone and then layer effects on like I’m doing? If you’re a guitarist and you do this or believe it’s more common than I’m thinking, I’d like to hear about it.

If you don’t do this, why don’t you, and why don’t you think this is more commonly done? It really seemed like a great solution to a tone problem that vexes guitar players, but I just never hear of guitarists’ suggesting employing multiple amp solutions like this.

Curious what folks think.

Bill

[rcarlberg]

Brilliant. Quick seek a patent.

[Wisdomview]

I believe Alex Lifeson runs/ran a clean and distorted amp at the same time, at times.

I have too much shit already so one amp onstage is enough for me.

[Scott Bails]

I used to do this, way back in the day when I played.

I had a cheap Peavey combo amp that I used for "dirty" and an old Ampeg that passed down to me from my uncle for "clean." And I think I got the idea from Lifeson, IIRC.

[GuitarGeek]

Routing the "wet" and "dry" signals from a delay unit to separate amps is pretty common. Players like Steve Morse have done that. I think Morse originally the idea was so that he could EQ out the tape hiss coming from his Echoplex without changing the dry or direct guitar signal.

And Brian May used to use a setup with two delay units (originally Echoplexes but I think he upgraded as technology improved) and three amps. Each delay unit would be set to a single repeat, with about a second of delay time. He'd route his pedalboard into the first delay, with the dry signal going out to one amp. Then the wet signal would be fed into a second delay, with the second delay's dry out (actually the same as the first delay's wet out) into a second amp, and the second delay's wet output into the third amp. This is the setup he used to generate the multiple guitar illusion during the Brighton Rock solo and also when doing Keep Yourself Alive (which has led to at least one wag suggesting May was using a backing tape to supply the "extra" guitar parts). And of course you can pan each output whichever you want (say, with the actual "live" playing up the middle, first repeat on the left, second repeat on the right).

And I don't know about live playing, but certainly in the studio, a lot of guitarists have done things like running a chorus pedal in stereo through two amps, panned hard left and hard right. An additional trick is added different delay settings on each side.

Oh, and on Close To The Edge, Steve Howe used a Gibson ES-345 without stereo outputs, which feed each pickup through a different signal path. So he used two amps, and put a bit of delay on one of them.

And I also remember Jorma Kaukonen saying that during the After Bathing At Baxter's era, he ran his ES-345 with a fuzztone on one pickup, and a wah wah pedal on the other, though I don't know how often (if ever) he used them at the same time.

I believe John Cippolina's Gibson SG was re-wired into stereo, as well, and he used I think three amps, with one giving him the bottom end, one giving him the mids, and the third he had wired up to these high frequency horns (like the kind rednecks slap on top of their trucks so you can hear them in the next county when they honk the horn) to give him the top end. There was an article in Guitar Player back in the early 70's where he talked about all the stuff he did to his gear (including discussing the "electric flamenco" guitars he was building at the time).

And then there's the Steve Ripley guitars from the 80's, which had custom made hexaphonic pickups on them, which allowed you to feed each string through it's own pan pot. I know he built these guitars for a lot of people (and then eventually licensed it to Kramer, who briefly offered stereo guitars and basses in the late 80's). If you've ever seen Bob Seger's Like A Rock video, Rick Vito is playing one such instrument, and I know I've read he built guitars for Eddie Van Halen (check out the intro to Top Jimmy, through headphones), Ry Cooder, Steve Lukather and a bunch of other people. Michael Sembello (remember Maniac?) had one with a clear Lucite body, kinda like one of those Ampeg Dan Armstrong guitars from the early 70's.

[Sputnik]

Brilliant. Quick seek a patent.

Yeah, I'm sure nobody has thought of this idea before me. I'll be a rich and happy miser.

I believe Alex Lifeson runs/ran a clean and distorted amp at the same time, at times.

I have too much shit already so one amp onstage is enough for me.

Interesting about Leifson. It doesn't surprise me he did this, but I never specifically heard about him doing it.

As far as the "too much shit," I figured that's what a most guitarists would say. And I can certainly see this, though for guitarists who run reasonably sized combos, would it really be that much difference to bring along another 15 - 20 watt combo to provide the clean underpinning? I'm doubtful. It must be that most guitarists can get the tone the seek from one amp, but so far that has totally eluded me. But this is exactly what has me most curious.

I used to do this, way back in the day when I played.

I had a cheap Peavey combo amp that I used for "dirty" and an old Ampeg that passed down to me from my uncle for "clean." And I think I got the idea from Lifeson, IIRC.

Cool! How did it sound?

Routing the "wet" and "dry" signals from a delay unit to separate amps is pretty common...

True, though this isn't quite what I'm talking about. It is true that when I layer extra overdrive, the tone gets "wetter" for one signal path. But at heart with what I'm doing, you really have one signal path going into two amps, and it is the amps that are providing the "clean' or "dirty' elements. So both paths are basically dry, at least to start. It's also not quite like splitting the signal with a chorus pedal, though I could have used a chorus pedal to make the split. But that isn't the essence of the approach, if you get what I'm saying. It's also not quite like sending one pickup to one amp and one to another. The whole sound of the guitar goes to both amps, and each amp treats the sound differently, amalgamating to one overall sound.

Interesting comments, though. This is typically how I've seen multiple amps used, and I'm surprised I see so few using it the way I am - though I suspect I'm just missing something.

Cheers, keep the comments coming, this is interesting to me.

Bill

[No Pride]

By the time SRV recorded his last album, "In Step," he was using a whole bunch of amps simultaneously. After a small amount of Googling, I found this rundown of his various setups; you might find this interesting, Bill. Of course, you'd need a small semi and a team of roadies to deal with all of this gear!
www.angelfire.com/ks/keithcjulian/srvfaq5a.htm

I have two pieces of Line 6 gear that can give you two different digital amp models (of your choice) simultaneously and each can have their own effects chain and be routed to separate cabinets: the Vetta 2x12 combo (which they discontinued a couple of years ago) and the Pod HD500, which is a preamp/multi-effects floorboard that can be used as a direct unit or with power amps and cabinets. All of the patches I made on my Vetta use two different amp models, one per speaker. Of course the effect is much more dynamic when you use separate cabinets. But I never spent too much time mixing clean and dirty amp models. I always dug what Alex Lifeson did with that kind of thing (even though I'm not really a Rush fan), but it's not something I was ever interested in pursuing for myself.

To me, getting a distorted lead sound that has enough definition with the right amount of higher frequency bite depends on several factors, but most importantly it's a guitar with nicely voiced pickups and an amplifier that's capable of doing that. I've found that playing lead with a single coil pickup sound and a guitar with a bolt-on neck works best; the neck provides a faster attack and the slightly scooped midrange of a single coil keeps things from getting too mushy. But you can do it with humbuckers and through-body or glue-on necks too, it's just a matter of EQing and keeping the gain (or drive) down low enough to keep things from getting muddy. So many factors come into play in the realm of guitar tone, it comes down to a lot of experimenting with a lot of gear combinations.

Anyway, good luck on your tone quest!

[Scott Bails]

Cool! How did it sound?

Honestly, I was never happy with my sound. The Peavey really didn't have good distortion. Or, probably more accurately, I could never figure out how to get a good distorted sound out of it. This whole thing with the two amps was just an experiment in the endless search to find the right tone.

But I'm thinking that if I were to try it now that I'd have more success, knowing more now than I did then.

[Sputnik]

By the time SRV recorded his last album, "In Step," he was using a whole bunch of amps simultaneously. After a small amount of Googling, I found this rundown of his various setups; you might find this interesting, Bill. Of course, you'd need a small semi and a team of roadies to deal with all of this gear!
www.angelfire.com/ks/keithcjulian/srvfaq5a.htm

I have two pieces of Line 6 gear that can give you two different digital amp models (of your choice) simultaneously and each can have their own effects chain and be routed to separate cabinets: the Vetta 2x12 combo (which they discontinued a couple of years ago) and the Pod HD500, which is a preamp/multi-effects floorboard that can be used as a direct unit or with power amps and cabinets. All of the patches I made on my Vetta use two different amp models, one per speaker. Of course the effect is much more dynamic when you use separate cabinets. But I never spent too much time mixing clean and dirty amp models. I always dug what Alex Lifeson did with that kind of thing (even though I'm not really a Rush fan), but it's not something I was ever interested in pursuing for myself.

To me, getting a distorted lead sound that has enough definition with the right amount of higher frequency bite depends on several factors, but most importantly it's a guitar with nicely voiced pickups and an amplifier that's capable of doing that. I've found that playing lead with a single coil pickup sound and a guitar with a bolt-on neck works best; the neck provides a faster attack and the slightly scooped midrange of a single coil keeps things from getting too mushy. But you can do it with humbuckers and through-body or glue-on necks too, it's just a matter of EQing and keeping the gain (or drive) down low enough to keep things from getting muddy. So many factors come into play in the realm of guitar tone, it comes down to a lot of experimenting with a lot of gear combinations.

Anyway, good luck on your tone quest!

Cool Ernie, thanks for all of this. I'll spend some time on that site of SRV's equipment, that is an education in itself! The first thing I notice is that '81 to '83 he's using a simple Y splitter. I think he used multiple amps all along, which doesn't surprise me.

Interesting that you can get the tone you seek from a single amp; though again that has been my experience watching most guitarists. From my memory of BDU, your tone is a bit more saturated generally than what I'm looking for, I wonder if that makes it easier?

Honestly, I was never happy with my sound. The Peavey really didn't have good distortion. Or, probably more accurately, I could never figure out how to get a good distorted sound out of it. This whole thing with the two amps was just an experiment in the endless search to find the right tone.

But I'm thinking that if I were to try it now that I'd have more success, knowing more now than I did then.

Man, I wish I knew half of what I know now back when I was just starting out. I just feel like in the last few years I've really started "getting it" with regard to guitar tone. Bass I'm a little ahead on, but that is my primary instrument.

One quote I'm fond of is Andy Summmers, who said something like, "all guitarists are just trying to duplicate the magic they heard when they plugged their first electric guitar into their first amp." I think there's truth in this, and that it is a basically unachievable goal. But man do we try to reach it!

Bill

[Mikhael]

I've tried two amps, and I didn't think the extra effort merited the results. I get a good clean sound, a good on-the-edge of dirty sound, and I have a Rocktron hush/compressor that I use to boost volume on either channel for leads. I also run my rig in stereo, so I feel no need for a second amp.

I should probably mention that I'm a little untraditional in amp choices; I use a Pearce G2-r, which is a stereo guitar amp. Pump that through one or two Celestion 12"-ers per side, and I'm good.

Some people are extreme purists, and then get such a grungy tone that I wonder why they bother...

[Wisdomview]

Haha... I like grungy '70s tones.

[No Pride]

Interesting that you can get the tone you seek from a single amp; though again that has been my experience watching most guitarists. From my memory of BDU, your tone is a bit more saturated generally than what I'm looking for, I wonder if that makes it easier?

Perhaps it does. That elusive, semi-dirt sound that's clean enough to play more complex chords with, but will growl, bark or bite when you dig into the guitar is one of the hardest tones to perfect, at least in my experience. I think I use a little less gain now than I did when I recorded that album 9 years ago (). Even with that kind of a sound it's kind of a balancing act; you want to get more sustain than a guitar will achieve acoustically, but you want to retain definition and have some control of picking dynamics. These days, when sculpting a lead tone, I back the gain off as much as I can without losing the amount of sustain I'm looking for.

[Mikhael]

70s tones weren't what I'd call grungy; I'm talking about the super-saturated tones that even adding a third to will disintegrate into noise...

[fictionmusic]

yep...I do that when I can. I run a Fender and a Mesa sometimes in a/b configuration but often in a y. I use a Radial Switchbone to control that routing. I use different pedals on each line too (often saving the fx for the clean side and leaving the VERY grungy side dry). BUT that is a shit load of gear to haul around. I tend to use that set-up in the Rebel Wheel often.



These days I am doing a lot of solo gtr jazzy gigs (ersatz Joe Pass-y type things) and one amp, one cable and a guitar is all I use and all in all I prefer that approach.

[profusion]

Eric Johnson is the grand master of blending clean and overdriven amps as part of his lead guitar tones. He'll use different blends of amps and pedals to vary his lead tone multiple ways within the same song or even the same solo. Listen to any of his live albums and you'll hear what I mean. It often sounds like there are multiple guitarists, but it's all him switching different amps in and out.

Zappa was probably the first guy to really make use of it that way. He used a super saturated sound on one amp and mixed in some clean sound on another amp to add some definition. Of course, he also had a crazy complicated signal chain by the late '70s.

[Wisdomview]

70s tones weren't what I'd call grungy; I'm talking about the super-saturated tones that even adding a third to will disintegrate into noise...

Gotcha.

[Sputnik]

I've tried two amps, and I didn't think the extra effort merited the results. I get a good clean sound, a good on-the-edge of dirty sound, and I have a Rocktron hush/compressor that I use to boost volume on either channel for leads. I also run my rig in stereo, so I feel no need for a second amp.

I should probably mention that I'm a little untraditional in amp choices; I use a Pearce G2-r, which is a stereo guitar amp. Pump that through one or two Celestion 12"-ers per side, and I'm good.

Interesting. The Pearce is solid state, iirc. Cool that you can get good overdriven tones from it. The only solid state amp I ever heard that I liked the overdrive on was on old Lab Series, but the Pearces get pretty good reviews from those who use them

That elusive, semi-dirt sound that's clean enough to play more complex chords with, but will growl, bark or bite when you dig into the guitar is one of the hardest tones to perfect, at least in my experience.

Truer words were never spoken!

yep...I do that when I can. I run a Fender and a Mesa sometimes in a/b configuration but often in a y. I use a Radial Switchbone to control that routing. I use different pedals on each line too (often saving the fx for the clean side and leaving the VERY grungy side dry). BUT that is a shit load of gear to haul around. I tend to use that set-up in the Rebel Wheel often.

Having seen pictures of just one of your pedal boards, I can only imagine how much gear it would be to lug two around.

Eric Johnson is the grand master of blending clean and overdriven amps as part of his lead guitar tones. He'll use different blends of amps and pedals to vary his lead tone multiple ways within the same song or even the same solo. Listen to any of his live albums and you'll hear what I mean. It often sounds like there are multiple guitarists, but it's all him switching different amps in and out.

Zappa was probably the first guy to really make use of it that way. He used a super saturated sound on one amp and mixed in some clean sound on another amp to add some definition. Of course, he also had a crazy complicated signal chain by the late '70s.

Hearing EJ does this doesn’t surprise me at all. That dude is a tone freak. I don’t actually have any of his music other than his Electromagnets stuff. But I’ll see what’s on Youtube to try and get a sense of what he’s doing. Not a huge Zappa fan either, so I’m not familiar with his guitars setups. His sound always seemed very saturated for my tastes, so it sort of surprises me he would run a clean amp. I’m sure it did help with definition, especially with humbuckers that tend to saturate more than single coils.

I’m sort of gratified to find out that other players do this. I’m not sure why it took me this long to try the experiment. For me it’s been a big success and I’m really enjoying what I’m hearing from my Strat now.

Bill

[progmatist]

The newest line of effects pedals by T-Rex includes overdrives which blend clean and dirty sounds. Therefore, I believe it's too late for a patent.

[Mikhael]

Interesting. The Pearce is solid state, iirc. Cool that you can get good overdriven tones from it. The only solid state amp I ever heard that I liked the overdrive on was on old Lab Series, but the Pearces get pretty good reviews from those who use them
Bill

Well, since Dan Pearce was one of the designers of the Gibson Lab Series, that makes sense. He got it even better on the Pearce line. Unfortunately, his business skills weren't as good as his engineering skills, so the company didn't last too long.

[Sputnik]

The newest line of effects pedals by T-Rex includes overdrives which blend clean and dirty sounds. Therefore, I believe it's too late for a patent.

Yeah, that's not really new either. Voodoo Labs has had that Sparkle Drive out for years which does blends in the dry signal. I tried one and thought it sucked, but it might work better with a cranked amp, as many pedals do. Or maybe I suck.

I use a T Rex Sweeper chorus in my "non-Prog" bass pedal board, and it is the best bass chorus pedal I've ever heard, and it give me a stereo option when I need it. So T Rex makes good stuff and maybe these work better than the Sparkle Drive. I just don't trust an OD pedal for my basic overdriven sound (it might be good as an additional boost), and thus wouldn't believe that I'd be happy with the sound of a pedal like this, though I could be wrong. One of the nice things about the multiple amp setup is that you can set the tone separately for each amp, and that makes a difference as often a good clean tone doesn't lend itself to being overdriven by a pedal.

This is also the second time a patent has been mentioned. Never for one second did I think I "invented" this idea of using multiple amps simultaneously. The thing that surprised me was that I see so few guitarists doing it. It particularly surprises me that I don't see it more often with smaller artists, those playing bars and clubs, particularly when they're going for that "elusive, semi-dirt sound that's clean enough to play more complex chords with, but will growl, bark or bite when you dig into the guitar" type sound. And I've read tons of threads on guitar forums on how to get, for example, a "Stevie Ray-like" tone, and don't remember a multiple amp solution being mentioned once. It's just surprising to me, because it seems so obvious and simple.

Well, since Dan Pearce was one of the designers of the Gibson Lab Series, that makes sense. He got it even better on the Pearce line. Unfortunately, his business skills weren't as good as his engineering skills, so the company didn't last too long.

I didn't know Pearce was behind the Lab Series, that makes a lot of sense. Surprising to me that some maker didn't pick up the idea, and maybe even Pearce to help in the design and build. Of course the same could be said of the Lab Series. Too bad.

Bill

[Supersonic Scientist]

Here is my set-up:

GTRs:
2011 Gibson Les Paul Traditional
1979 Gibson ES-1275 double-neck
2013 Fender Telecaster

into a volume pedal then into a splitter box...then...

Route "A" goes into my LINE 6 POD XT/Live then into my Peavey Valveking (Tube amp) (for the gritty distortion & wha-drenched trippy stuff)
Route "B" goes into my SGX1000 GTR processor then into my Yamaha 112 (Transistor amp) (for the clean chimy stuff)

[No Pride]

into a volume pedal then into a splitter box...then...

Route "A" goes into my LINE 6 POD XT/Live then into my Peavey Valveking (Tube amp) (for the gritty distortion & wha-drenched trippy stuff)
Route "B" goes into my SGX1000 GTR processor then into my Yamaha 112 (Transistor amp) (for the clean chimy stuff)

But do you use both setups simultaneously? I think that's the kind of thing Bill's interested in.

And fwiw, I don't think Eric Johnson actually blends amps either, or at least he didn't used to. He had three separate amp rigs on stage, but he'd switch from one to the other, never getting signal from more than one of the rigs at a time.

[No Pride]

[klothos]

LOL - Rock Bass players (and, ironically, many Prog Rock bass players) have been doing this for decades......although with many degrees of differences, the basic premise is a clean amp (or channel, if recording direct) and a dirty amp (in studio, mic'd for speaker breakup). Unlike guitar, the clean amp (or channel) is the primary while the dirty channel is dialed in to taste for "growl"...... Geddy Lee did it this way in the 70s

[Supersonic Scientist]

[QUOTE=No Pride;160524]But do you use both setups simultaneously? I think that's the kind of thing Bill's interested in.

Yes, both are going on simultaneously, I adjust the volumes of the GTR processors to "blend" the clean & grit as I see fit.