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Stacked Amps


ieperry
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So, I really don't think this should work but I accidentally ran one amp model directly into another while messing about (amp not amp+cab) and it sounded marvellous.

 

Signal chain was just a US Double Nrm straight into a US Deluxe Nrm (both with low gain) into LA comp and then an IR or Cab and lastly a hall reverb.

 

Thing is I have not found it easy to build clean patches with any real body/presence. I've got close with careful use of compressors and parallel amps but this chain gave an immediate super present,  sparkly fender amp tone with just a smidge of break up. Worked nicely with humbuckers and headphones. Maybe it would be a little bright with single coils but I reckon you could easily roll off some treble.

 

Anyone else using this type of path? In real life, running amps (well, preamps) in serial sounds bloody awful but in the Helix it seems to work really well, at least for clean tones.

 

Cheers,

 

ip

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Depends on the tones/preamp, but in the real world there are lots of guys getting good tones running a preamp into a real amp in a similar fashion, but its usually a dirt preamp into a clean preamp. That's part of the fun of the digital rig; you're not gonna blow up anything doing it "wrong" in the signal chain. Now I'm thinking about a clean preamp as a "boost" into a dirty preamp.... hmmm

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8 hours ago, arislaf said:

Yes!! Runing an ac15 into a jcm45.... or vice versa! Sounds like my dream tone!!! And that is the reason i want separate power amps.

arislaf … I'm going to need therapy after reading this thread and your comment.  Step one .. Helix out and guitar and headphones connected; step two .. 78 hours straight of experimenting; step three .. therapy and voluminous amounts of medication LOL

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50 minutes ago, jpdennis said:

arislaf … I'm going to need therapy after reading this thread and your comment.  Step one .. Helix out and guitar and headphones connected; step two .. 78 hours straight of experimenting; step three .. therapy and voluminous amounts of medication LOL

Awesome! Just remember, if for the therapy you will go to the 《white house》 you will have the chance to meet great personalities !!! Who knows, maybe Napoleon, or if you are lucky enough jimmy hendrix! Been there, had a helluva of time! Trust me i am an engineer!! :D 

 

on topic, i did this amp on bias amp 2, and it sounds amazing, as well as the jtm 45 preamp run in a bassmam poweramp ( old jts 45 of podxt) sound amazing, i can get pretty close on helix with the legacy fuzz face 2 eq and bassman.

 

Wanna try these amps? Get those with the strange names https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4r7gucctc4ydkye/AACzuVidRrsSbORyqG72fpwSa?dl=0

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Well, now I know that amp stacking works so well I can't wait to try out more options. I reckon the C15/JTM4 5 stack might be a total winner.

 

The signal path described in my first post though continues to delight me. It's the first time I've managed to get a really good low gain Fender Deluxe/Blues Jnr type tone out of the Helix. Really nails that shimmery high end without the over blown low frequency distortion that you get by just cranking the gain on the fender models.

 

 I also tried the Placater Clean model after a Plexi Brt model and got some fantastic tones from that.

 

Cheers,

 

ip

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There are many examples of this technique from the past...

 

The EchoPlex into an amp (Page, Beck, VH, countless others) was not always done for the echo... quite often it was the tone and juice from the EP that was used to drive the amp harder. That combo has spawned dozens of "pre-amp" pedals all claiming to be an EchoPlex pre-amp. 

 

Randy Bachman used to run a single ended Champ into his amps. Gar Gillies (Garnet Amps) cringed at the site and created the Herzog to help get the tone without the danger. That is the tone immortalized on "American Women" (The Guess Who) and some BTO songs such as Let it Ride. 

 

In today's world of recording track counts are irrelevant so we often record a DRY guitar tone in case we want to re-amp later. In the past that luxury didn't exist... you had to capture your tone to tape.. and re-amping the guitar meant running that recorded tone into another amp and mic'ing it again. It's hard to know for certain how many famous tones were done this way... but it's always been more common than you might think. 

 

As others have stated... the beauty of the Helix is that you can experiment all you want without any dangers of blowing things up. There has never been a safer way for players to experiment :) 

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On ‎04‎/‎04‎/‎2019 at 10:54 PM, arislaf said:

on topic, i did this amp on bias amp 2, and it sounds amazing, as well as the jtm 45 preamp run in a bassmam poweramp ( old jts 45 of podxt) sound amazing, i can get pretty close on helix with the legacy fuzz face 2 eq and bassman.

 

I was using my Mesa .50 Caliber as a baseline for an idea I had by expanding on this one.  I ran the mic preamp into two amps in parallel from a guitar in then back into a cab out.  I then had my wife A/B the difference and she gave a few suggestions.  It would appear I have an amp in the room sound.  My sound technician is set to work with me this weekend to A/B live.

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13 minutes ago, jpdennis said:

 

I was using my Mesa .50 Caliber as a baseline for an idea I had by expanding on this one.  I ran the mic preamp into two amps in parallel from a guitar in then back into a cab out.  I then had my wife A/B the difference and she gave a few suggestions.  It would appear I have an amp in the room sound.  My sound technician is set to work with me this weekend to A/B live.

Lucky guy here.  He stacks his amps, AND his wife is interested.

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6 minutes ago, codamedia said:

 

Lucky works two ways. I snuck a Helix into the house and my wife didn't even notice :)  

 

Yeah... gear can come and go mostly unnoticed. It's camouflaging new guitars that's a pain in the arse...

 

"When did you get that one? " 

 

Best answer: "Is it time for shoe and handbag inventory already?"

 

Conversation over...;)

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3 hours ago, jonandtice said:

Lucky guy here.  He stacks his amps, AND his wife is interested.

 

3 hours ago, jpdennis said:

Yep! ;-)

 

2 hours ago, codamedia said:

 

Lucky works two ways. I snuck a Helix into the house and my wife didn't even notice :)  

 

1 hour ago, cruisinon2 said:

 

Yeah... gear can come and go mostly unnoticed. It's camouflaging new guitars that's a pain in the arse...

 

"When did you get that one? " 

 

Best answer: "Is it time for shoe and handbag inventory already?"

 

Conversation over...;)

Pfff, amateurs... Got Helix, a new laptop, new studio monitors, and on top of that, absinthe and 2 prostituttes to spend the weekend... And the wife? Never came at the marriage!!!!

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