Probably about a year and a half ago (after going to the first Egnater amp building seminar) I took a crack at my first multi-amp setup in years... it included both the Egnater JTM45 head and a Fender Deluxe Reverb re-issue (mounted in a head shell), a couple Avatar 2x12 cabinets, an Axess GRX4 for switching, and a Vox Tonelab out front for effects. That was more of the pure amp-switching setup... I never ran both amps in parallel, just switched between them. So I'm not sure what encouraged me to try a multi-amp setup again... perhaps it's the idea that going back to a single-guitar lineup in Necessary Distraction could merit a slightly thicker guitar tone that two (or more!) amps running in parallel could provide, or perhaps it's just my constant obsession with trying out new gear...
I spent a bit of time a few weeks back splitting my guitar tone with an Axess BS2 buffer into two amps... the Zinky Superfly driving one 4x12, the H&K Switchblade driving a second 4x12, both being switched in unison via MIDI... essentially a wet/dry setup taking advantage of the Switchblade's built-in FX. It got me thinking... how much more could I fatten up my tone? After doing a bit of reading, I decided to pick up a Boss PS-5 Super Shifter to be used as follows: The guitar signal is split using the BS2 buffer. One side feeds the Superfly (dry); the other side is slightly detuned (~10 cents) and delayed (~10ms) before running into the Switchblade (wet). Both heads are running into a Randall stereo 4x12 cab loaded with V30's. Kind of a Van Halen-ish setup, just swapping out several thousand $'s worth of Eventide rack units for a $90 Boss pedal. :)
Initial impressions are pretty good... the combination of two amps with slight detuning/delay definitely fattens up the sound, even at very subtle settings. Wednesday will be the real test to see how it sounds in the context of band practice. If it sounds funky on our original tunes, then we'll just have to spend the rest of the night doing VH covers.
--B
Sunday, July 20, 2008
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Fat tone update... After a couple weeks of messing around with the multi-amp setup (and putting it to the test for at least one jam session), I switched a few things around:
1) Since the overall tone seemed to suffer when running both amps (Superfly & Switchblade) into the same Randall stereo 4x12 cab, I rigged up multiple cabs, with the Superfly running into a Randall 2x12 (with Classic Lead 80's) and the Switchblade running into the original Randall 4x12.
2) Also, because the Switchblade has a bit more "edge", I designated it as the primary (non-pitch-shifted) amp and designated the Superfly as the secondary (pitch-shifted, slightly lower level) amp.
3) Finally, instead of switching channels on both amps at the same time, I continued to switch channels on the Switchblade but left the Superfly "stuck" on a single channel... sort of a low-gain crunch tone. This probably added more fatness to the mix than anything else... when playing cleans on the Switchblade the Superfly adds a bit of warmth in the background, and when playing heavy/leads on the Switchblade the Superfly brings additional clarity to the mix. Granted, this somewhat defeats the purpose of having two MIDI-switchable amps, but it sounds killer!
--B
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