Two amps vs. one

George Kimery · From: Limestone, TN, USA

I now have two Peavey tube Valve King 112 amps and one 212 amp. I am in position to run the two 112's together but I have never hooked up two amps before.

My current set up is guitar > Black Box > 120 pedal > amp. I have my mono Wet Reverb pedal in the effects loop on the amp. The only out's on the back of the amp is footswitch and external speaker. What are my best option's for running both amps? Would a stereo Wet Reverb help out?

The 212 amp has 100 watts of power and two 12 inch speakers. The 112 is 50 watts and one 12 inch speaker. I expect the 212 will be louder because of the higher wattage. But, will I notice much of a differnce in the volume level of two 112's vs. one? Would the two speaker's in the 112's spread apart give a better (bigger) sound than the two speakers in the 212, which are side by side in the cabinet?

One of the 112's has the stock Valve King speaker and the other one has a Telonics, which is much better. If I go with two amps, then I need to put a Telonics in the 2nd one. If I go with the 212, then I need to put two Telonic's in it. Mega bucks involved here (which I don't have at the present) for Telonic speakers.

The 112's are light weight (about 40 LB) and small. The 212 is a large amp, hernia maker at 68.5 LB, but with Telonic neo speakers, I can lighten the load a bit.

I just need your thoughts on which way to go and how to hook up the two amps.

Michael Butler · From: California, USA

i just use an aby pedal such as made by morley. i plug the guitar into the input of the pedal and plug each output into each amp. it allows you to play each separately or together so i set the proper volume levels first in each amp. that allows me, for example, to use a deluxe reverb as a rhythm amp and then switch the princeton in for a little bit of a lead sound. or use them separately, one at a time.

if you spread them out it will give you a huge sound, but, you'll probably be using both amps at the same time in that situation.

play music!
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Jerry Knapper · From: Lakeland, Florida , USA

I really love the sound of two amps. I have a Crate BFX15 that sounds great in parallel with most any amp. I use it with a NV 400, NV112, Sho-Bud, Music Man, Twin Reverb and even a BFX 50. I set the BFX15 with its built in effects on delay, next to the echo and use a reasonable amount of reverb on the parallel amp. I use a Goodrich pedal and come out of the middle jack to the Crate and the rear to whichever amp I am using. I select the other amp in relationship to the facility I am playing in.
It works great.
When I really need more, I use a GFX1000 Crate processor and go into it mono with my steel and come out of the left side to one larger amp and the right to the other. I usually don't use much reverb on these amps since the GFX1000 has a reverb/ ping pong delay so it delays between the amps. I only use this when I need a lot of volume.

Dave Hepworth · From: West Yorkshire, UK

Hi,
Just to add weight to this thread -- I used to play my LDG in Stereo.
I used a Vegas 400 and a Fender Concert JBL loaded combo amp.The guitar signal came out of the left and right of a Boss RV2 reverb pedal.
I can honestly say the sound was totally awesome sonic heaven, and reproducible at every gig.
The sound was a million miles wide if you placed the amps about 8 feet apart and angled up slightly.
If you have 2 amps and are up for lugging them around, then this is a must do ,Use a stereo reverb and use both outputs.
Regards Dave

John Booth · From: Columbus Ohio, USA

Another option, if you're not worried about stereo effects, is just use both amp-outs
on a Goodrich 120 or L120 vol pedal. But personally I'd use some kind of stereo reverb
or delay pedal to split it to get that stereo steel goodness.
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Cartwright Thompson · Posted 18 Nov 2014 2:57 am

It's not stereo if you don't have some kind of stereo pedal (like chorus or reverb) before the amps.
Like Dave's setup, a stereo reverb pedal sounds awesome into two amps.
Stereo delays can be great too. Just running your guitar into two amps with some kind of splitter/ABY box is still a "mono" sound.

George Kimery · From: Limestone, TN, USA

I am sold. Two amps are awesome. A virtual wall of sound. I don't know how volume is going to be in a band situation, but in my music room, the two amps together sure sound a lot louder than just one amp.

For the present,I have to use what I have to work with and the sound is really incredible. I am going with the two outputs on the 120 pedal. One to the amp with the Telonics speaker and the Wet Reverb in the effects loop. The other output is to the amp with the stock Valve King speaker and amp reverb. I will use it like this until I can afford another Telonics speaker for the other amp. (The Telonics is a hugh improvement over the stock speaker) and a Stereo Wet Reverb pedal.

Since the 112's are small and lightweight, I would rather sluff two of them around instead of one big and heavy 212.

I have the amps about 6 ft. apart and I am hearing the sound come from thin air between the amps, so I think I have them balanced out pretty good.

I will be using this set up for gigs this Friday and Saturday nights. The bummer is, the stages are small. One gig, I may be able to get them 4 ft. apart. The other one, they will have to be sitting side by side with no space between.

A big plus is by having two amps, if one bites the dust during a gig, I can just run the other one solo and finish the gig in good shape. I might even be persuaded to loan one of the amps to the guitar or fiddle player if their amps konk out.

I know that the only way to get stereo is to have either a stereo pickup (or two pickups) and two cables coming out of the guitar, one for left channel and one for right channel. Then to a stereo volume pedal, etc. You have to maintain two channels all the way, not take one channel and split it into two and call it stereo. Hi-Fi, maybe, but not stereo.

Roger Francis · From: kokomo,Indiana, USA

If your valve king has 2 inputs, you can run a cord from input 2 of the first anp to input 1 of the other, ive done this with my nash 112s. But i think you will have to go thru your wet first before the first amp
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Rittenberry SD10, 2 nashville 112s with telonics speaker, behringer EPQ450 power amp, 705 pups, Telonics FP-100, live steel strings, mogami cords, wet reverb

Dave Hepworth · From: West Yorkshire, UK

George ,
You maybe making things a bit complicated using stereo pickups and stereo pedals and multiple leads.
Why not just use one lead out of your volume pedal into a stereo reverb and then use left and right out of the pedal into your respective amps.This is the easiest way to achieve a TRUE stereo sound and not just 2 amps running together.
A stereo reverb pedal is what it says ---the left and right are totally different in sound - probably different phases of signal which when run into 2 seperate amps create a truly 2 dimensional sound which is wide.
Regards Dave

George Kimery · From: Limestone, TN, USA

Roger, I am familiar with jumping off of the inputs as you suggested. I learned this from attending one of Jeff Newman's classes in the early 80's.

According to the owner's manual, the first input is high gain and the 2nd one is low gain. If you plug cords into both inputs, then both inputs become low gain. I am not sure that this is applicable here or not, but with the 50 watt amps, I need all the signal I can get. I did try it and really couldn't tell much difference in the volume, but the sound seemed to be not quite as good as coming out of the volume pedal.

Can somebody explain why a stereo reverb would be better than just coming out of a mono pedal with a Y cord and going to two amps? Or to a balanced splitter box? Would you really be able to hear any difference between these short cut methods and the real McCoy, a stereo reverb pedal?

Dave, I think you have answered the questions I just asked. However, in case somebody else wants to throw in their 2 cents, I am leaving the questions in place.

Also, I had no intentions of going to a stereo pickup or volume pedal. I was just expressing my opinion as to what it would take to get true stereo out of a steel.

Roger Francis · From: kokomo,Indiana, USA

If you plug 2 instruments into 1&2 you loose volume but if you jump from amp 1 to amp 2 its sending a signal to amp 2, no volume lost, it works verry good, its just another option you can turn to
_________________
Rittenberry SD10, 2 nashville 112s with telonics speaker, behringer EPQ450 power amp, 705 pups, Telonics FP-100, live steel strings, mogami cords, wet reverb

Brad Issendorf · From: Lake City, Minnesota

It would be interesting if you were to use a stereo effects pedal in the effects loop of the first amp and then send the other output of the effect to the return loop of the second amp. Then the first amp would control the output, EQ and effects of both.

Cartwright Thompson · Posted 18 Nov 2014 4:10 pm

George,
If you love the sound of two amps, you are really going to love the sound of two amps in stereo. Buy that stereo Wet reverb.

George Kimery · From: Limestone, TN, USA

I have tried every combination that I can think of, given what I have to work with. I tried a Y connector so that I had my mono Wet Reverb in both amps, eliminating the amp spring reverb in the 2nd amp. OK, but not great. The best sound I have come up with so far is guitar > Black Box > 120 pedal with one cable going to the amp with the Telonic's speaker and the Wet Reverb in the effects loop. Another cable from the 120 pedal to the 2nd amp with the stock Valve King speaker and using the amp spring reverb. The combination of the Wet Reverb and the spring reverb sounds the best by quite a bit to my ears. I can't get a stereo Wet Reverb right now because of budget constraints (I ain't got the money) but one is on my short list as my next purchase.

Also, I know with two speakers, two speaker cabinets, two amps, etc. most people match the speakers. But since different speakers have different peaks and valleys and different sounds, might it be better to use two different speakers? As long as each speaker sounds good in it's own right, wouldn't a "hybrid" blend possibly be a good thing? I am getting a really good sound with the Telonic's/Valve King speaker combination.

Brad, thanks for your interesting hook up idea. I will for sure give it a try when I get a stereo Wet Reverb.

George Macdonald · From: Vancouver Island BC Canada

George
Another stereo reverb pedal worth considering is the TC Electronics Hall Of Fame. I have a mono Wet reverb and a stereo Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame is considerably less money then the Wet, and, to me, sounds great.

Brad Issendorf · From: Lake City, Minnesota

Another vote here for the Hall of Fame pedal. With the spring reverb of the amp at 1-2 ish and the Hall of Fame on Church, moderate decay and the tone bright... nice.

Cartwright Thompson · Posted 21 Nov 2014 3:35 am

The Hall of Fame is a very nce pedal, as is the Digitech RV-7.
Both are stereo and are easy to find used for less than $100.

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