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Preamps in parallel - tips, tricks and/or experience needed!


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I discovered the other day, that i'm absolutely in love with the sound of my studio pre and my sp77 driven in parallel. That made me think about constructing a rig where i can run my pre's in parallel and switch them in and out of the signal chain.

 

Once i finish my rig, i'll have 5 or 6 pre's, some sort of switching system for those, the g-system, a TC-2290, a 50/50 and probably a 2502 too, to let me do a w/d/w setup (for nice delays all over the place:D). I use a lot of different amp tones live, but not many effects apart from compressor, delay and reverb. That's why i like the idea about the many different preamps in parallel. It seems to fatten things up quite a bit...

 

Anyways - if you were me, would you try to construct such a rig? if so, how? and if not - why?

Are there any crucial drawbacks that i should be aware of concerning running pre's in parallel?

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Do your preamps have a parallel effects loop?? If so you can plug into both amps with a Y cable, adn plug the output of one preamp into the FX return of the other, and use the FX mix to combinte them. That is what I am thinking about doing if I buy a VHT head.

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I do this with my soundsculpture switchblade GL.

 

For the rig you plan on building, I strongly suggest purchasing one.

 

I'd ditch the g-system though and get a better midi controller like the FX1. I had a g-system and found that having a A/D/A converter in front of some amps created tone suckage. Since you plan on running so many amps, I'd say trade it in for a g-force or something (I chose to replace mine with an axe-fx ultra).

 

-W

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I'd ditch the g-system though and get a better midi controller like the FX1. I had a g-system and found that having a A/D/A converter in front of some amps created tone suckage. Since you plan on running so many amps, I'd say trade it in for a g-force or something (I chose to replace mine with an axe-fx ultra).

 

Only thing is, that i really like the way the g-system works for me live. So i thought that i could just put the two sections of it in two loops as well - before and after the "preamp-matrix".

After i got the loop levels, input/output levels etc, configured right, i don't really hear the difference. (and when it's ear-chrushingly loud it doesn't matter much anyway, if there's a little mush left. ;))

 

The switchblade looks like a nice solution though. Do you use yours for running multiple preamps at the same time in parallel?

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Do your preamps have a parallel effects loop?? If so you can plug into both amps with a Y cable, adn plug the output of one preamp into the FX return of the other, and use the FX mix to combinte them. That is what I am thinking about doing if I buy a VHT head.

 

 

That sounds like a static way of setting things up. I'd like the ability to switch all of the pre's in and out of the signal chain.

 

Won't the y-splitter cable solution divide the strength of my guitar signal by two, and only hit the input of the pre's with half power?

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I discovered the other day, that i'm absolutely in love with the sound of my studio pre and my sp77 driven in parallel. That made me think about constructing a rig where i can run my pre's in parallel and switch them in and out of the signal chain.


Once i finish my rig, i'll have 5 or 6 pre's, some sort of switching system for those, the g-system, a TC-2290, a 50/50 and probably a 2502 too, to let me do a w/d/w setup (for nice delays all over the place:D). I use a lot of different amp tones live, but not many effects apart from compressor, delay and reverb. That's why i like the idea about the many different preamps in parallel. It seems to fatten things up quite a bit...


Anyways - if you were me, would you try to construct such a rig? if so, how? and if not - why?

Are there any crucial drawbacks that i should be aware of concerning running pre's in parallel?

 

TADA

 

homepagegraphic.jpg

 

http://www.soundsculpture.com/products/switchblade.htm

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Only thing is, that i really like the way the g-system works for me live. So i thought that i could just put the two sections of it in two loops as well - before and after the "preamp-matrix".

After i got the loop levels, input/output levels etc, configured right, i don't really hear the difference. (and when it's ear-chrushingly loud it doesn't matter much anyway, if there's a little mush left.
;)
)


The switchblade looks like a nice solution though. Do you use yours for running multiple preamps at the same time in parallel?

 

Yes, I use multiple preamps at the same time in parallel. Usually just one preamp (bogner XTC front end) and a few preamps from the Axe-FX and I use the realtime mixing capabilities of the switchblade to blend them together, but I have used it in the studio with 2 other amps at the same time (XTC, Triamp, recto).

 

The other drawback of the g-system is that it lacks a lot of midi control needed to send multiple CC messages to other devices. I loved the style and formfactor of my g-system too, but in the end function outweighed fashion and I upgraded.

 

-W

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