Guidelines for a dual C.A.B. setup? (dual mike/stereo goals)

Hi there! (new to the forum here and thanks for great products)

I am experimenting with a dual/double Two Notes CAB setup, and feel it would be nice with some guidance. I tried looking for other posts on this but did not find any.

It seems there are differences in sound depending on how you connect the units.

I guess what I hear could also be experienced by others if they would try using 2 C.A.B. units together with stereo preamps/effects-processors into a mixer-console, in my case I use up to 2 Yamaha Magicstomps (for a simple/mobile setup, my other analogue preamps are on storage for the moment)

The units are connected with regular mono jack cables:

Setup 1:

Guitar monosignal -> Preamp/effects-processor Stereo Out => Right signal CAB Unit 1 AND Left signal CAB Unit 2 => From each CAB INTO individual Mixer console inputs, and these can be panned Left-Center-Right as wanted.

Panning both CAB Units to center seems to give a phase-influenced signal, especially when same type of mike/cabs are used.

I have tried to compare this setup with the following, where a second magicstomp is added in the right output of magicstomp 1:

Setup 2:
Guitar monosignal -> Preamp/effects Processor Stereo Out => Left signal to CAB unit 1 INTO Mixer console AND Right signal to Preamp-effects-processor 2 INTO CAB unit 2 INTO Mixer-console (again the two inpus can be panned as wished).

It seems that setup 2 sounds more full when both signals (i.e. from both CAB1 and CAB2) are panned to the center, compared to setup 1.


- Can someone say something educating about this?

I guess its related to phase or balanced/unbalanced nature of either CABs or the Preamp/Effects-processors used...

The motivation for all this is to get better understanding of dual mike options, here in a pedal format, with stereo sounds or dual mike like Royer 121 / SM57 simulations.

Thanks for any attention and a great forum!

There are many ways to do this however one must be careful when combining dissimilar signal paths involving a/d and d/a. Signal flow in and out o all digital devices add a certain amount of latency. In you second example, one path goes through an addition device....it may sound better, may sound the same or may sound worse when combined with the other signal.

In addition, many signal processors will output modulation effects with reversed phase (on the effect portion of the signal) on the L and R outputs to create a wider and more encompassing stereo effect. This is a great thing, but not what one would want when trying to emulate the sound of 2 mics on a single speaker.

Some ideas worth consideration:

Torpedo Studio, while more expensive than 2 CAB, does allow a dual or stereo line level input with internal mixing per patch and a few more tricks.

In a 2 Cab scenario (or with Studio) You may like to take an output speaker emulation dry and panned center and then take the second output, use a different speaker/mic and feed a stereo signal processor which is then panned hard L-R giving a super wide effects signal with a solid and focused core in the center. This is an easy way to emulate the classic 80's Bradshaw rack tones (luke, Van Hagar, MrMr etc.). The stereo effects should be 100% wet making the problem of dissimilar latency a non issue.

Thanks Andy,
your last suggestion is definitively useful, I think that will be my way ahead for many situations.

I will also try to compare splitting the signal before the two C.A.B.s with an analog splitter, doing so from the mono out of the first magicstomp (used as preamp) and see if that gives a different result compared to using its L and R outputs.

If there are more panning-suggestions, they are for my part very welcome!
Best regards!