Clean to Mean Rack Tones 12/27/25

[mentoneman]

Thanks. It’s been a long time I haven’t had all those in the same place, lots of setup / recomissionning remaining. Including some power supply / proper grounding work.

Yes, experimenting and combining different amps is IMHO when it really starts to get fun and unique.
Going beyond 2 different « kinds of amps » on at the same time starts to be a lot to manage though in my experience, and you can feel like you start to reach a kind of « diminishing return »; managing the balance between each « sound », both from an EQ / freq space and volume / stereo imaging point of view, and the phase, and how well that matches / integrates / interfaces with what you may have in front etc..

On the other hand, mixing 2 different types of amps, and/or multiple of each if you feel like it, has always been source of treasure tones to me. You gotta be careful about phase and grounding, and take time to balance things well, but still manageable and sounds huge.
For ex I like:
2 Marshall (closed 4x12) + 1 Vox (open back) in the center; get the juicy big crunch from the Marshalls and let the Vox blend in for the clearer open shimery thing. Put the «wetter » time effects on the Vox.
Any down-sized version of that with 2 amps / one of each.
« Inverted » version if you want the stereo ambiance effects (honestly overkill live) : 1 main big Marshall (closed 4x12) in the center and a pair of open backs on the sides, with the « wetter » effects; thats basically the model behind my long time main w/d/w rig I posted before.
And when I want to go all in: 4 amps, either of the same type or 2x2; used in a « w/d/d/w » kind of fashion. Usually use again open backs where the really « wet » effects are, I like how that helps diffuse the ambiance in the room. You can play with different physical arrangements of that, including stacking cabs/amps.

4 AC30 that way next to each others is the Brian May 80’s rig.
4 1x12 amps arranged in 2 mini compact stacks is how I had my latest live rig setup up until covid times; made for a big sounding yet very compact & portable setup. Here's a snapshot of it:

View attachment 444064

With a small 4U rack for post-amp effects:

View attachment 444066

And a small pedalboard in front:

View attachment 444067

what i see when i look at your various setups is that we took similar paths on our quests for high quality sounding rigs that were also built to be portable and tight for stage footprint and cartage considerations.

but i also had the luxury of storing my rack and speaker cabs in an equipment room where i played to just roll on and off stage.

various configurations and experiments over the years from
1) w/d with a tone tubbies 2x12 dry/Tech 21 power engine (with scumback replacement speaker) wet
2) bogner 4x12 dry/T21 wet
3) DI in ears rig with no speakers
4) wdw rig with bigner 4x12 middle dry, T21 left wet, and EV frfr powered right wet speaker.

 

[Anje]

Yes, I remember your Church rigs, nice
I love studio work, but I've always been mainly about playing live; up until covid at least. Unfortunately days of being able to move around 4x12s had already been mostly long gone for at least a decade even back then. After that I've always looked for multi-amp rigs that can be compact and still sound big/great.
There's no real substitute for bigger amps to me though, and I've actually sold most of my smaller ones now.

 

[ChurchHill]

the tricky part for me is folding a new to me fx unit into an existing set of presets i’ve already established and developed with gear i’ve used for years.
but i think that’s also fun challenging part like solving a puzzle as i learn the new unit’s strengths and weaknesses.

plus just acquiring some of these legendary grail devices for an old audio gear nerd like me is a bucket list kinda thing!

Yep, exactly, that's the fun part!

Me, too. When I started playing, I wouldn't have dreamed that I'd actually have some of the things I do now but definitely dreamed about it. Absolutely a bucket list thing for me.

 

[mentoneman]

another experiment under way!

 

[mentoneman]

this would have been nice to have had when first editing the pcm 80!



having to mentally visualize and track all of those parameters the old fashion way can be a bit much at times

 

[Shask]

this would have been nice to have had when first editing the pcm 80!



having to mentally visualize and track all of those parameters the old fashion way can be a bit much at times

Wish they would do one for the MPX-1.

 

[eero]

Wish they would do one for the MPX-1.

...and MPX-G2 too

 

[mentoneman]

swapped the BBD-320 and Rockman chorus out to put the spx 900 and triavatar back in for a spin. made some room in the bottom rack by doing so and was able to restore the spacing between fx back to where i like it.

with the spx currently feeding stereo into the eventide, found some great pitch/delay and verb sounds in the H3K to meld into the overall sound. just have to be careful that the H3K presets i pick are stereo in/out because there are a few good ones that are mono in/stereo out.

also dialing the axe II for some pretty nice 2290 delay emulations.

 

[mentoneman]

this thing looks interesting and feature laden as a potential end of the stereo rack chain item for fine tuning DI use

https://kmamachines.com/machines/endgame/

 

[Little B]

^^^^ I was just gonna say- watch out for h3000 presets that are mono in stereo out.You beat me to it.
If you're searching for sounds in it,have you tried pulling down for instance: all reverbs,or all presets for guitar, or all delays, or whatever? I've had to do this on my 8k because there's 1000s of presets in the thing. Sometimes I'll just sit and scroll with the wheel..and the hrs go by lol.

 

[mentoneman]

^^^^ I was just gonna say- watch out for h3000 presets that are mono in stereo out.You beat me to it.
If you're searching for sounds in it,have you tried pulling down for instance: all reverbs,or all presets for guitar, or all delays, or whatever? I've had to do this on my 8k because there's 1000s of presets in the thing. Sometimes I'll just sit and scroll with the wheel..and the hrs go by lol.

been slowly poking through the factory presets and have already stored a few modified ones in the user preset area to add into my arsenal.

i isolate the H3K and then scroll through the universe of eventide sounds to find something vaguely complimentary to one of my pre-existing rack presets. and then add the other fx back in 1 by 1 checking for phase cancellation or any negative weirdness before seasoning to taste.

once the mod factory 1 & 2 presets become more intuitive to edit those will likely produce beneficial results.

 

[Anje]

Yes, gotta invest some time in those machines.
My thought process with those usually is something like:
- start by reading the manual, period; including the (long) list of factory preset descriptions and related algo details those are based on; this to make sure I get to know how the unit works, how to best & safely use it & integrate it with my other gear/rigs, and getting some perspective on what it can do / how, what designers mindset-goal was.
- let sink in / digest that
- in parallel think of what kind of "sound" I'd want/need, out of the box
- match that with what I learnt from the manual to identify where to start (preset(s) / algo(s)...)
- try/tweak on the unit from there, in context of the use/rig(s) the unit is meant for
- then, also spend some time to explore presets, pickup up on cool/interesting names for example, even sometimes random; can lead to some happy accident / surprises that fuel back in the "sound design" idea stage.
- cycle all that again, regularly.

 

[Little B]

Agreed 100% with you guys on that^^^^.I do those same things with mine from time to time...I probably do need to sit with the manual again on my lunch breaks.
One thing I like to do a lot with the eventide is run it in parallel ( cae mixer) with the 2290.And I have had phasing issues at times. I usually just hit a special # on the tc that takes the direct out.I know this is old news for u guys tho.
I cant remember how I took direct out of the eventide or if I had a global setting on it for that like the tc? ... . . . Back to the manual for me lol.

 

[Anje]

I've always used my H3000 100% wet in mixers.
Doesn't mean it can't sound good with some dry/direct going through it, but always preferred to manage phase issues that way and the kind of sounds I use it for are more calling for it in // of the main dry.

 

[mentoneman]

it’s also very helpful to have a kill dry

 

[ChurchHill]

Same here. 100% wet coming out of the FX and mixed with the dry signal in a line mixer. I just run one channel from my splitter directly to the mixer in addition to feeding the FX.

 

[mentoneman]

Same here. 100% wet coming out of the FX and mixed with the dry signal in a line mixer. I just run one channel from my splitter directly to the mixer in addition to feeding the FX.

we’re all taking our marching orders from the grand poobah. like my ring tone? came back to bite me once when i ran sound for a funeral and forgot to silence it

 

[ChurchHill]

Oops...

Great video! Makes sense why he's putting the 2290 in mix 2. I've gone back and forth about that for years.

 

[mentoneman]

Oops...

Great video! Makes sense why he's putting the 2290 in mix 2. I've gone back and forth about that for years.

that is also something i’m currently contemplating; the final way i want to configure my signal path. bob ran the H3K in mix 1 in one of luke’s rigs, series parallel with spx 900, 1210, and the lexicons in mix 2

Bob had Mike L’s rig with what we geeks consider the more traditional Tales config where the mono to stereo analog TSC chorus (bypassable and undigitized dry when bypassed) starts the stereo split,
feeding a effected chorus or bypased dry sound into mix 1,

while also feeding that signal via expanded output splits from mix 1, series into the reverb and pitch units,

the summed stereo outputs of which are also in parallel to the dry/chorus sound of the TSC in mix 1

and then the summed output of mix 1 feeds the dual delays in mix 2, while still preserving a dry through when the TSC is bypassed

Zach’s rig was kinda a combination of both of those rigs but the H8000’s dual DSP engines and 4 inputs/outputs allowed him to used engine 1 in mix 1 as a virtual standalone unit,

and the second engine at the end of the chain post-mixer to be able to affect everything in mix 1/2 preceding it including the ability to use as a looper.

 

[ChurchHill]

Thanks for sharing those! Nice!

I think my hang-up is on the 2290 being basically mono-in stereo-out, stereo return of loop 5 notwithstanding. Using 2 PCM42s or similar makes more sense to me, but so does feeding two different MFX from the left and the right of mix one without summing them. I think it's the summing where I get hung up and just don't want to do.

For instance, the last config I used was the H3000, 2290, 1210, SPX90, and TSC in parallel mix one, then ran the left into a GTR4000 and the right into a Lex 300 in mix two. What I'm working on is adding a PCM70 and PCM81. Considering moving the 2290 to mix two or, maybe, seeing if I can pick up a pair of PCM41s or 42s. At some point, it just gets a little ridiculous, though. I mean, I should have just about every base covered. But that's part of the fun, too, a little like sonic alchemy.