HYBRID WET-DRY-WET NOWDAYS

[Guttalaser]

HYBRID WET/DRY/WET RIG
Hi PPL.
A wet/dry/wet full blown rig is the "wet" dream of many guitarists, expecially the EVH fans ones.
There are many videos on YT about W/D/W or half W/D built on the digital realms (say inside an Axe Fx chain or a HX Stomp) or real heavy w/d/w with 3 guitar cabs and 3 tube amp head.
The prob is the "guitar hero" price $$$ of a real w/d/w rig, the weigh… and the fact that it remains a dream for many and many of us.
PLUS the fact that in many "tutorials" there is Always some kind of custom made "black magic box" that help in some way with the routing, but is a custom made box that none can buy!
Ok, but nowdays the story changed: with the hybrid amp pedals with direct outs and the FRFR cabs market a real w/d/w can turn from dream to reality.
The prob is: how put together the rig?

Yes, because there are some mandatory "must" you must respect:
1) the left and right wet "legs" of the system must be 100% wet AND with KILL DRY. No dry signal mixed with the wet path!
2) the wet fxs must be "parallelized" not in series. I.e.: a Micropitch stereo outs must be MIXED with a Delay stereo outs, they not clash one into another
3) the system must have only ONE amp (pre-amp) tone with the central dry and the left and right wet. So the left and the right uses only the power amp and cab ir sections.
So… here is the "warehouse" of pedals you can use

AMP PEDALS:
Tone King Royalist
Tone King Imperia
Friedman IR-J
Friedman IR-D

FRFR CABS:
THREE Tonex Cab(s)

DRIVE/FX MONO PRE PEDALS:
Catalinebread Epoch booster (an echoplex pre circuit)
Solodallas Shaffer Replica booster
MXR EVH Phaser
MXR EVH Flanger
MXR 5150 EVH Chorus (this is a problematic one: it can be used as mono/wet or fake-stereo with one side DRY and one side WET)
Every DRIVE pedal you want… but mandatory the Soldano SLO Plus pedal... for a Soldano flavour

STEREO WET FXS:
Eventide Micropitch Delay (kill dry allowed)
EVH Boss SDE3000 Delay (with central dry, right and left wet outs; kill dry allowed)
Wampler Catacombs stereo in and stereo out reverb (and delay, but here we use the reverb only)

SPLITTER AND AUXILIARY PEDALS:
Lehle P-SPLIT Stereo
Boss LS-2 A/B/Y Line Selector
Morley A/B/Y passive selector
Rolls MX28 3 stereo in one stereo out line mixer (good to parallelize and mix the Micropitch, the Delay and the Reverb.

So… here are the tools… chose what you need... and build the W/D/W rig with a clear routing.

 

[SonVolt]

Yes, because there are some mandatory "must" you must respect:
1) the left and right wet "legs" of the system must be 100% wet AND with KILL DRY. No dry signal mixed with the wet path!

This part needs to be clarified. The effect units themselves may need to be set to KILL DRY, but you absolutely can (and should) have have some dry mixed into your wet cabs in a W/D/W rig. It sounds and feels more natural (less jarring) than running the wet cabs 100% wet. You'd typically do this by setting your FX units to KILL DRY and then routing them through a mixer to preserve the analog path. This was how EVH ran his W/D/W rigs.

I personally use a MusicomLAB Parallelizer.

 

[Rackman]

All this crap can be replaced with a H8000 and two power amps (tube or SS) for the wet sides. I guess I'm not clear what the hell you're trying to do here.

 

[S̷͖͑m̵͎͂á̵̺s̸͚̈́h̴̬̑]

Welcome to rig-talk. You seem very passionate about this subject. I have done a wet dry setup before, but with actual amps. It is cool.

I would recommend you accumulate gear and go that route. I think you may be disappointed if you try to go a cheap route.

I have found that if you try to save money instead of getting what you actually want, you end up spending four times the amount because you buy cheap gear, then take a massive haircut when you sell to get the gear you actually wanted in the first place. And that is if you dont compromise a couple times on the way

 

[S̷͖͑m̵͎͂á̵̺s̸͚̈́h̴̬̑]

Also. Gut lazer is a badass name

 

[ChurchHill]

I have found that if you try to save money instead of getting what you actually want, you end up spending four times the amount because you buy cheap gear

This ^^^^ 1000%... Don't ask me how I know

 

[rsm]

I have a tube amp with effects loop. I can send the amps effects send into a TC Electronic Impulse IR Loader then mono out into stereo effects going into a pair of powered PA cabs. I haven't tried this yet, but planning to.


I use the PA cabs for my Helix Stadium XL and Tone King Royalist pedal, and similar.

Many ways to get there.

 

[ChurchHill]

OK, I'll take a stab at this.

1. I respectfully disagree with not having any dry in the wet cabs. Kill dry becomes important only when you mix a straight analog signal with a copy of that signal that's gone through analog/digital conversion. The slight delay introduced by the latency of the AD/DA will cause phase cancellations.

2. Parallel is one way to do it, but series is just as valid. It depends on what you want the final sound to be.

3. I'll use the one amp sound here, but there's nothing wrong with using different amps, either switching between their pre-amps or just using them for power amps. IME, I've never found an IR that is as satisfying as a real cab. Having said that, IRs are much more consistent for FOH.

Guitar >> Drive >> Amp >> Output to middle cab
>> Send to Wet FXS (nothing in the return)
>> Micropitch stereo out >> Catacombs >> SDE3000 stereo in
>> SDE stereo out >> left cab & right cab

Drive Pedals: Of these, I'd go with the Solodallas because I personally like it better than the others. Your last statement is good, though, any drive pedal(s) you want. I'd just make sure that they are true bypass. A few buffered bypass pedals, like the MXRs, won't hurt, but they will add up if you use more than a handful. If that's the case, I'd add a pedal switcher. Many options there, but beyond the scope of this rig.

Amp Pedals: Of these, I'd go with the IR-J, but personally, I'd go with a real amp here.

From there, I'd use the send but not the return. Either that or just a y-cable from the output. The output would go to the middle cab and the send would go to the input of the wet FXs. Nothing plugged into the return so the output stays dry.

The first Wet FX would be the Micropitch. I think this one only has a mono input making it have to be the first in line. But this is a pretty normal placement with lots of classis rigs starting with a chorus or pitch-shifter.

From the Micropitch, I'd go stereo-out to stereo-in to the Catacombs. Then from the Catacombs, stereo-out to stereo-in to the SDE3000. Reasoning here is that many classic rigs put the reverb before the delay and used the delay to glue the FX together. Bob Bradshaw made this popular. But, there's nothing wrong with delay into reverb, either.

Cabs: Not much choice here. Powered cabs have their advantages, but I prefer passive guitar speakers with a separate power amp. That eliminates the need for an IR but still allows you to add an IR if you want to send that to FOH.

Splitters: None, just not needed in this setup. If you had more than 3 digital pedals in there, I'd recommend going with a splitter and a mixer for a parallel setup. But based on my experience, unless you're super-sensitive to latency, you'll be fine. Worst case is that the latency will add a few milliseconds of delay between the center cab and the L/R cabs, which will just make it sound bigger even with the FX bypassed.

 

[JackBootedThug]

You’re all noobs until you go wet/wet/wet…. Or my patented w/w/w/w… all the cool kids will be doing it one day…..

 

[mctallica1]

Welcome to rig-talk. You seem very passionate about this subject. I have done a wet dry setup before, but with actual amps. It is cool.

I would recommend you accumulate gear and go that route. I think you may be disappointed if you try to go a cheap route.

I have found that if you try to save money instead of getting what you actually want, you end up spending four times the amount because you buy cheap gear, then take a massive haircut when you sell to get the gear you actually wanted in the first place. And that is if you dont compromise a couple times on the way

Wow is this true!!!

 

[TheGreatGreen]

"Mix/Dry/Dry/Mix" is the best way to go truly over the top if you can solve the phasing issues.

But I'm going to let you in on a secret. W/D/W rigs were dreamed up by and for players who used poweramp distortion as part of their core tone. They needed parallel effects paths driven by clean poweramps because their effects got garbled when they cranked their regular tube amps. If you use an amp with a hefty enough power section, one that doesn't break up, there is actually zero difference between a Wet/Dry/Wet setup and a stereo cab Mix/Mix setup. I don't mean "they're close enough," I mean "if you close your eyes and listen to a great Mix/Mix set of stereo cabs and physically separate them a little, you still hear a mono dry tone coming out of both cabs which your brain will literally physically localize as a phantom cab sitting in between the Mix cabs.

I've tried it. I swapped between Wet/Dry/Wet patches and Mix/Off/Mix patches with the same tones dialed in except for how the dry tone was routed, and they sounded identical. And by "identical" I mean at first I thought I messed up my setup and had the same patch copied twice, so I actually had to go and turn off the middle poweramp to make sure the middle cab was really off because my brain was telling me there was sound coming out of it. There wasn't.

 

[jasonP]

I have run wet, dry, wet for more than 10 years now trying many different set ups, but also trying to keep it as simple as possible.
I will always mix some dry signal into the wet cabinets. In fact a lot of times there might be only 25% mix, however, at the same wet level as the dry cabinets. Suhr ISO line out from dry amp into only one multi effects processor in the signal chain then out to a stereo TUBE power amp. In the past, I tried a couple different solid state amps, and they sound like trash.

 

[jasonP]

"Mix/Dry/Dry/Mix" is the best way to go truly over the top if you can solve the phasing issues.

But I'm going to let you in on a secret. W/D/W rigs were dreamed up by and for players who used poweramp distortion as part of their core tone. They needed parallel effects paths because their effects got garbled when they cranked their amps. If you use an amp with a hefty enough power section, one that doesn't break up, there is actually zero difference between a Wet/Dry/Wet setup and a stereo cab Mix/Mix setup. I don't mean "they're close enough," I mean "if you close your eyes and listen to a great Mix/Mix set of stereo cabs and physically separate them a little, you still hear a mono dry tone coming out of both cabs which your brain will literally physically localize as a phantom cab sitting in between the Mix cabs.

I've tried it. I swapped between Wet/Dry/Wet patches and Mix/Off/Mix patches with the same tones dialed in, and they sounded identical. And by "identical" I mean at first I thought I messed up my setup and had the same patch copied twice, so I actually had to go and turn off the middle poweramp to make sure the middle cab was really off because my brain was telling me there was sound coming out of it. There wasn't.

I think I understand what you’re saying, however, I’m not sure how the dry and the wet cabinet tone is exactly the same if the power amp is say a Mesa 395 and you are running a line out Marshall into the dry. For me whatever power amp you’re using is placing a little tone difference on the wet cabinets, no matter if you’re mixing dry signal into them or not.

 

[Shask]

"Mix/Dry/Dry/Mix" is the best way to go truly over the top if you can solve the phasing issues.

But I'm going to let you in on a secret. W/D/W rigs were dreamed up by and for players who used poweramp distortion as part of their core tone. They needed parallel effects paths driven by clean poweramps because their effects got garbled when they cranked their regular tube amps. If you use an amp with a hefty enough power section, one that doesn't break up, there is actually zero difference between a Wet/Dry/Wet setup and a stereo cab Mix/Mix setup. I don't mean "they're close enough," I mean "if you close your eyes and listen to a great Mix/Mix set of stereo cabs and physically separate them a little, you still hear a mono dry tone coming out of both cabs which your brain will literally physically localize as a phantom cab sitting in between the Mix cabs.

I've tried it. I swapped between Wet/Dry/Wet patches and Mix/Off/Mix patches with the same tones dialed in except for how the dry tone was routed, and they sounded identical. And by "identical" I mean at first I thought I messed up my setup and had the same patch copied twice, so I actually had to go and turn off the middle poweramp to make sure the middle cab was really off because my brain was telling me there was sound coming out of it. There wasn't.

I tried both, and for my type of high gain tones, I noticed very little difference and didn't think the extra stuff for the W/D/W was worth it over regular stereo with a clean effects signal path.

 

[TheGreatGreen]

I think I understand what you’re saying, however, I’m not sure how the dry and the wet cabinet tone is exactly the same if the power amp is say a Mesa 395 and you are running a line out Marshall into the dry. For me whatever power amp you’re using is placing a little tone difference on the wet cabinets, no matter if you’re mixing dry signal into them or not.

Yeah good point, if your signal paths are different then you'll notice changes, and if you're intentionally blending poweramps or different cabs to get a particular sound, then yeah. I'm more talking about if you're running two or more of the same kinds of poweramps into the same kinds of cabs.

 

[jasonP]

I tried both, and for my type of high gain tones, I noticed very little difference and didn't think the extra stuff for the W/D/W was worth it over regular stereo with a clean effects signal path.

How are you running your regular stereo setup?

 

[jasonP]

Yeah good point, if your signal paths are different then you'll notice changes, and if you're intentionally blending poweramps or different cabs to get a particular sound, then yeah. I'm more talking about if you're running two or more of the same kinds of poweramps into the same kinds of cabs.

In my opinion it’s a whole another experience when you start mixing power amps and cabinets.

 

[Shask]

How are you running your regular stereo setup?

Generally a Synergy Preamp into a Mesa 2:90 into 2 412 cabs in stereo. I was using a big parallel mixing rack but recently started just using a Fractal VP4 instead.

 

[alund]

I use a Red Seven MSLM for the WDW. Has a dedicated dry path.

 

[jasonP]

Generally a Synergy Preamp into a Mesa 2:90 into 2 412 cabs in stereo. I was using a big parallel mixing rack but recently started just using a Fractal VP4 instead.

Badass man!!