Lite W/D/W Hybrid digital/analog rig

[Numpy]

Wondering if y’all have any thoughts / experience on running a single tube amp mic’d with a split from the guitar also running into Bias FX on iPad with stereo out to FOH for a super lite W/D/W rig? Or if not Bias, then some other digital stereo option running alongside a dry amp.

I imagine having 3 signals will anger a lot of sound guys, but if it’s too much I’ll use mono patches on Bias to narrow it down to 2 signals. If that’s too much I’ll just use the amp lol.

Bonus question - how many of you run stereo digital only setups for gigs, and how do you find it RE sound guys?

 

[TheGreatGreen]

How exactly are you planning on running the rig? If you're splitting your signal right after the guitar then you'll be running both into the input of the amp and the input of the Bias FX. Are you planning on running an amp model of your tube amp to generate the tones for the wet path?

Either way, if you're talking about a live solution, that could be tough. Analog/digital hybrid rigs are always at risk of phase issues from the digital path always being a couple of ms behind the analog path due to the AD/DA conversion process. If you run a rig like that, you'd need to make sure that the wet path is always 100% wet and the dry path is always 100% dry. Also, you're going to have trouble running basically any effects other than delays and reverbs (effects that by definition do not sync with the dry signal). Post effects like chorus, phase, flange, rotary, or EQ depend on being timed correctly with the dry signal, so you probably won't be able to use those without phase issues.

 

[Numpy]

Thanks for the reply! I had planned on trying a few different amp models, just because I’ve seen most W/D or W/D/W tries to utilise different amps rather than just 2 or 3 identical ones.
With regards to phase, thanks for pointing that out! I’ve never played digital and analog simultaneously before, so wasn’t aware it might be an issue. Is there any way to offset the tube amp signal by X ms until I can tell they’re back in phase?

 

[DanTravis62]

There is almost no way to correct the phase combining an analog rig with a digital one side by side like that.

 

[Numpy]

Is there really no device designed yet that allows granular control over the phase of a signal instead of just flipping it one way or the other? I find it hard to believe there’s no solution for a problem as ubiquitous as phase when by all accounts it should just be a matter of offsetting one of the signals by X ms until they’re in phase again

 

[TheGreatGreen]

The problem is that you'd need to find a delay pedal with a killdry function so it could operate at a 100% wet mix, and that would also allow adjusting the delay by degrees of about 0.01 ms or even finer than that to truly negate the phase issues, and the vast majority of delays on the market do not offer that degree of control. And even if they did, they would only work if your tube amp has a truly serial effects loop with absolutely zero bleedthrough, which is honestly kind of rare.