Stereo rigs? What to take into consideration?

Jakem

Jakem

Well-known member
Do You guys use tube or SS poweramps? Which one do You prefer and why?

I am playing around with a thought of setting up a stereo rig. The rig would be a tube head run into a Suhr reactive load IR and from there to stereo FX and then into a poweramp and two 1x12s. Would it work? Would the rig need a mixer?
 
Center dry? Or just wet/wet?
I use tube… I don’t own any SS.
I use a line mixer now and it’s great… really becomes the center to allow levels.
 
I used to use an fx loop in a rig and things just get too jumbled in a band mix. Now I get a dry sound. Then add wet to it. If using 2 cabs you might think about wet dry. If you are with band members, the wet signal seems to get lost whereas a dry signal is a constant. The wet adds to thicken up your dry sound. It took a few years for me to figure out why I sounded weaker in the mix with other instruments using wet alone.. time based effects especially muddy the water.
If you have to have and desire true stereo then get a center dry cab WDW deal. I love mine and it’s pretty streamlined to make for easy departure.
 
Technically I guess I’m mono/mono/mono and am running wet/dry/wet now… I usually go wet/wet/wet… it’s my personal jam baby…try it…. Sounds massive and beautiful but it’s a continual headache 🤕 ground loops, cable problems, equipment issues occasionally… but when it’s on it’s on… now I have my effects going into the budda’s loop and I’m slaving the mesa to it. The Budda has a slave out with a level knob. Before I had a line running to my 6505 but now that I got the little Randall one hitter quitter I’m running it center dry. Now that the pv is working again I need to figure out a way to hook it up…. Mono/mono/mono/mono….hmmmm….
 
BeZo said:
True, but amps in stereo sound massive. If you blend the right amps, you get a sound neither one could create on their own.
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I used to run my 4001 in “ Ric-O-Sound” with an SVT/810 and a JSX/412. Not gonna lie, it sounded great in the jam space. On stage in a crowded venue it was a wash. And sound guys hated it.
 
I ran stereo rack rig (ADA) back in the day, but most stages where too small so I never got the real benefit of it.

I run stereo with my modelers and computer rig.

I run tube (Engl E850/100) and solid state ( ISP Stealth) stereo rigs at home; and in the past I had a pair of Roland CUBE-80 amps I ran in stereo.

My stereo rigs were always wet/wet, but each side would have a dry signal mixed in so it wasn't completely lost in the mix. I also hate reverb so rarely use it beyond some ambience.


Never had a wet/dry/wet rig, I think they're more complex vs what you get, at least for me. As I said, many stereo effects and modelers have a mix to let you add/remove as much dry signal as you want, which works great for me
 
rsm said:
I ran stereo rack rig (ADA) back in the day, but most stages where too small so I never got the real benefit of it.

I run stereo with my modelers and computer rig.

I run tube (Engl E850/100) and solid state ( ISP Stealth) stereo rigs at home; and in the past I had a pair of Roland CUBE-80 amps I ran in stereo.

My stereo rigs were always wet/wet, but each side would have a dry signal mixed in so it wasn't completely lost in the mix. I also hate reverb so rarely use it beyond some ambience.


Never had a wet/dry/wet rig, I think they're more complex vs what you get, at least for me. As I said, many stereo effects and modelers have a mix to let you add/remove as much dry signal as you want, which works great for me
Click to expand...

The part about dry signal mixed in was very interesting. How did You do it?
 
Jakem said:
The part about dry signal mixed in was very interesting. How did You do it?
Click to expand...

Here's an example,

I used to have a G-System, Nova System, and all of the Nova pedals, including the Nova Delay:


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on the upper right is the mix level control; the Nova Reverb and Nova Modulator (all the post effects) had dry mix controls).

I would dial in the level of dry signal for each.


Many digital modelers have dry mix, or you can use dual amps, and have one amp with a dry signal path after the amp, and another with effects...many ways to achieve it depending on your gear and signal chain
 
Whatever rig you decide to set up will sound best if DiMarzios are generating the base signal. Doesn't matter if they're single coil or humbuckers, as long as thr guitar is equipped with them you'll be fine.
 
* Amp 8 ohm speaker output -> Suhr RLIR input
* Suhr RLIR DI Line Out Unfiltered Output -> (optional) Mixer -> Stereo FX input (might need a Y cable if your FX unit doesn't have any mono in/stereo out capabilities). If using a mixer, set the FX to 100% wet and user your mixer to mix in the dry. If not using a mixer, set your dry signal in the FX unit itself
* Stereo FX output left/right -> Tube power amp left/right input
* Tube power amp left/right output -> speakers

Yes, use a quality tube power amp because that is now going to be part of your core tone. Yes, this will work. Using a mixer depends on the exact effects unit you plan on using. Units with analog dry thru don't generally need them, but a high quality mixer will always help preserve dry tone. At the same time, some effects just sound better in series - or don't work at all in parallel (EQs and compressors, for example)

Can't really give concrete advice without knowing specifics of your rig
 
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