This is a fantastic video, so many videos on youtube extol the virtues of these setups but fail to adequately explain how to achieve it. This is so clear and well done, thank you so much
True dat. My goal has been a 2 amp rig for the past 2 years and I have finally achieved my goal. Hooking up in 2 days and now I know what I could run into and how to fix
About the phase, if you don't have a true ABY box: you can hook an overdrive or a boost before one of the amps. That should reverse the phase. About the ground loop issue, if you don't have a true ABY box: insert a buffer (a non-true bypass pedal) before one of the amps. That will kill the ground loop (without killing you in the process).
thx for posting. i know little about this but the way you explained made more sense to me than the way it jas explained in the past. i'm definitely going the wet dry route for now on.
Great video with simple technical breakdown. I ran ABY & direct interface back in the 80s & you could piggyback off those as well. Look forward to more from you. Thanks
Awesome, well-reasoned, thoughtful video. Thank you for sharing your knowledge on the subject. Looks like I need a Radial Big Shot. Seems to do everything I'll need.
Just for anyone who doesn't understand why a sound guy, the guy who's suppose to give you your sound to the audience and we'll, doesn't pan...Panning is pointless for live shows. Even if sound guy put you in stereo like you want him to. One amp through left main, other amp through right main. The audience on left main speaker won't hear the right pan on right main speaker, and vice versa. Which is exactly why sound guys don't do it and a lot of time don't even run in stereo. The few people that are exactly in the middle. Literally right in the middle might hear it but that's a very small percentage and the sound guys goal is making you sounds good to everyone not a very small percentage.
long speaker cables... You run both amps and use 4 cabs... you have 1 cab for each amp on each side.. seems annoying but honestly it sends your stereo sound to both sides of the house because you're running two amps and 4 cabs amp 1 sends a signal to cab A1 and B1 amp 2 sends a signal to cab B1 and B2 Left side is A1 + B1 and right side is A2 + B2. Seems complicated but you end up with an excellent live sound. Use 2x12's if you don't like 4x12's... Or even 1x12s because you'd be running 4 four cabs so 4 speakers would be enough.
The sound guy doesnt have to pan your stereo guitar 100% , right. His job, during the sound test, is also to walk around in the crowd area, and check if the panning is to hard. .
Great video.!. I've been interested in how to run two amps together,along with getting that ping pong effect. Your tutorial was easily understood. I've been playing guitar since a kid.. But running 2 amps is something I've never put much thought into. UA-cam.You gotta love it.
I was looking for a proper way to go stereo as I plan to trigger soft synths through guitar jam on ipad and not to loose the original guitar signal and sound. I even checked out Parker guitars and other piezo/conventional solutions and was quite close to a needless purchase. So thank you very much! Cheers!
My Blackstar has a ground lift. and I also have a Humx. I play in a lot of older buildings. so I just wanted to prepared. but now I want to hook both amps together. cool video
On stage, I used to use a splitter to go to my Marshall Bluesbreaker on one side and a Roland 120 Jazz Chorus on the other. I could toggle between them for clean and distorted passages or both on for balls out.
If you use the a/b switch to play over a loop, you can have an orange micro crush or another amp with aux input. You plug a preamp with effect modulator in chain with your looper into the aux input and the A section. You plug B section in your pedalboard into the amp. The looper will play in aux input while you switch directly in the amp for your lead tone. There is many way you can do it you can put your effects before the a/b switch and only a preamp and looper after in section A. And go direct into the amp in section B
Great explanation. Two questions though. 1) Say I DID want to run stereo out of my stereo effects pedal into two different amps. What would need to go between my pedal and my two amps in order to avoid ground hum? I think you didn't fully answer that since that's rarely able to be done at a venue, but I'd still like to know! 2) To run a wet/dry signal path: The last three pedals in my chain are chorus > delay > reverb. I'm thinking of ending my dry signal chain after the chorus and ending my wet chain after the reverb. However, this seems it would present the same ground loop issue. So I guess the two questions are really just how do I run two different signals into two different amps without ground loop? Because the Radial BigShot only has one input.
I totally get it now after you explained how phase is basically polarity and by switching positive and negative wires on the lead you can get around not having a phase switch pedal. Nobody explained it like that before.
Great video! I do wonder as some may have access to the speakers…some grill clothes come off and you don’t see much moving. You probably could put something over the speaker that’s thing, to see if it’s sucking in or out. My brain crapped out for a bit figuring it out. But the key was to see what happens when the nite resolves. Here you’re just doing half time type strums. I was just hitting a long E. So I figured when the note resolves, if the speaker pops foward…out of phase. If the speaker pops back when it resolves in phase. I personally just do A/B only one amp at a time. Because running two amps…if you turn one off, volume will drop. However, it can be nice to punch a heavy gain one in and out. That’s how I like to do it! One amp mostly clean and gets the entire board. Dirty amp is dirty, and has no effects. So when switching it’s just a lot tighter sound to get out of say 3 effects pedals stacked…without having to have a Gigrig or scene programmable board. This one helps a lot! As I was having issues in a room figuring it out. I’ll have to get a cloth and stretch it out over the cab to see which way it’s pulling. It’s a bit difficult just looking at the speaker for me sometimes. And some grill clothes are just solid and don’t move at all.
Thanks man!!!!… very informative!!!!…. I got this thought in my head that I could use a fender bass amp and a fender 2 x 12 at the same time …..I mean …why not. It can’t be that bad but ….I don’t know how to do it so thanks man most likely it’ll be horrible but I’m gonna try it
Neutrik makes very small transformer isolators that work fine, Palmer makes one as well, and it has jack in/jack out. With Neutrik you need a female XLR - jack for it to work.
Incredible job explaining this. There is one other safe method to interrupt ground loop. Disconnect the ground on one audio cable and it will still drive the input with the tip connector alone. I hope you are still doing well. It's a pretty old video and no new videos for over 5 years.
Nice video. Essentially all you need is an audio transformer to lift the ground hum. It has to be running as a true ground isolated circuit. then the phase switch is also easy to put in too, as this just switches the output from the transformer. That being said the problem comes if you are running different pedals after the Y switch. Then the phase may be reversed by distortion and overdrive pedals. And will give you a true out of phase between the two amps, or in one amp running in parallel input mode. I've thought about running a transformer with every pedal that flips the phase, through a pedal switching board that i'd have to make. Thoughts..
I was starting to mention the 'other way' and how to do it safely but stopped since you made a statement about it right because it's too easy to do it unsafely... ALSO, ground loops inside the guitar itself is an issue I've fixed for a lot of people over the years as well (and also don't forget that [cliché example, lol] that strats are noisy, low battery in active setups can make a lot of hissing, etc... aaaaanyway, lol, there are a lot of damn variables and examples...lol. (and this comment is to everyone btw. Great video man!!
You can also do this with the Boss tuner pedals. They have a bypass jack aswell as a normal, and they dont do anything to your sound. Plus you get a tuner, so..
Great video. Answered quite a few questions I had. ....but.... With a head and cab, instead of swapping on end of the wires inside your speaker cable; couldn't you technically swap one end of the wires inside the cab that connect the speakers to the Jack? I can't help think that if you are trying to avoid soldering, the inside of the cab might be the way to do this as long as the leads to the speakers are using a coupler or a clip instead of being soldered.
Beware the inexpensive ABY box because splitting your input signal essentially cuts your amps signal so significantly that your tone suffers. Get one with some sort of buffer.
Very nice. A no BS answer with no bragging and showing off all your equipment. Good video. :)
By far the best explanation, without a ton of small talk, and with actually useful information.
This is a fantastic video, so many videos on youtube extol the virtues of these setups but fail to adequately explain how to achieve it. This is so clear and well done, thank you so much
True dat. My goal has been a 2 amp rig for the past 2 years and I have finally achieved my goal. Hooking up in 2 days and now I know what I could run into and how to fix
Totally agree. It's so much better than other videos! Well done axescent.
Hi ! Sorry for replying here but can I hook up any two amps together? I'm thinking of hooking up two katana 100s
@@Cymanytb if you use 2 exact same amps you shouldn't have phase issues
@@mindfall82 okay, thanks
About the phase, if you don't have a true ABY box: you can hook an overdrive or a boost before one of the amps. That should reverse the phase.
About the ground loop issue, if you don't have a true ABY box: insert a buffer (a non-true bypass pedal) before one of the amps. That will kill the ground loop (without killing you in the process).
How did youtube know I've started thinking about running two amps. Get out of my head. Nice vid, dude.
Thanks for a great demo.....no faffin around....just straight to the point...( when guys start going off peiste i move on).....👍👍👍👍
UA-cam didn't know ,
You obviously searched this out.
It's all in the head
The brain is the most powerful thing , the way one thinks.
Congrats! I'd never actually SEEN phasing before!
thx for posting. i know little about this but the way you explained made more sense to me than the way it jas explained in the past. i'm definitely going the wet dry route for now on.
Simplest and best video I have saw on the subject.
Great video, so clearly and well explained. Thanks for posting
Great video with simple technical breakdown. I ran ABY & direct interface back in the 80s & you could piggyback off those as well. Look forward to more from you. Thanks
Thanks for the very good explanation, very nicely done!!
This is the best video on how to running 2 amps. Thanks
Thank you for this video. It was very informative and helped me figure out the solutions for using two amps.
Awesome video. Great job at keeping it simple and understandable
Nice visual of in and out of phase! Thank you!!
Very informative. Well presented as well. Thanks!!
Really nice, simple to understand explanation. Cheers.
Thanks for your info and experience. Very clear and helpful
best simple video...watches a few others .did not really understand. Im just starting and this was the basics thanks again
thanks, cool demonstration of the speaker phase!
Awesome, well-reasoned, thoughtful video. Thank you for sharing your knowledge on the subject. Looks like I need a Radial Big Shot. Seems to do everything I'll need.
Bro great video in teaching us! Learned all about it, thank you so much!!!
One of the better video lessons. Thx🤘 cheers
Solid info, in plain English. Bravo. Thanks!
Thank you man. I enjoyed it. And am glad that learned more than I expected. Really well presentation. If I apply this, man it would be fantastic.
Thank for this video! Very helpful.
nice, easy explanation and helpful. Thanks
Shocking lesson. Thanks
Extremely helpful, thanks!
@axescent: You did a fantastic job on this subject
Excellent info! Very appreciated🤘
Thanks for the info. I'm getting the HOTSHOT
good work buddy. appreciate that
Just for anyone who doesn't understand why a sound guy, the guy who's suppose to give you your sound to the audience and we'll, doesn't pan...Panning is pointless for live shows. Even if sound guy put you in stereo like you want him to. One amp through left main, other amp through right main. The audience on left main speaker won't hear the right pan on right main speaker, and vice versa. Which is exactly why sound guys don't do it and a lot of time don't even run in stereo. The few people that are exactly in the middle. Literally right in the middle might hear it but that's a very small percentage and the sound guys goal is making you sounds good to everyone not a very small percentage.
Danny Rivers maybe if you put the cab sideways it might help?
True
@@lotromaster14 ?
long speaker cables... You run both amps and use 4 cabs... you have 1 cab for each amp on each side.. seems annoying but honestly it sends your stereo sound to both sides of the house because you're running two amps and 4 cabs
amp 1 sends a signal to cab A1 and B1
amp 2 sends a signal to cab B1 and B2
Left side is A1 + B1 and right side is A2 + B2. Seems complicated but you end up with an excellent live sound. Use 2x12's if you don't like 4x12's... Or even 1x12s because you'd be running 4 four cabs so 4 speakers would be enough.
The sound guy doesnt have to pan your stereo guitar 100% , right. His job, during the sound test, is also to walk around in the crowd area, and check if the panning is to hard. .
Great video.!. I've been interested in how to run two amps together,along with getting that ping pong effect. Your tutorial was easily understood. I've been playing guitar since a kid.. But running 2 amps is something I've never put much thought into. UA-cam.You gotta love it.
I was looking for a proper way to go stereo as I plan to trigger soft synths through guitar jam on ipad and not to loose the original guitar signal and sound. I even checked out Parker guitars and other piezo/conventional solutions and was quite close to a needless purchase. So thank you very much! Cheers!
thanx for the education session, very helpful. Cheers bro !
Very good explanation mate, cheers
Nice video-I was just hearing about the amp phasing yesterday. Go O's!
My Blackstar has a ground lift. and I also have a Humx. I play in a lot of older buildings. so I just wanted to prepared. but now I want to hook both amps together.
cool video
Great vid. Thanks for making it.
Good points about rehearsal vs. gigging in stereo
Well, it depend on how many instrumets there are in the band.
If you have problems with ground loop hum I recommend checking out the hum-x. Works wonders for me!
Thanks for the heads up man!
This video saved me of making a big mistake. Thanks for sharing!
Great information, especially about staying safe. Well done.
Phil
NYC / Jersey Shore Area
Awesome video, especially the part about being out of phase. I was always wondering what the hell was going on with that! Makes perfect sense now.
Perfect !!!. Thank you.
super helpful thanks brother
Sonny you just saved one of my amp speakers 😂 sometimes it pays to not experiment and actually look for an answer
Thank you very informative!
Thanks for this video!
Dual mono with a tiny delay (4-6ms) on one amp is awesome.
Thanks for the info!!
On stage, I used to use a splitter to go to my Marshall Bluesbreaker on one side and a Roland 120 Jazz Chorus on the other. I could toggle between them for clean and distorted passages or both on for balls out.
very clear ,thanks
Fantastic very informative
Appreciate the video thank you
If you use the a/b switch to play over a loop, you can have an orange micro crush or another amp with aux input. You plug a preamp with effect modulator in chain with your looper into the aux input and the A section. You plug B section in your pedalboard into the amp. The looper will play in aux input while you switch directly in the amp for your lead tone. There is many way you can do it you can put your effects before the a/b switch and only a preamp and looper after in section A. And go direct into the amp in section B
Good knowledge,keep it up
my Peavy rage amp has a pre amp out feature!
works great,too!
Great vid dude thx
You are sooooo good at this. You should make videos!
Lehle has a stereo ABY called the little dual with a phase and isolated ground. Its awesome
Thanks for the knawledge
Charm City represent and good video. I know what to get now !
thanks that helped tremendously, now i know the problem. ground loop hum. gotta buy new pedel-cheers.
Great explanation. Two questions though.
1) Say I DID want to run stereo out of my stereo effects pedal into two different amps. What would need to go between my pedal and my two amps in order to avoid ground hum? I think you didn't fully answer that since that's rarely able to be done at a venue, but I'd still like to know!
2) To run a wet/dry signal path: The last three pedals in my chain are chorus > delay > reverb. I'm thinking of ending my dry signal chain after the chorus and ending my wet chain after the reverb. However, this seems it would present the same ground loop issue.
So I guess the two questions are really just how do I run two different signals into two different amps without ground loop? Because the Radial BigShot only has one input.
Great video
Very useful, thanks mate :D
Good video.
Awesome vid man, thanks a lot. Hey, what about using the fx loop to enslave amps? Any tips?
good job thanks.
Great video, subscribed!
I totally get it now after you explained how phase is basically polarity and by switching positive and negative wires on the lead you can get around not having a phase switch pedal. Nobody explained it like that before.
Great video! I do wonder as some may have access to the speakers…some grill clothes come off and you don’t see much moving. You probably could put something over the speaker that’s thing, to see if it’s sucking in or out.
My brain crapped out for a bit figuring it out. But the key was to see what happens when the nite resolves. Here you’re just doing half time type strums. I was just hitting a long E.
So I figured when the note resolves, if the speaker pops foward…out of phase. If the speaker pops back when it resolves in phase.
I personally just do A/B only one amp at a time. Because running two amps…if you turn one off, volume will drop. However, it can be nice to punch a heavy gain one in and out. That’s how I like to do it! One amp mostly clean and gets the entire board. Dirty amp is dirty, and has no effects. So when switching it’s just a lot tighter sound to get out of say 3 effects pedals stacked…without having to have a Gigrig or scene programmable board.
This one helps a lot! As I was having issues in a room figuring it out. I’ll have to get a cloth and stretch it out over the cab to see which way it’s pulling. It’s a bit difficult just looking at the speaker for me sometimes. And some grill clothes are just solid and don’t move at all.
Thanks man!!!!… very informative!!!!…. I got this thought in my head that I could use a fender bass amp and a fender 2 x 12 at the same time …..I mean …why not. It can’t be that bad but ….I don’t know how to do it so thanks man most likely it’ll be horrible but I’m gonna try it
Neutrik makes very small transformer isolators that work fine, Palmer makes one as well, and it has jack in/jack out. With Neutrik you need a female XLR - jack for it to work.
Great video, thanks man. Go O's!
Thank You!
Incredible job explaining this. There is one other safe method to interrupt ground loop. Disconnect the ground on one audio cable and it will still drive the input with the tip connector alone. I hope you are still doing well. It's a pretty old video and no new videos for over 5 years.
that does not work. just more noise than ever
Thanks mate.
Thanks !
thank you.
Nice video. Essentially all you need is an audio transformer to lift the ground hum. It has to be running as a true ground isolated circuit. then the phase switch is also easy to put in too, as this just switches the output from the transformer. That being said the problem comes if you are running different pedals after the Y switch. Then the phase may be reversed by distortion and overdrive pedals. And will give you a true out of phase between the two amps, or in one amp running in parallel input mode.
I've thought about running a transformer with every pedal that flips the phase, through a pedal switching board that i'd have to make.
Thoughts..
I was starting to mention the 'other way' and how to do it safely but stopped since you made a statement about it right because it's too easy to do it unsafely...
ALSO, ground loops inside the guitar itself is an issue I've fixed for a lot of people over the years as well (and also don't forget that [cliché example, lol] that strats are noisy, low battery in active setups can make a lot of hissing, etc... aaaaanyway, lol, there are a lot of damn variables and examples...lol. (and this comment is to everyone btw.
Great video man!!
Excellent video. Is it possible that phasing is reduced with different amps or by applying different effects to different amps?
Thank you great
That’s was a kool video man
Thanks
Thanks man
thanks!
You can also do this with the Boss tuner pedals. They have a bypass jack aswell as a normal, and they dont do anything to your sound. Plus you get a tuner, so..
The Lehle SGOS also solves the stereo problem because it has stereo ins & outs.
Great video. Answered quite a few questions I had. ....but.... With a head and cab, instead of swapping on end of the wires inside your speaker cable; couldn't you technically swap one end of the wires inside the cab that connect the speakers to the Jack? I can't help think that if you are trying to avoid soldering, the inside of the cab might be the way to do this as long as the leads to the speakers are using a coupler or a clip instead of being soldered.
Stomp boxes plus the EB Tech Hum Eliminator
thankss
Beware the inexpensive ABY box because splitting your input signal essentially cuts your amps signal so significantly that your tone suffers. Get one with some sort of buffer.
Great vid for sure......But don't you also need an aby with transformer isolate switch that toggles from isolate to direct for extra safety?
nice hat!