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I need to go Stereo

1K views 36 replies 14 participants last post by  mhammer 
#1 ·
I finally went the two amp route on stage last night, for the first time. It was a wonderful sonic experience.

We were playing without a drummer, so I wanted to fill more of the freqency band so we didn't sound thin. I stacked my 1x12 Epiphone Valve Junior halfstack on top of my 1x15 Super Reverb (Vibroverb Clone) and jumpered the inputs. The 5 watter on the edge of breakup gave me some sonic space in the mids, but wasn't loud enough to be really noticed over the 45W underneath it. Until I stomped on a tube screamer for a lead boost and the Junior took charge for my solos.

Next step is to make me delay, reverb, or phaser of the stereo variety and do a 2 amp rig right. I always take the little valve jr head as a backup to any gigs, so an extra cabinet isn't much extra load to carry.
 
#3 ·
I always consider stereo to involve the amps being seperated, not just running two of them. I think what you did was just mono with 2 amps?

Either way, yes do get stereo reverb aaand delay pedals and go to town.
Exactly, I went double mono and it was great. Stereo must be better.
 
#6 ·
Good thinking.

I've often run 2 amps with a Radial ABY pedal. One clean with a hint of reverb, the other clean/dirty with FX in front of it. Both with their own channel switch for the possibility of their own additional dirt. It's a bit more tap dancing than I prefer, but the tone shaping on the fly is much more satisfying. Trouble is, I require a decent sound check to set my initial levels to my satisfaction, and that isn't always an option. What I like about the set-up specifically is the always clean amp that allows me great note definition no matter how much dirt I'm using from the other.
 
#13 ·
Jeff Beck ran a dual-amp arrangement like what you used for a period, with a lower-wattage Fender, like a Princeton or Champ, in conjunction with a Twin or similar. As I understood it, the intent was similar to yours: push the mids hard into breakup, via the smaller amp, while maintaining cleaner low end via the larger one. As someone pointed out, this is really more of a blended dual-amp arrangement, rather than anything one might call "stereo".

We'll get to the sonic possibilities in a moment, but there are a number of caveats top consider with respect to going stereo.
  • Obviously the weight, and cost, of extra gear.
  • The frequent impossibility of either situating oneself, or audience-members in "the sweet spot", where the luscious stereo can be heard.
  • The tendency for some forms of stereo pedals to cancel out "in air".
  • The extra stage space required.
  • Bandmates each hearing something different.
  • The distraction that can result from two very different sounds coming from two different locations. As I've likely noted here on several occasions, the only time I've ever stepped up to a mic and completely blanked on lyrics was a time when I had a slow Leslie to my left and a separate amp with a slow tremolo on my right.
I have a couple of smaller amps that allow me to play with stereo in a convenient form in my home. I also have a cheap Fender Sidekick SK20 Chorus, with a pair of separately powered 8" speakers that functions as a poor-man's JC120, providing the wet signal on one channel and the dry on the other. Of course, with a cab sized for two 8" speakers, the wet/dry separation requires situating oneself rather close to find the sweet spot. One good feature of the amp, however, is that it has a stereo effect loop, so I can do things like insert the wet part of a phase-shifter into one channel, and leave the other one dry, or even a pair of tremolos or phase shifters. Sounds marvelous, although limited in terms of where the sweet spot is for really enjoying it.

Some stereo effects are too extreme. The Ibanez Flying Pan was a shortlived unit that combined a simple 4-stage phase-shifter with an autopan, and separate sweep rates for each. Fascinating "psych-a-duci" idea on paper, but you couldn't leave the thing on for more than 30 seconds before thinking "Okay, that's enough. I'm getting nauseated." The contrast and degree of activity between the two outputs was just too distracting. Although, if one used a single effect at a time, and only one output at a time, it was serviceable as a phaser or tremolo.

When it comes to stereo modulation effects, I think quadrature LFOs are underutilized. A quadrature LFO provides outputs that are only 90 degrees out of phase, rather than complete inverses of each other. More complex ones will give you LFO outputs of 90, 180, and 270-degree lag. Here's a demo of various phase manipulations using a software-generate quadrature function:


Dan and Mick, over at TPS had some segments on three-amp wet/dry/wet arrangements, that sound pretty righteous.
 
#16 ·
I don't know how common it is, but some digital delays and digital multi-FX, with dual ins and outs, will provide stereo outs even with a mono in. I guess their working assumption is that most will run the pedal in mono, few end-users will attempt to use the pedal in full stereo, but a modest nucleus more will run a stereo out from a mono in. Back when I was beta-testing the Tone Core series for Line 6, I exchanged some e-mail notes with one of the programmers. He noted that, on the Echo Park, they found that the number of clock cycles required to provide full stereo implementation ate through a fresh 9v battery in less than the span of a stage set.( Pedalboard power was not as prevalent then, but I suspect they were more concerned about the ability of a typical Guitar Center salesperson to hand a pedal to a prospective customer to try out, without having to fish around for a suitable wallwart and an available outlet to plug it into. So being able to run off a battery was seen as a worthwhile goal to aim for. Their solution was to essentially pool the dual inputs, process, and differentially distribute the results to the two outputs, rather than treat each stream entirely differently. So the A output was a little different than the B output, even though the same parameters were applied to it (delay time, feedback, etc.). So rather than a simple boilerplate dry-out-this-jack-and-wet-out-the-other, the two outputs carried related but non-identical delay outputs. That appears to be true of the M5 modeller, and I suspect may also be true of some of the other modeller series (though I'd need confirmation of that).

On some of their pedals, the effect "moves". My Tone Core Liqui-Flange pans the flange across the two outputs. Though the Tone Core Otto Fiolter normally comes with a mono dock, if you plug the module into a stereo dock, there's an easter egg that Jeorge Tripps hipped me to. One of the settings is a so-called "Talking Filter", that sweeps one bandpass upwards and another downwards. Used in stereo, one filter comes out one output and the other output carries the other filter. The two filters appear to countersweep across the stereo field, such that the lower filter moves from left to right as it sweeps upwards, and the upper filter moves from right to left as it sweeps downward.

There is a LOT to play with in the world of stereo effects. Indeed, more than many players are likely aware of.
 
#22 · (Edited)
I run stereo pretty much all the time these days. I'm not a big fan of wet/dry delay as the splitter. I have a DM-2 Waza, and it does sound pretty good for slap back, but not nearly as nice as a stereo chorus or phase. The Alter Ego 2 does a really nice true stereo delay, I really like it. My current stereo pedal is the old yellow MXR 18V stereo chorus, about 100$ used. It is buffered, so you get two buffered outputs at all times. The buffer is nice and transparent as well. It has a mix control so you can dial down the chorus so that it is ultra subtle or as dense as you want. It phases and pans so you get a great stereo sound (though I don't think it is true two channel like the dimension C) I had the Analogman, which is also very good, but a bit too dense and watery for me. I should have gotten the version with the mix control. It is true bypass as well, so it gets a bit quieter if you switch it out, the MXR does not.

I have a Dimension C on order we'll see if that is better, but the MXR is really good and quite cheap. The C is true stereo, with two parallel chorus circuits.

For me the key has been running all the amps and pedal board through the same power bar (I use a furman power conditioner) and I don't get ground loops, ever.
 
#24 ·
I run stereo pretty much all the time these days. I'm not a big fan of wet/dry delay as the splitter. I have a DM-2 Waza, and it does sound pretty good for slapjack, but not nearly as nice as a stereo chorus or phase. The Alter Ego 2 does a really nice true stereo delay, I really like it. My current stereo pedal is the old yellow MXR 18V stereo chorus, about 100$ used. It is buffered, so you get two buffered outputs at all times. The buffer is nice and transparent as well. It has a mix control so you can dial down the chorus so that it is ultra subtle or as dense as you want. It phases and pans so you get a great stereo sound (though I don't think it is true two channel like the dimension C) I had the Analogman, which is also very good, but a bit too dense and watery for me. I should have gotten the version with the mix control. It is true bypass as well, so it gets a bit quieter if you switch it out, the MXR does not.

I have a Dimension C on order we'll see if that is better, but the MXR is really good and quite cheap. The C is true stereo, with two parallel chorus circuits.

For me the key has been running all the amps and pedal board through the same power bar (I use a furman power conditioner) and I don't get ground loops, ever.
I had that one. Never used it stereo before i sold it ( sounded good for guitar but sucked for bass). It was billed as being proper stereo. And at 18v I’d believe it.
 
#25 · (Edited)
The yellow MXR chorus is a good'un, but provides a sum/difference output, similar to what I have on a number of phasers. That is, the delay signal is added to the dry signal for one output and subtracted from the dry signal for the other. A small step up from simply having dry out of one jack and wet out of the other, but this is one of those forms of "stereo" that can cancel out in air, since the two delay signals are opposite phase to each other. Through headphones it probably sounds nice, if a little weighted toward one side. In contrast, since the two "sides" of the DC-2 are doing something different,there is no cancellation in air, and the side-to-side balance is more even.

zdogma loaned me his Alter Ego for a bit, and I have to say it is a very nice pedal. I really enjoyed exploiting the dual ins and outs for re-processing, though. That is, take out A, and feed it to in B for a second go-around. The reverse and modulated delays sound delicious. I demoed it for Steve Bragg when he came over to show me what the Zoia could do. He liked it enough that he figured out how to get the Zoia to mimic it.

My kid is coming home from Halifax for the holiday period at the end of the week. I'd like to be able to say "Send the Axle Grease along with him and I'll see if I can mod it for stereo for ya", but I gather it is simply a humble PT2399-based delay, with some decent support circuitry and good filtering. So, nothing that could be readily adapted for stereo, other than providing a bland wet/dry split.
 
#28 ·
The PT2399 chip - that I've bought for as little as $0.43Cdn, and can be bought in surface-mount form for even less - has been an absolute godsend and industry success, providing up to 500-600msec delay time and respectable A/D-D/A conversion in a small footprint. Just a smart and flexible chip that will be viewed as a "classic" down the road. Not because it is somehow "best", but because it makes so much available for such a low cost, without having to sacrifice much. It is used on a wide range of lower-cost and even some boutique delays. The key is to use good filtering. That's what allows it to compete favorably with some classic analog delays.
 
#29 ·
Stereo is nice when you’re sitting in the perfect listening pisition.

For the most part in live music applications, I mix in mono. I set up a stereo PA, but there’s not much point in panning anything hard left or right unless it’s for a heavy left right echo effect or similar.

It’s a nice complex sound in the studio, rehearsal space or even on stage, but not much of that stereo effect ever reaches the audience.
 
#35 ·
For the past 7 or 8 years I have been using two amps live, a DRRI with one of my 79' Princeton Reverb or a DSL401. Last pedal in the chain is an H2O, offering either/both chorus and delay with stereo outs. For quite some time I'd just bring the 2nd amp as a backup and then I thought I'd try running both together. Side by side the sound is much fuller and defined. The further apart they get the more interesting it gets - although about 6 feet of separation is probably the max so far (but chorus is an absolute thing of beauty to me in the middle of it). Overall, it sounds a ton better to me where I stand and given that 90% I don't mic myself it also adds a better spread to the room.
 
#37 ·
That's why, despite their reputation for uninspiring overdrive, so many players are attached to their JC120 amps. Stereo chorus just sounds full.

And if you like stereo chorus, then you MUST play with a Leslie or Vibratone. Once more, I urge folks to keep their eyes peeled for "free to a good home" console organs that show up on Kijiji almost daily. Most of these will have a built-in rotary speaker, and mechanism that can be adapted to a stand-alone unit. What makes slow Leslie so magical IS the spatial swirl that many try to extract from 2-amp setups.
 
#36 ·
I've played around with stereo at home but didn't find it was worth the trouble live. Some of the mods and delays are enveloping when you're in the sweet spot (like I am on stage) but not everyone in the audience is getting the same thing.

I will probably screw around with it going direct with the Kemper, but I'll still be mono on stage. So only the audience will hear the stereo effect in that case, it will be just the opposite of why I couldn't bother with it before. And I will have to do some walking around to see if it really works around the room. I can also go w/d/w direct, that may turn out to be better.

But some effects are nice in stereo; rotary speaker, phaser/flanger and chorus come immediately to mind, also some of the newer digital delay algo's. Both the M9 and the Kemper do those effects really well in stereo, in fact to the point where sometimes, when I was running mono, I wasn't that satisfied with the effects since I knew how much better they could sound when things were set up just right and you were in that sweet spot. It felt like I was missing something.
 
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