An amp head question.....

[Colo Springs E]

.....howdy all, well first off some good news (for me), looks like I'm in a gigging cover band! Woo-hoo! We do a lot of 80s/90s/00s songs, mostly danceable rock. Some examples: The Cure, The Violent Femmes, Lit, Clash, Foo Fighters, INXS, Me First/Gimme Gimmes, U2, Offspring, and of course lotsa others.

Lots of the songs we do require a good bit of "processing" to sound reminiscent of the actual tune. Things like the Cure and U2 especially.

So now my question...

I have a Mesa 2x12 cab that I love. I was thinking of getting a really good Marshall head to throw on top of it, then maybe eventually get a Mesa or Marshall 4x12 cab down the road. Still might do all this.

For now, I have a s/s Peavey Supreme XL head. It's 100w, two channels, each channel has 3 "voicings" that can be set--in essence, it's a "6-channel" amp, but only two of the channels (the rhythm and lead) or footswitchable.

Anyhoo...

My question is, can I run a preamp w/effects--for instance, a DG Stomp which I really like--into the amp and bypass everything the amp has except the 100w of power? In other words, can this head act as sort of a rack-mounted power amp? I assume it can, am I correct?

The second question is, if my sound is going to be delayed, chorused, etc on a good many of these songs--and if I like the amp settings the Stomp has to offer (which I do)--is there really any need to get a good tube head? In other words, am I really not getting any of the value a good tube head has to offer, if I'm just "overriding" it's tone with all these effects and stuff?

Opinions wanted. Thanks!

-Eric

[Ben Harmless]

First, yes, as long as the amp has a series FX loop, which I'm pretty sure it does, you can run that DG into the "return" portion, and ignore the Peavey front end. Fair warning, in this mode, the Peavey volume control will likely be disabled. You'll want to watch your levels on the DG Stomp when you power up.

Second, yes, you can certianly do that. Many people use digital preamps for just that reason. For a really versitile cover band, it's tough to get all those tones out of a tube head without many additional FX, which often means a lot of dancing on switches. A friend of mine solved the problem by spending three grand on a Bogner Extacy, which is MIDI enabled for channel switching, so he can operate that and his FX with just one MIDI controller.

That JCM800 you were thinking about is probably not real suited to using a whole lot of FX, unless you go for a later, split-chnnel version, which isn't my favorate '800, and even then the clean channel isn't going to help you with those U2 tones.

[Colo Springs E]

...I was hoping to hear from you on this.

It will be interesting to see if the vol control is defeated; it'd be kinda nice if it still worked, but of course I could always use the output vol on the Stomp.

I'll let you know how it goes. I may eventually go the rack-mount route, but for now, I think this'll probably work.

Thanks again,
-Eric

[e-merlin]

I'm not familiar with the DG Stomp, but if it has a good preamp you should be able to run it through the power section of your amp.

Another thing to consider is, with all of that processing going on, do you ever get lost? I think I'd go with a Wet/Dry setup where you have an amp for the dry signal and one for the effects. Use a small combo for the dry signal to monitor yourself and mic the effected setup.

I use my Reverberocket half stack for Dry and have a Peavey TubeFex/ADA Microfet 100 amp/Crate 412 stereo cab for effects. Or one Bravo for dry and the TubeFex and my other two Bravos for Wet.