connecting 2 amps

tdu · January 8th, 2007, 09:04 AM

I have seen mention in a few other threads (that I can't find right now) something about connecting 2 Fender amps together using the second input on the amp. Sorry if my wording is off, I can't remember the details of the posts. Can this be done with a Princeton Reverb?

Tim Armstrong · January 8th, 2007, 09:14 AM

Yep, plug the guitar into the first imput, run a cable from the second imput to the second amp.

Cheers, Tim

Rizo · January 8th, 2007, 09:32 AM

Tim, is that safe?

I thought I read somewhere that that stresses tubes or caps or something?

johnreardon · January 8th, 2007, 09:36 AM

I used to do that all the time, back in the 60s, when I was running 2 100w heads. Never ever had any problems.

As Tim says, plug the guitar into channel 1 of the first amp, then take a lead from channel 2 (of the first) to channel 1 of the second amp.

Sometimes I used to use a split lead from the guitar that would go into both amps. Just made up the lead myself

Tim Armstrong · January 8th, 2007, 09:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rizo

Tim, is that safe?

I thought I read somewhere that that stresses tubes or caps or something?

Yeah, it's safe. What ISN'T safe is to run the OUTPUT of one amp into another. Tends to sound really cool for a short amount of time, then the second amp blows up!

Cheers, Tim

Tim Armstrong · January 8th, 2007, 09:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnreardon

I used to do that all the time, back in the 60s, when I was running 2 100w heads. Never ever had any problems.

What? WHAT??? Sorry, can't hear you over this persistent ringing in my ears...

Tim

johnreardon · January 8th, 2007, 09:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tim Armstrong

What? WHAT??? Sorry, can't hear you over this persistent ringing in my ears...

Tim

Yep, I was young once

Mind I loved the power. Even today, I like feeling the guitar as well as hearing it

johnreardon · January 8th, 2007, 09:46 AM

Another thing that some did in the old days, was to dangle a mic, usually an SM57, in front of the first amp and plug it into the second amp.

Dave Edmunds used to do this a lot. I tried it once, but couldn't control the feedback, so gave up

TheGoodTexan · January 8th, 2007, 09:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tim Armstrong

Yep, plug the guitar into the first imput, run a cable from the second imput to the second amp.

I'm not an amp guru like most guys around here, so if I'm wrong about this, someone please correct me. But are some amps out-of-phase with other amps?....kind of like the channels on a DR?....meaning that if you run two amps that are out of phase with each other, you might want to make up a custom cable to use when connecting the amps, one that corrects the phase issue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnreardon

Another thing that some did in the old days, was to dangle a mic, usually an SM57, in front of the first amp and plug it into the second amp.

Dave Edmunds used to do this a lot. I tried it once, but couldn't control the feedback, so gave up

Here's something that I have done with great success....I was running two Fender Blues Deluxes....running directly into the first amp, then out of the first amp, through my pedalboard, then into the second amp.

But instead of placing the amps side by side, I would place the dry amp infront of the wet amp, and hang a single mic between them...catching the back of the dry amp (which tended to emphasize the low end) and catching the front of the wet amp (which tended to be a little bright).

I ran this set up for about a year and when it was set up right (mic placement and distance between amps), it sounded great.

Now-a-days....I tend to be a "one-trip-from-the-car" kind of guy....gig-bag on my back, pedal board in one hand, amp in the other.

captain gorgeous · January 8th, 2007, 10:54 AM

i may be wrong here but i believe that using a "y" cable can lead to input impedance issues and affect the "quality" of the signal the amps are receiving? is that right? there's a whole article about it in the last (uk) guitar mag.

personally i use a tuner that has two (buffered) outputs. that seems to do the trick and with the added bonus that you can mute one of the amps by engaging the tuner.

johnreardon · January 8th, 2007, 10:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by captain gorgeous

i may be wrong here but i believe that using a "y" cable can lead to input impedance issues and affect the "quality" of the signal the amps are receiving? is that right? there's a whole article about it in the last (uk) guitar mag.

personally i use a tuner that has two (buffered) outputs. that seems to do the trick and with the added bonus that you can mute one of the amps by engaging the tuner.

Could be right, technically, but sounded fine for me. Only switched to the other way, when I saw others doing it.

stax · January 8th, 2007, 11:21 AM

I'm usually don't use pedals but if i need to run my two 18w amps together
i go through a boss stereo chorus, i set it up so its just on to get a big but not a chorusy??? sound. A stereo delay would sound good too.

JohnSS · January 8th, 2007, 02:51 PM

Johnny Thunders of the Heartbreakers and NY Dolls used to run (2) Fender Twin Reverbs together in exactly that same configuration at countless gigs from Max's Kansas City, Danceteria, Hurrah's, etc. throughout the 80's. Same Les Paul TV Jr. too.

bo · January 8th, 2007, 03:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheGoodTexan

I'm not an amp guru like most guys around here, so if I'm wrong about this, someone please correct me. But are some amps out-of-phase with other amps?....

I've never ran across that. I know the speakers of the different amps can be out of phase with each other, but you can correct that with a 9 volt battery. I'm sure the "how-to" can be found easily on the web. Gerald Weber has written on how it's done a few times.

tdu · January 8th, 2007, 03:08 PM

Thanks for the info guys.

tdu · January 8th, 2007, 03:11 PM

Oh wow this is just about the funnest thing ever hah. I wired the Princeton Reverb and the Lil' Dawg together.

The sound of one amp running the tremolo and one dry makes my knees weak. I wish I had known about this in the early days of my band hah.

So here definitely is no harm in this hah? It seems almost too fun to be ok

TieDyedDevil · January 8th, 2007, 03:18 PM

Phase can be a problem. Take something like a DR or a TR and chain the normal channel of one to the vibrato channel of the other. You might notice a loss of low-end when running both amps because there's an extra inverting gain stage in the vibrato channel. Gerald Weber wrote about this (and methods to correct it) at length in one of his books in a chapter on multi-amp rigs.

The other problem you're likely to encounter is ground-loop hum. Leakage currents from the power transformers through the grounding pin of the AC cord can induce a small (much less than one volt) voltage on the chassis or each amp. If the voltages on the chassis of the two amps is different, connecting them via a patch cord (as when chaining the amps) will induce a voltage on the cord which will come through your amps (both of them) as hum.

The "old-school" way of fixing ground-loop hum is to use a ground cheater on the cord of one of your amps. That approach carries a statistically small yet significant (in the case you win the "unlucky" lottery) of electrocution in the case of certain kinds of electrical faults.

The "modern" way to deal with ground-loop problems is to use either a transformer-isolated splitter (expensive, around $200 at the low end).

There's also an excellent lower-cost alternative that acts like a ground cheater with respect to the hum current, yet carries the fault current safely to ground in the unlikely event of an electrical failure. This is the Ebtech Hum-X (about $60).

tdu · January 8th, 2007, 04:23 PM

I don't hear any hums, so I am assuming it's not a problem with this rig.

Geo · January 8th, 2007, 05:46 PM

I used a delay unit past and mostly run a slight delay slap to one amp
when the unit was on. It gets a big sound even at lower volume levels.
Where the dry note/chord faded the delay note extended it.

I most often liked to keep the amps spread apart and one on the
other side of the stage when possible. It was great for the "I can't
hear you" band guy over there.

davidge1 · January 8th, 2007, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnSS

Johnny Thunders of the Heartbreakers and NY Dolls used to run (2) Fender Twin Reverbs together in exactly that same configuration at countless gigs from Max's Kansas City, Danceteria, Hurrah's, etc. throughout the 80's. Same Les Paul TV Jr. too.

I got to see Johnny Thunders play at the Whiskey in Los Angeles in 1981 (a fairly small venue). He was using three Fender Twins, set up that way. It was LOUD! His sound was very clean...cleaner than it sounded on any of his recordings. I also saw him a few years later at another club around the same size playing through a Twin and a Marshall half stack...also very loud. Not as loud as the Ramones though...nothing was as loud as the Ramones.

0le FUZZY · January 8th, 2007, 07:52 PM

...Yew could dew like I dunn a few times back when.

...Yewz a stereo jack at the TELECASTER with tew volume controls (noe tone) and with a stereo cord and a Y splitter at the Twins and send the neck P/U tew won Twin and the lead tew the udder Twin.

...Yes tew different amps kin be outta faze as well as tew speakers in won amp kin be outta faze. The way tew tell iss tew uze a weak 9 Volt battery and check the direction of speaker travel on each speaker.

(deranged internet-based alter ego, with my own lexicon and all.)

Please visit my page

tdu · January 8th, 2007, 09:45 PM

I could always use my Boss tuner as someone else mentioned. It's just that live I really enjoy plugging straight into my amp and just letting it rip. I don't even like having my tuner there. So this is a pretty neat trick for me.

sean79 · January 8th, 2007, 09:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tim Armstrong

Yeah, it's safe. What ISN'T safe is to run the OUTPUT of one amp into another. Tends to sound really cool for a short amount of time, then the second amp blows up!

So... if I run a cable from the speaker output on the back of one combo amp to the instrument input jack on the front of another amp... that's bad?
I did it once before just to see if it would work. It sounded fine... a lot of extra volume... but I only did it for a little while. That's bad though, right?

If so, then I feel kind of bad. A friend of mine was having problems with getting volume out of a little bass practice amp. I tried this with a couple little guitar amps and gave him the thumbs up. Hope he didn't actually try it if it blows stuff up.

Clive Hugh · January 8th, 2007, 10:52 PM

I have a Fender red knob The Twin and Dual Showman, I run them this way all the time, I also take a signal fron the back of a Fender, it's a cannon plug and feed that into a Behringer Ultra- DI and feed that into a 70 watt solid state amp for the drummer to hear, it has the advantage of making a dry solid state amp sound like the twin.
I sometimes use a splitter box but depends if I'm running late or not, easier amp to amp, only one lead.

Tim Armstrong · January 8th, 2007, 11:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sean79

So... if I run a cable from the speaker output on the back of one combo amp to the instrument input jack on the front of another amp... that's bad?
I did it once before just

January 8th, 2007, 09:04 AM	#1 (permalink)
tdu Friend of Leo's Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Ontario, Canada Age: 32 Posts: 2,400 9 Photos	connecting 2 amps I have seen mention in a few other threads (that I can't find right now) something about connecting 2 Fender amps together using the second input on the amp. Sorry if my wording is off, I can't remember the details of the posts. Can this be done with a Princeton Reverb? __________________ Torn Down Units brand Rock n' Roll My Solo Stuff:

January 8th, 2007, 09:14 AM	#2 (permalink)
Tim Armstrong Moderator Poster Extraordinaire Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Berlin, Maryland, USA Age: 49 Posts: 8,899	Yep, plug the guitar into the first imput, run a cable from the second imput to the second amp. Cheers, Tim __________________ http://www.moodswingers.org

January 8th, 2007, 09:32 AM	#3 (permalink)
Rizo Tele-Afflicted Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Athens, OH Posts: 1,125	Tim, is that safe? I thought I read somewhere that that stresses tubes or caps or something? __________________ "You say you want to play country, but you're in a punk rock band."

January 8th, 2007, 09:36 AM	#4 (permalink)
johnreardon Tele-Holic Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Brackley, Northants, UK Age: 62 Posts: 596	I used to do that all the time, back in the 60s, when I was running 2 100w heads. Never ever had any problems. As Tim says, plug the guitar into channel 1 of the first amp, then take a lead from channel 2 (of the first) to channel 1 of the second amp. Sometimes I used to use a split lead from the guitar that would go into both amps. Just made up the lead myself __________________

January 8th, 2007, 09:46 AM	#8 (permalink)
johnreardon Tele-Holic Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Brackley, Northants, UK Age: 62 Posts: 596	Another thing that some did in the old days, was to dangle a mic, usually an SM57, in front of the first amp and plug it into the second amp. Dave Edmunds used to do this a lot. I tried it once, but couldn't control the feedback, so gave up __________________

January 8th, 2007, 10:54 AM	#10 (permalink)
captain gorgeous Tele-Afflicted Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Angel, North London Posts: 1,884 38 Photos	i may be wrong here but i believe that using a "y" cable can lead to input impedance issues and affect the "quality" of the signal the amps are receiving? is that right? there's a whole article about it in the last (uk) guitar mag. personally i use a tuner that has two (buffered) outputs. that seems to do the trick and with the added bonus that you can mute one of the amps by engaging the tuner. __________________ "What is it with chimpanzees and that middle parting? It's so 1920s." www.myspace.com/daddylonglegsuk http://www.myspace.com/thetacticians

January 8th, 2007, 11:21 AM	#12 (permalink)
stax Tele-Meister Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Brentwood U.K. Age: 52 Posts: 308 9 Photos	I'm usually don't use pedals but if i need to run my two 18w amps together i go through a boss stereo chorus, i set it up so its just on to get a big but not a chorusy??? sound. A stereo delay would sound good too.

January 8th, 2007, 02:51 PM	#13 (permalink)
JohnSS Tele-Meister Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: NYC Posts: 208	Johnny Thunders of the Heartbreakers and NY Dolls used to run (2) Fender Twin Reverbs together in exactly that same configuration at countless gigs from Max's Kansas City, Danceteria, Hurrah's, etc. throughout the 80's. Same Les Paul TV Jr. too.

January 8th, 2007, 03:08 PM	#15 (permalink)
tdu Friend of Leo's Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Ontario, Canada Age: 32 Posts: 2,400 9 Photos	Thanks for the info guys. __________________ Torn Down Units brand Rock n' Roll My Solo Stuff:

January 8th, 2007, 03:11 PM	#16 (permalink)
tdu Friend of Leo's Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Ontario, Canada Age: 32 Posts: 2,400 9 Photos	Oh wow this is just about the funnest thing ever hah. I wired the Princeton Reverb and the Lil' Dawg together. The sound of one amp running the tremolo and one dry makes my knees weak. I wish I had known about this in the early days of my band hah. So here definitely is no harm in this hah? It seems almost too fun to be ok __________________ Torn Down Units brand Rock n' Roll My Solo Stuff:

January 8th, 2007, 03:18 PM	#17 (permalink)
TieDyedDevil Tele-Meister Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Portland, OR Age: 54 Posts: 223	Phase can be a problem. Take something like a DR or a TR and chain the normal channel of one to the vibrato channel of the other. You might notice a loss of low-end when running both amps because there's an extra inverting gain stage in the vibrato channel. Gerald Weber wrote about this (and methods to correct it) at length in one of his books in a chapter on multi-amp rigs. The other problem you're likely to encounter is ground-loop hum. Leakage currents from the power transformers through the grounding pin of the AC cord can induce a small (much less than one volt) voltage on the chassis or each amp. If the voltages on the chassis of the two amps is different, connecting them via a patch cord (as when chaining the amps) will induce a voltage on the cord which will come through your amps (both of them) as hum. The "old-school" way of fixing ground-loop hum is to use a ground cheater on the cord of one of your amps. That approach carries a statistically small yet significant (in the case you win the "unlucky" lottery) of electrocution in the case of certain kinds of electrical faults. The "modern" way to deal with ground-loop problems is to use either a transformer-isolated splitter (expensive, around $200 at the low end). There's also an excellent lower-cost alternative that acts like a ground cheater with respect to the hum current, yet carries the fault current safely to ground in the unlikely event of an electrical failure. This is the Ebtech Hum-X (about $60).

January 8th, 2007, 04:23 PM	#18 (permalink)
tdu Friend of Leo's Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Ontario, Canada Age: 32 Posts: 2,400 9 Photos	I don't hear any hums, so I am assuming it's not a problem with this rig. __________________ Torn Down Units brand Rock n' Roll My Solo Stuff:

January 8th, 2007, 05:46 PM	#19 (permalink)
Geo Friend of Leo's Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Hendersonville, TN Age: 59 Posts: 2,445 15 Photos	I used a delay unit past and mostly run a slight delay slap to one amp when the unit was on. It gets a big sound even at lower volume levels. Where the dry note/chord faded the delay note extended it. I most often liked to keep the amps spread apart and one on the other side of the stage when possible. It was great for the "I can't hear you" band guy over there. __________________ "Somewhere between culture and agriculture"

January 8th, 2007, 07:52 PM	#21 (permalink)
0le FUZZY Doctor of Teleocity Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Kolly-forn-knee-ya Posts: 10,001 6 Photos	...Yew could dew like I dunn a few times back when. ...Yewz a stereo jack at the TELECASTER with tew volume controls (noe tone) and with a stereo cord and a Y splitter at the Twins and send the neck P/U tew won Twin and the lead tew the udder Twin. ...Yes tew different amps kin be outta faze as well as tew speakers in won amp kin be outta faze. The way tew tell iss tew uze a weak 9 Volt battery and check the direction of speaker travel on each speaker. (deranged internet-based alter ego, with my own lexicon and all.) Please visit my page

January 8th, 2007, 09:45 PM	#22 (permalink)
tdu Friend of Leo's Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Ontario, Canada Age: 32 Posts: 2,400 9 Photos	I could always use my Boss tuner as someone else mentioned. It's just that live I really enjoy plugging straight into my amp and just letting it rip. I don't even like having my tuner there. So this is a pretty neat trick for me. __________________ Torn Down Units brand Rock n' Roll My Solo Stuff:

January 8th, 2007, 10:52 PM	#24 (permalink)
Clive Hugh Tele-Holic Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Western Australia Age: 63 Posts: 534	I have a Fender red knob The Twin and Dual Showman, I run them this way all the time, I also take a signal fron the back of a Fender, it's a cannon plug and feed that into a Behringer Ultra- DI and feed that into a 70 watt solid state amp for the drummer to hear, it has the advantage of making a dry solid state amp sound like the twin. I sometimes use a splitter box but depends if I'm running late or not, easier amp to amp, only one lead.