Using two heads at once?

bombidol

Heres the beef. I've been offered an endorsement by Madison Amps. they make some lovely stuff but their heads are really bass heavy. I use a Peavy 6505+ and its lovely with lots of top. Ideally I'd love to use The Madison and Peavey at the same time. With the mad handling the lows and the peavey handling the tops. how doable is this?

Voodu Child

Theres plenty of boxes that will split your guitar signal while keeping the signal level the same. The often are switchable too, so you can have either output, or both. (EDIT- such as this http://www.thomann.de/ie/morley_mo_tripler_signalsplitter.htm )

Youll need two cabs, or one thats wired in stereo, i presume you have that sorted so no problem there.

Thats about it really, plenty of guys run two amps at once, i dont think youll have a problem.

Neo#

John Frusciante runs two at once and they sound lovely.

bombidol

My cab can run in stereo alright. only problem i can think of is that it will be 2 and 2 instead of both amps running the same through all 4 speakers. which causes an issue when mic'ing it. I'd have to have two mics on my cab at gigs.

Voodu Child

Well, once you did your homework and got all your impedances right, it would be technically possible to combine the two signals and run them into the mono jack on your cab...

It doesnt sound like a good idea to me at all, and ive never heard of anyone doing it.

For the sake of an extra mike id just run them in stereo.

Don1

I think a second cab would be the best, if most expensive. The only way I could think of getting the two signals though the one output would be through the desk.

Yer man out of Reef used one clean amp and one dirty.

Voodu Child

Yeah, im pretty sure trying to wire the two amps together (with a Y) straight into the mono jack could damage the amps. Like i said, theres bound to be a roundabout way of doing it, but nothing that ive ever seen,

Id just go with a single cab in stereo, or two separate cabs altogether.

bombidol

spose the stereo way is probably the easiest. Ill pick one of those morelys up at some stage

Voodu Child

The morley's just the first one that came up for me on thomann, there might be cheaper ones.

Running it in stereo is definitely the easiest. Im sure there probably is some sort of box or gizmo that will safely blend the two signals without f*ing up both amps, but i couldnt google anything.

Karl Hungus

bombidol wrote:

I've been offered an endorsement by Madison Amps.

Wow, how'd you manage that?

fish-head

Nice one on the endorsement, you lucky bastard. I'm just waiting for my Gretsch endorsement come in..

Rustar

And I've said "Schecter" at least 50,000 times here on boards. They should love me long time, cheap cheap.
What gives???

Don1

Exactly how does one secure an endorsement? It can't be down to pure ability surely (****ty pop rock guys swinging free stuff around). Is it just the image you portray with the particular piece of gear?

Oh G&L, please notice me!!

bombidol

Just contact them and talk to them. They offer 2 kinds of endorsements. Full and Musician. Full means its free and musician means its super cheap. I've talked to a million companys about endorsement and its pretty damn hard to secure a deal with the big ones, even schecter. Trust me I've tried they would be my number one choice as I have 2 of their guitars and our other guitarist uses one too.
Your best bet is to find a smaller company or one thats just starting off and contact them. I've heard Madison amps before as a lot of metal bands use em, and while their straight up tone isnt what im after when mixed with my peavy it gets the desired effect.

Karl Hungus

Here's a thought... You say you've a second guitarist, so what if one of you played the Madison, and the other the Peavey?

bombidol

looking into that at the moment. Both of us will be getting the heads. unfortunatly the bass gear of theirs gets back results and feedback

david

Do they not have contracts where you must use their amp alone for public appearances? You could just do what all those krank endorsees are doing, get a big **** off wall of madisons and mic the 6505 up through a 1x12 cab behind all that ****. Seriously though those madisons are supposed to be great, id stick an EQ in the loop before id take on a dual amp rig.

bombidol

yeah i mean they are nice but they dont have the gain level i need. Theres a marshall kinda vibe off them in that department. But then again ive only played around with one, when i get my own I might just find the sound I need.

Karl Hungus

bombidol wrote:

yeah i mean they are nice but they dont have the gain level i need.

Have you considered these options:

Get a Tubescreamer.
Get an ENGL endorsement.
Don't bother with Madison, and just stick with the 6505.

david

Well if you turn the gain down, mids up and crank the volume youll get a heavy sound, its not all about scooped mids and maxed out gain

Karl Hungus

freakonaleashx wrote:

Well if you turn the gain down, mids up and crank the volume youll get a heavy sound, its not all about scooped mids and maxed out gain

While not scooping out the mids is something I advocate, trust me when I say that if an amp doesn't have enough gain for your needs, there really is no EQ'ing that can fix that problem. I'm sure as Bombidol plays in a band, he's cranking it plenty in rehersals and live play.

Eoin Madsen

voodoo_child wrote:

Yeah, im pretty sure trying to wire the two amps together (with a Y) straight into the mono jack could damage the amps. Like i said, theres bound to be a roundabout way of doing it, but nothing that ive ever seen,

Yeah, it would damage both amps without much doubt. I know there's ways of bridging two solidstate amps, but I haven't heard of a way to do it with valve amps. Output transformers are pretty tempermental.

I can't think of a good way to do it, stereo cab is my best suggestion. You could wire both amps into attenuators like a pair of THD hotplates and run the lineouts of the attenuators into a clean poweramp via a small mixer. In theory you'd also have any tone at any volume. But I suspect it might actually sound like crap.

damomeasa

two heads and two cabs looks really cool.

not as cool as two heads and four cabs obviously.

someday...

Grolschevik

voodoo_child wrote:

The morley's just the first one that came up for me on thomann, there might be cheaper ones.

Running it in stereo is definitely the easiest. Im sure there probably is some sort of box or gizmo that will safely blend the two signals without f*ing up both amps, but i couldnt google anything.

I read some conflicting opinions about the Morley splitter on Harmony Central. Many people had issues with reliability, ground loop noise and volume decreases. If you're going to be running both amps at the same time all the time and don't need switchability, maybe you could use an effect unit (say chorus) with stereo outs to split the signal?

david

AFAIK you can get amp switchers that place a dummy load on the unused head, sort of like an ABY switch for heads, id say theyre pricy though

Ernesto

guitar amp crossover thing exist?

Doctor J

Why not just use an amp you're happy with and not endorse something which clearly isn't to your needs. It's you endorsing the amp, not the other way around. If the amp isn't up to what you need it to be, why go to the trouble of luggin two amps to gigs and the like and paying to promote a product you're not satisfied with.

Sorry to be the raincloud man, just seems you're happy with the 6505 and you're going to all this trouble to use an amp you're not getting your tone out of and still having to pay for the privelige.

Voodu Child

Ernesto wrote:

guitar amp crossover thing exist?

No it doesnt seem like they do.

Eoin had a pretty clever suggestion, and theres probably a bunch of other ways using transformer-isolated line outs and dummy loads etc., but the gist of the thread was that getting the output of two amps into one speaker just wasnt do-able or practical. The only reason bombidol wanted to do it was to save having one extra thing to mike, so it obviously wasnt worth it.

bombidol

Im happy with the 6505 but its still not 100% the tone im after. No one amp has that so far. Tell you what though I tried the Madison through my own cab the other day and it sounded pretty damn great, before I had used someone elses righ with 2X 4X12's and it was a little muffled for my likings. It sang on the 4X12 though. we'll see. If anything it would be nice to have a great backup amp.

fish-head

Has any one done a 'two heads are better than one' joke yet?

Eoin Madsen

No, go for it.

fish-head

I think I just did..