External Tube Preamp > Cab

quicklickpaddy

I was wondering if this would work well enough or if it would just sound like shite...

If you used an external preamp (like this) to go guitar > preamp > cab would it work the same as a regular amp with a preamp? Or, better yet seen as there would be no EQ control, could you put it in the middle of your pedal board and simulate an effects loop?

Or would you need to put it through a DI > desk > monitor?

Zombienosh

it should work, but yeah like you said you'd have no control, like a sansamp is a pre with control. I'm sure you can get pre-amps that are more suited for what you want to do.

Dord

You'll need a poweramp

quicklickpaddy

Dord wrote: »

You'll need a poweramp

This could be a stupid question but is there not a poweramp in the cab?

Grolschevik

There are a couple of possible angles here...

quicklickpaddy wrote: »

This could be a stupid question but is there not a poweramp in the cab?

Not if it's literally just a cabinet with speakers (like these: http://www.thomann.de/ie/2x12_guitar_cabinets.html).
A preamp alone will not work. Something like the EH 22 caliber or 44 Magnum would work if you want to keep things small and portable.

There are some powered speakers around; essentially these are combos without the preamp section: http://www.tech21nyc.com/products/powerengine/powerengine60.html

Or you could be thinking of running a preamp into the PA. This may sound good or bad, depending on the preamp.

If, however, by "cab" you actually mean a combo amp, then there will be both a preamp and a power amp in there, and you could bypass the preamp section as long as there's an effects loop.

[Disclaimer: I didn't actually check the specs of the linked product in the OP to see what it is capable of]

Seziertisch

You are going to need a power amp and cab or a powered cab (like that Tech 21).

That said, whether the Art preamp will work for you soundwise is another question. It is going to be clean and not necessarily particularly guitar amp like in its response. It might not handle any effects that boost gain too well. Also, I would imagine that the absence of an EQ would prove problematic.

If you are interested in going this route, a friend of mine has a Vox Tonelab and the Tech 21 powered cab and he gets some good sounds out of this set up. Though he had to put a bit of work into programming the Tonelab to get sounds that worked with the powered cab, the presets sounded pretty terrible.

quicklickpaddy

Ah I was just looking into it cos I was thinking of building a simple cab and throwing the preamp in front of it as a bit of a project but it looks like it's a bit more than I can handle!

Grolschevik

quicklickpaddy wrote: »

Ah I was just looking into it cos I was thinking of building a simple cab and throwing the preamp in front of it as a bit of a project but it looks like it's a bit more than I can handle!

You could integrate one of these into your cabinet build:
http://www.ehx.com/products/44-magnum

darrenw5094

quicklickpaddy wrote: »

I was wondering if this would work well enough or if it would just sound like shite...

There would be no sound.

Guitar =>Preamp =>Poweramp =>Cab = Music.