Looper's Delight Archive Top (Search)
Date Index
Thread Index
Author Index
Looper's Delight Home
Mailing List Info

[Date Prev][Date Next]   [Thread Prev][Thread Next]   [Date Index][Thread Index][Author Index]

cranked tube amp in looping setup?



Title: cranked tube amp in looping setup?
>  Greg House wrote:
> Well I'm not a huge fan of the THD amps. Something about the one I played
> through sounded stiff or harsh to me. Anyway for what I intedn to use it
> for, if it has a preamp, it would HAVE to have an fx loop. What I'd be
> using it for is running a standalone preamp into. There are lots of
> standalone preamps and standalone power amps, and there lots of guys who
> like power amp saturation, so why aren't there any standalone power amps
> designed to give "vintage" sound and pleasing overdrive? Actually my
> biggest dilemma of all is how to use rackmount FX with a cranked, low watt,
> vintage style amp. For example, lets say I want to use a Dr. Z Rt. 66 with
> an EDP, how the hell can I? That's not even so tricky. What about this: the
> Rt. 66 through something like the Sherman Filter Bank, or a Pitch Shifter,
> where being able to have the signal 100% wet or close to it is important?
> Is there no option for the truly tone-obsessed that will neither compromise
> the "vintage" tone or the modern processing/mangling capabilites?

Yes, that's a dilemma. I use single channel, older guitar amps ('65 Ampeg Reverberocket, '58 Gibson GA-20) all without effect loops exclusively because I had my rack gear (t.c. G-force, EDP) modified for better frequency response and am using a buffer/router before my effects. I use pedals for my overdrive needs - before the looper(s) - easy and very controlled.

Using the cranked sound of one of those small amps and combining that with a looping setup would be quite a task! I never tried it because I am afraid this could be rather hard to balance volumewise and also because I use 100% wet-type effects (whammy, compression, filters) that just don't work in a setup like that. But it could be done with some tinkering I think. You can lift a line out from your amp by tapping the signal from the loudspeaker. You'd have to knock down the signal to line level with some resistors (I had an amp tec doing this - works well) or you'd have to mike the amp (possibly in one of those isolation cabinets...), which increases schlepping factor and setup time considerably.

My general feeling is that the playing styles through a cranked amp (expressive and raw) and the one for looping (a little more controlled)  do not mix so well and that a I am quite happy if I send the whole schmutz to two (or sometimes three) nice sounding amps (vintage Jensen alnico speakers are indispensible for me!) with a good overdrive pedal (BJF Baby Blue Overdrive). I just make shure that my main loop (usually EDP) is running through one amp only, the other one is free for a nicely separated solo tone.

Best, Andreas