Running two amps onstage simultaneously

[Dante]

Here I go, down the rabbit hole again...like I have a bunch of extra free time or something....

I got a wild hair and decided I wanted to use both my Switchblade 50 combo and my Grandmeister Head at the same time....not that I've had the opportunity to get on a stage big enough for that lately. Since I run 4CM into my amps, I was trying to figure out a way to cable the 2nd amp via one of my available FX loops in my multi effects (BOSS MS-3).

While that worked, the effects were crap, delay tails were really long and the reverbs were unusable. Something wasn't right and it was a 3 more cables (7 cable method!) that I didn't really wanna think about at a gig. So, I found a guy on YouTube explaining the easiest way was just to use one amp as a preamp and slave the other. So, you're only using the power amp section of the second amp by going into the FX return (bypasses the preamp).

How is it done? You simply plug a cable into Output B and run that to the 2nd amp's FX return, one more cable, no thinking

Here's his diagram and here's his whole video

[rnolan]

Hey Dante, reminds me of the rigs I used to put together using 2 Marshalls' ('73 50w lead & 100w Artist), A/B/A+B switch, Rockman X100 (to get a lead boost), Korg Delay, Korg Chorus, Shultz power soak (for the 50w head), 2 x 12 cab (Marshall 50), Quad box (Marshall Artist) and then I bought my MP-1 which I incorporated via the Rockman stereo in. I fed the 50w Marshall off A and the Rockman off B, the Rockman stereo headphone out went to both Marshalls (with resistors to lower the voltage). Used to take me almost as long as the drummer to set up  . 
 
Then I racked my MP-1 with a Quadverb a B200s and small 8 chan desk.  Converted the quad box to stereo and never looked back. Later I added an IPS33 smart shift fed from desk fx send 3, sends 1&2 feed Quadverb). 

My current rig is even more simple, 4 RU rack - MP-2, Midiverb4 in MP-2 stereo loop, B200s and either 1 x split stack wired stereo or 2 x split stacks for larger gigs. 

Each to their own, and enjoy the rabbit hole  , but you have MP-2 and MP-1 Classic and MT200 etc. so  .  I get that some are nervous about the age of the ADA preamps etc. mine have never missed a beat.

[Harley Hexxe]

Dante,

    I haven't looked at that video yet, but this should be familiar territory to all of us at the Depot.  We've essentially done all that with our rack preamps and poweramps and any effects we put in between the two, (or four).

    It's like running mono out from the preamp with effects either in line between the preamp and poweramp, or a mixture of preamp loops with effects in line with the poweramps.

    I'm going to go check out this video now, and see what you're dealing with. :banana-guitar: