Adding some road cases/rack gear and I need help!

[exbest182]

Hey guys,

I'm getting road cases for my stuff due to joining a new band and upcoming touring and I need some help putting a rig together. So I'm using my Mark V and my IIC+, I recorded my tracks for the album, using both... Mark IIC+ and Mark V in IV mode.. so it's a blend of the two amps.. I'd like to do that live as well, I'm running a 4x12 and a 2x12 live, and I want to get a road case to house both heads, and then add at least a rack tuner to the loop... first off... What do I need to run both amps at once? and where in the chain would it go? Obviously, it'll go from guitar to maybe like an A/B/Y? is there something rack I could use for this... then I figure one amp will go to one cab, one will go to another... also, besides a tuner, what else would be a must have for a setup like I'm aiming for? I don't really see needing another EQ, though I guess it wouldn't hurt... both my heads have EQs on them... I'm just new to setting something like this all up, and I'm hoping that it's even possible...

Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[screamingdaisy]

Well....

You can spend a lot, and get really complicated...

Or you can keep it simple and cheap...

It kind of depends on what your needs are, and how far you want to take it.

On the simple side you could use a simple buffered Y box and have a custom switch manufactured that would switch from R1 to LD on both amps simultaneously. The Y box has to be buffered or else each amp will only get half the output from the pickup, unless you're using EMGs or a wireless. With EMGs the pickups are internally buffered and in a wireless the transmitter is the buffer, so in those setups you could use a basic Y cable if you felt like it.

Myself, I would use a simple Y box. The problem with an A/B/Y setup is that the Y sounds so huge that it makes the A and B sound pathetic. It can be effective if you reserve the Y as a solo boost, but if you want both amps on your rhythm sound I'd just keep it simple and use a Y box.

I would run the tuner in front so that it can mute both amps. If it's in the loop of one amp the other will keep blaring as you tune.

Having used a couple of rack tuners I prefer floor pedals. The Korg ones are a couple generations old and not nearly as fast as the current generation of pedals. I prefer to run a tuner off the slave out of the amplifier if I have another way to mute the sound, but if not it goes out front. I'm a minimalist that prefers to plug straight into the amp, but I consider the ability to mute when tuning a necessary evil for live performance. It's really unprofessional when I hear someone tune their guitar at 120dB.

Long story short, if it where me....

Guitar -> Boss TU-3 -> Amps.

The only thing I'd have to confirm about that is whether or not the TU-3 mutes both outputs when they're used in stereo. If it doesn't mute both outputs I'd add Boss chorus to use as the Y splitter. In part because it costs about the same as a Y box, and in part because I'd use it to add chorus to my clean sound.

If you want to get more complicated - midi switching and effects for example - it's going to get a lot more expensive and a lot harder to troubleshoot on the road. I'd probably do your first tour with as basic a setup as possible if you can swing it.

 

[brion]

If you have the money to invest and you would like to avoid the tapdance on stage changing channels etc. Look into the GCX switcher and floor contoller. The rack unit and controller get attached by MIDI and with the right MIDI cable the rack unit will send power out to the pedal. On the back of the rack unit there are 8 loops that you can set up to switch your amps channels, add effects in a loop etc. Each patch on the floor controller can be set up to switch one or more of those loops with one step. This will allow you to expand your setup in the future. My info is based on the older GCX stuff. The new stuff works similarly, but I have no experience with it. I would still get a Y box setup to take on the road for emegency situations.

 

[TiPiMods]

I just bought a "Lehle Splitter" (http://www.lehle.com/frameset.php?country=us&lang=en) for the studio to run two amps at the same time without having ground loops and hum. Great piece of gear, many pros use them. If you want to switch amps you probably need this one : http://www.lehle.com/frameset.php?country=us&lang=en
then you can program either one amp or the other, or both of them together.
the problem with all ABY switches is, they use one ground so you have to tape the ground on one amp to avoid a ground loop, which is quite dangerous.