Slaving an amp for more headroom?

[smv929]

I have a 4x10 Blue Angel which is a fairly low wattage vintage-type amp of Mesa's. I love the way it breaks up and you can drive it easily for singing leads. However, I can't use it in my band because I need a little more volume and headroom. So I thought about using its SLAVE output, but know nothing about this and never hear of people using it, whch makes me think it doesn't work well. Specifically...

I'm going to try to run from the SLAVE output into the RETURN of a more powerful amp (a 100w Maven Peal, Ganehsa, which has an incredible effects loop). The 100w amp will go into a 2x12 with vintage30 celestians.

I heard the tone won't be the same (or as nice) as it is coming out of the Blue Angel's speakers. The 100w amp's effects loop has a tone control to help, but I suspect there will be more dynamics that are just impossible to capture.

Anyway, the maker of the 100w amp told me to try what Neil Young does: He mikes a Fender delux or something and runs the mike into a transistor pa. However, he told me to try miking the Blue Angle, running the mike into the RETURN of the 100w amp (with no pa). I will have to get a 1/4" converter for the mike's cord. Anyone tried this?

If anyone knows of a trick or mod to get the magic of low wattage amp but make it louder. If it could be done, I would think many people would be doing it: taking these wonderful 18w amps and applying such a technique to use them in loud situations.

Thanks.

 

[LSCMan]

You don't want to slave out to another preamp,ie;straight to the guitar input of the other amp, it won't sound good unless you have the volume way down on the second amp. You need to slave to a poweramp, or alternately mic the Blue Angel to the PA.

Don't know, maybe you can slave to the effects loop?

 

[LSCMan]

Does anybody know what kind of cord you should use from the slave output?

Speaker cable, I'm thinking... :?:

 

[NoGlassNoClass]

The signal at SLAVE OUT is a line-level signal derived from the speaker outs, so it is affected by the tone of power tubes, output tranny, etc and should offer a very good representation of your amps tone.

Heres what you want to do...run an INSTRUMENT cable from the slave out to the loop return of the slave head. This should get your stage volume up to where it needs to be, and you can always mic up the Blue Angel to the PA so thats what your audience will hear.

The slave out can also be very useful when using a lot of effects, as it allows you to run your main amp completely dry, and go from the slave out > fx units > power amp. Run as many fx as you like and your basic tone will never get washed out by delays and reverb.

Hope that helps
Jon

 

[jbird]

If anyone knows of a trick or mod to get the magic of low wattage amp but make it louder. If it could be done, I would think many people would be doing it: taking these wonderful 18w amps and applying such a technique to use them in loud situations.

Thanks.

Uhh, I thought that was what the Maven Peal Ganesha was all about. :?

 

[smv929]

Thanks to all for the instuctions. I'll try it.

Regarding the comment: "...that's what I thought the Maven Peal's Ganesha is all about..."

You are correct. The Ganesha (along with all Maven Peal ampls) has a a patented sag control that along with a variable wattage (1-100w) allows you to get the loud, hard driven power tube sound at any lower volume. It works and I can't do without that amp. I play loud club gigs, outdoor gigs, small-room corporate party gigs, and use the Ganesha and always get a driving tone, but always have as much clean headroom when I want it as well. I highly recommend the Maven Peal amps by the way. If you're not into a plexi sound, try their other amps all of which offer the same cool features. Anyway, the Ganesha is a plexi sound. I would like to have Fender and other sounds to my rig -- those which the Blue Angel offers due to its power tube sounds (EL84, 6V6). I plan (hope) to use an A/B box to use both amps at the same time. When wanting to go into the Ganesha for the plexi sound, I will bypass the effects loop with a footswitch. I think this should work. Both amps will always be hooked up to a speaker load (the blue angel is a combo, the Ganesha will be hooked up to a 2x12).

Thanks again. If anyone has any more tips or has had experience slaving amps, I would appreciate their comments on whether they've been able to capture the same sound doing so. Thanks.

 

[LSCMan]

I just tried slaving out of the LSSpecial through a delay into the LSClassic loop and it sounded pretty gotdang awesome

 

[smv929]

I just tried slaving the Blue Angel through

1) the return of the Maven Peal Ganesha. It sounded great.
2) the return of a Rivera 100w Knucklehead. It sounded ok, but I smelled something burning from the Rivera, so I quickly ended it. The Rivera still worked in normal mode.

I'm anxious to try it at a gig with the Ganesha.

 

[smv929]

Anyone have suggestions on levels for the slave and effects loop controls? Seems like you barely have to send any Slave signal and keep the return signal low as well. I'm afraid of damaging something if I turn both up too much.

Blue Angle Slave Send level: it's barely on -- no more than 15 to 20%

The effects loop on the Ganesha (and all Maven Peals) is top of the line. It has several controls right on the front which is convenient (see http://www.mavenpeal.com/images/photos/ganesha/ganesha4L.jpg ) I set the effects loop controls as...

Send Level: off - N/A

Return Drive Level: around 3 - barely on

Wet Level: full (since I want to hear only the Blue Angel).

Dry Level: off (since I want to hear only the Blue Angel).

Return Tone: half way to warm it up some. It comes through a little brighter than from the speakers of the Blue Angel. But this helps a lot.

Does this sound right? Any suggestions. By the way, the Rivera initiall had the return level high when I turned it on. It squeled with high pitch. I turned it down and it quit and seemed normal. Moments later is when I smelled smoke. Did that hurt something?

 

[LSCMan]

Looks like my handle got changed.

 

[strumminsix]

IIRC Slave output is line-level and therfore you'd use a line cable.

Running into the FX return of another amp is perfrect since the return is POST the preamp straight into the poweramp.

However, your problem may be that it is too loud before the breakup.

To solve that run into the input of the other amp and carefully tweak it so that it is as transparent as possible.

SS amps work well for this. Or the ultimate for this application - Fender Twin.