two amps louder than one?

[blue]

afternoon all,

i have been planning to get an AB/Y pedal for a while, and have been particularly excited about the prospect of blending the sound of two different amps.  it just struck me the other day though;  if both amps are on at the same time, will i continue to hear both at the same volume as they are individually, or will the volume level effectively double?  i mean, one man talking isn't too loud, but a whole pub full is pretty loud. and a whole stadium full is deafening!

any words of wisdom?  i suppose this would actually make the Y setting fairly useless in a live setting, as the guitar would suddenly double in volume

[tomjackson]

Doesn't it just depend on what volume the second amp is set at?  You would just have to balance it accordingly.

But I think generally it would double so 2xAC15's would sound pretty similar to an AC30.  I think.

[Zaned]

Well, imagine this situation: you have a 50W amp, and then you bring in another identical one, running at the same volume. You're essentially doubling the wattage (50 --> 100), so the volume difference is..3dB.

-Zaned

[Twinfan]

It'll spread more too (more speakers) so you'll perceive a volume increase even though it isn't that much louder....

[38thBeatle]

What Dave said.  It'll sound bigger also as much as anything else -assuming two amps of similar output it wouldn't double the volume. I have a mate who uses two ( I mentioned him in the thread about WEM's) and he has a thick rich tone that sounds fantastic.

[FELINEGUITARS]

If you have two amps that sound different to each other - say a Fender twin and a Vox AC30  where one has certain frequencies in abundance that the other is lacking in then it will noticeably fill out the sound

Joe Bonnamassa does this  to great effect

Ace Frehley uses two different marshalls - one with killer high end and the other with lots of lows and it makes his sound immense - saw him last year at the Astoria and his sound was unbelieveable

[HTH AMPS]

I've used the two amp setup before to great effect and if I wasn't such a lazy git I'd still be doing it, ha ha.

Mixing an 18w EL84 combo with a 50w EL34 combo is a great way to get a wide mix of tones.  You can run the 18w combo flat out and bring the volume up on the 50w amp for the 'balls'.

[murraymurray]

I liked having 2 amps but just wasnt practical, have been in 2 guitar bands for the last few years and its just too much if I play through 2 while the other guitarist only has one.
Was awesome for jamming at home tho, 5150 one side, laney AOR 100w the other side.
A guy i know plays live through an ampeg v4 and a jcm800, always sounds so good. Just the mix of tones making a 1 guitar band sound huge

[HTH AMPS]

my most portable 'two amp' setups was an SJB Audio 2x12 (Fender Tonemaster cab clone) with a Fender Tonemaster and a Marshall Silver Jubilee 50w head running into each side of the cab - sweet tone.  not sure why the hell I ever got rid of those two amps (especially the Jube, it was a sweet amp)

[JDC]

do you guys think this two amps = big sound thing will work on modellers?

hunter it's time to blow some dust off the axe-fx ;)

[blue]

thanks for the answers guys, i'm looking forward even more now to trying it :)

it'll be a Genz Benz El Diablo and a Marshall Vintage Modern.  the Marshall sounds amazing with the drive controls fairly low and the master wound up, while the El Diablo just naturally has a lot more gain.  i reckon the El Diablo's drive with extra clarity and presence from the Marshall should make for a pretty good rhythm sound :)

JDC, i know line 6 gear gets a lot of criticism around here, but the current pod (X3?) can do dual amp sounds.

[murraymurray]

yeah, not really a modeller fan, but have a toneport for getting ideas onto my PC quickly.
They put up the podfarm software for free download recently and that can do 2 amp setups. Got a pretty mosterous pretend sound playing around with 2 amps at once through there.

[Zaned]

do you guys think this two amps = big sound thing will work on modellers?

hunter it's time to blow some dust off the axe-fx ;)

It works, although two tube amps will naturally sound better if the mind is fixed on the 'tubes vs. modelling' thing :)

I owned a Line6 Vetta at one point. For those that don't know, you can run 2 amp models at once, full stereo. I got some very nice sounds from that thing, but I also found a million mediocre ones. That amp took some tweaking, it was sometimes tough to get the right kind of midrange out of it. But awesome clean tones available on that amp, I can tell you..

-Zaned

[hunter]

I think the secret is to set the amps not that they sound great indiviudally, but use each for what it shines at. So one can be very scooped and one very middy, sounding horrible on their own, but giving killer tones together.

It's important to have a good device up front for splitting the signal to ensure you don't run into hum or phasing issues.

[Dmoney]

is it worth mentioning the phase of the output from each amp if you - for example - run two heads out of one stereo cab?

can't you get phasing issues depending on the preamp design of different heads inverting the signal as it passes through the amp? wouldn't that make a pretty aweful sound in that situation?