Sell me on dual amps

Take a look at Joe Bonamassa's Rig. I'm working on my version/patch of his rig that includes a Dumble Overdrive Special and Tweed Twin Reverb w/Celestions. I'm getting real close and it rocks...
So, I have a blended amps patch I've been working on that sounds great to my ears and represents a take on Bonamassa's rig. I used some York Audio Matchless IRs for my patch but have substituted some of the factory Matchless Cabs for the upload... You can find it here:

http://axechange.fractalaudio.com/detail.php?preset=9117
 
I recommend not hard panning the amps, and to rather, get a pleasing stereo image that is positionable by a mixing engineer. If they are just slamming the pan left or right, that's a shame.

Unless you are running a wet/dry setup then hard panning is essential. :)
 
Um, you’ll have to explain yourself on that one.

Edit: @la noise Unless you were just trying to get a rise from me, and ruling out the possibility of some issue with Fractal gear panning I'm not aware of, your comment makes little sense to me on its own. If your comment was sincere, I'd like to understand your reasoning.

"Rise out of you?" Not sure why I do that? :)

I thought my reply was pretty self-explanatory about a wet/dry setup using dual amps.

From Sweetwater:

"A guitar rig where the dry, unprocessed guitar signal is sent to one amp and speaker(s) while a second signal, featuring the wet signal from delay, reverb, chorus, and/or other effects is routed to a completely separate amp and speaker(s). In other words, one amp receives the pure dry guitar signal, while the other only receives signal that has been processed with effects.
A wet/dry rig not only provides a wider, deeper soundstage for the guitar, it maintains the punch and presence of the dry signal, and is more open and clear sounding than when one amp is used for a blend of both the dry and effects signals at the same time."

My comment was that you would have to pan a dual amp setup hard left and hard right to accomplish
a wet/dry setup. Otherwise your wet signal and dry signal are being blended rather than distinct and
discrete on their own.

That's how I was setup prior to the FM3--and why I bought a second FM3. So I could run a true wet/dry rig. :)
 
"Rise out of you?" Not sure why I do that? :)

I thought my reply was pretty self-explanatory about a wet/dry setup using dual amps.

From Sweetwater:

"A guitar rig where the dry, unprocessed guitar signal is sent to one amp and speaker(s) while a second signal, featuring the wet signal from delay, reverb, chorus, and/or other effects is routed to a completely separate amp and speaker(s). In other words, one amp receives the pure dry guitar signal, while the other only receives signal that has been processed with effects.
A wet/dry rig not only provides a wider, deeper soundstage for the guitar, it maintains the punch and presence of the dry signal, and is more open and clear sounding than when one amp is used for a blend of both the dry and effects signals at the same time."

My comment was that you would have to pan a dual amp setup hard left and hard right to accomplish
a wet/dry setup. Otherwise your wet signal and dry signal are being blended rather than distinct and
discrete on their own.

That's how I was setup prior to the FM3--and why I bought a second FM3. So I could run a true wet/dry rig. :)
I misread, "Unless you are running a wet/dry setup then hard panning is essential." Unless A then B.

You meant, "Unless you are running a wet/dry setup, then hard panning is essential." Unless A.

In the moment I read it as a negation of my specific point about creating a pan-able stereo image. It's much clearer to this beleaguered programmer what you meant now. And yes, I'm clear on what wet-dry rigs are about. Thanks for clarifying.
 
What exactly does having drives in parallel in front of a single amp accomplish ?
It allows the lower gain to blend with a higher gain... each having its own character. You can eq them differently. The result is very complex and organic. It also adds a few dB of boost when they are paralleled.
 
"Rise out of you?" Not sure why I do that? :)

I thought my reply was pretty self-explanatory about a wet/dry setup using dual amps.

From Sweetwater:

"A guitar rig where the dry, unprocessed guitar signal is sent to one amp and speaker(s) while a second signal, featuring the wet signal from delay, reverb, chorus, and/or other effects is routed to a completely separate amp and speaker(s). In other words, one amp receives the pure dry guitar signal, while the other only receives signal that has been processed with effects.
A wet/dry rig not only provides a wider, deeper soundstage for the guitar, it maintains the punch and presence of the dry signal, and is more open and clear sounding than when one amp is used for a blend of both the dry and effects signals at the same time."

My comment was that you would have to pan a dual amp setup hard left and hard right to accomplish
a wet/dry setup. Otherwise your wet signal and dry signal are being blended rather than distinct and
discrete on their own.

That's how I was setup prior to the FM3--and why I bought a second FM3. So I could run a true wet/dry rig. :)
Wet/Dry/Wet rigs sound so killer! I ran one years ago and would just get lost in the sound it made! I ran an old Lee Jackson XLS1000 head / Orange Rockerverb 50. Used a Rocktron Expression for effects 412 for the dry and two Orange 212's for the wet = Glorious sounds from that rig!

Hated moving and setting it up.

IMG_0447.jpgIMG_0447.jpg
 
Wow! That is impressive. I bet it sounded amazing! :)

You still have the Lee Jackson head? Don't see many of those.

I have 2 of the 100w Crate Stealth heads Lee designed. They are fugly, but sound
amazing.
 
For me its because I have a different things I run into. I have a power amp cab that I want to run one amp model into, turn off power amp modeling, EQ it differently. Then run an out into an FRFR with potentially a different amp, with different EQ etc. Also when recording I like to have different amps on left right channel with varying amounts of gain and eq.

I had a Helix and I would try to run to amps to make it sound better because most of the amps didn't sound as good as the amps in Fractal.
 
I had a Helix and I would try to run to amps to make it sound better because most of the amps didn't sound as good as the amps in Fractal.
Similarly, I used to spend a lot of time tinkering with dual amp blocks to find interesting blends and refining doubled guitar sounds - with Cygnus though, I've abandoned dual amp efforts given the greater depth and varied nuances in singly instantiated Cygnus models. For the doubled guitar effect, I've learned to do it just as well after one amp block as opposed to into two. Really, I could sustain myself on a fav set of Cygnus amp channel models + fx, just as if I'd gone out and bought a high end tube amp (like the ones people say are all you'll ever need),
load box, ir box, and a bunch of hq pedals - keeps the obsessive tweaking time down also.
 
Similarly, I used to spend a lot of time tinkering with dual amp blocks to find interesting blends and refining doubled guitar sounds - with Cygnus though, I've abandoned dual amp efforts given the greater depth and varied nuances in singly instantiated Cygnus models. For the doubled guitar effect, I've learned to do it just as well after one amp block as opposed to into two. Really, I could sustain myself on a fav set of Cygnus amp channel models + fx, just as if I'd gone out and bought a high end tube amp (like the ones people say are all you'll ever need),
load box, ir box, and a bunch of hq pedals - keeps the obsessive tweaking time down also.
I had a Mesa JP2C and a Two Notes Torpedo. When I would record my JPC2 using the Two Notes or the cab sim out I would still get better sounds through my Fractal. I think the key thing that people don't get with model amps is that they sound like a mic'd amp. I consider the JP2C close to a high end amp but with Fractal I have tons of high end amps that sound pretty damn good.
 
Wow! That is impressive. I bet it sounded amazing! :)

You still have the Lee Jackson head? Don't see many of those.

I have 2 of the 100w Crate Stealth heads Lee designed. They are fugly, but sound
amazing.
Lee designed so nice sounding amps for sure! I ditched the tube rig years ago in favor of the FAS gear. Sometimes I go looking for another XLS, I found one about 7-8 months ago on ebay almost pulled the trigger to but quite frankly I can get those tone out of the FAS stuff so I haven't really needed to run back to it. At one point I actually had two heads a top and bottom cab with one of the heads and bottom cab that had been owned by Paul Gilbert!

The XLS head was pretty unique in it had a built in resistive load so you could really push the power section for cranked tones at low volumes! The "More knob" was a great feature as well with it all the way off it was a great warm sounding sounding JMP, turn it up and it was a fire breathing high gain monster! And of course all the knobs went to 12! kind of a Nigel thing I guess. The clean was no slouch either one of my top 5 amps I have owned.
 
Wet/Dry/Wet rigs sound so killer! I ran one years ago and would just get lost in the sound it made! I ran an old Lee Jackson XLS1000 head / Orange Rockerverb 50. Used a Rocktron Expression for effects 412 for the dry and two Orange 212's for the wet = Glorious sounds from that rig!

Hated moving and setting it up.

View attachment 88225View attachment 88225
Sweet rig!

I was running a wet/dry/wet setup in the late '90s. Three 1x12 combo cabs - two Musicmaster Bass Amps for wet with the amps bypassed and powered by a Peavey DECA 528 (IIRC), and my Wowbagger combo in the middle. It was glorious. I wonder if I have a pic of it anywhere....
 
It allows the lower gain to blend with a higher gain... each having its own character. You can eq them differently. The result is very complex and organic. It also adds a few dB of boost when they are paralleled.
Can you share your preset so I can check this out?
 
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