Running two heads in stereo advice.

Tired of looking for a 2nd guitar player I went to Guitar Center to look for a 2nd amp to run a stereo setup. They had a really nice condition 2 Channel Mesa Dual Rectifier head that sounded killer that I picked up for $800. I bought a Lehle P Split A/B/Y box to split and get rid of ground hum. The other amp is a Mesa Roadster and both heads are going stereo into a TC Electronic G Major through the effect loops. In front of the amps there is a RJM Effects Gizmo with some pedals in there. The Roadster is switched with a RJM Amp Gizmo and the Dual is switched with the G Major by the ground relay. This setup sounds incredible to me but I am still working out bugs. There seems to be a small amount of sound bleeding between amps. When the amps are on clean channels and I turn up the gain on the Dual I can hear a gain increase on the Roadster clean channel as well. Also the Dual's clean channel just reacts different when in stereo opposed to when I have it set up itself in mono, the Clean volume knob seems to have a small effect on the volume and I think the other knobs react a bit different as well. Can anybody explain some of these issues and give me some advice? Thanks - Bill

not a specific answer to your questions, but i ran a 3-channel dual and a roadster in stereo / parallel as well.
it´s a difference if you are only running stereo or you run a parallel setup. for a regular stereo setup, you always use only one preamp section in A/B mode (switched with loops of the effect gizmo / RG-16 (as i did).
while running a parallel setup, you run both amps full at the same time.
make sure, that you hook it up right. e.g. send of the dual to the left input of the g-major, left out of g-major to return of the dual and the right side is for the roadster.
there shouldn´t be any gain increase on the roadster while turning up the gain on the dual. maybe you have running the dual preamp into the roadster poweramp.
if everything is hooked up the right way, maybe it´s a psycho acoustic problem.
try the following, turn up the gain on the dual and listen to what is happening. if the roadster changes his sound as well, turn off the dual and listen to the roadster again - check if there really was a change in the sound on the roadster.

the only kind of bleeding you have is in the loop-section of the amps. while turning down the output level of the g-major (e.g. for tuning), you will still hear some signal coming from the amps.

Trust me, you'll get tired of the headache in running a stereo rig fast. Not to mention the weight of having to carry around such a large rig, and in having to get both amps phased together correctly. I could see if you were running a Bassman and a Vox together, since each amp would be dedicated to clean and dirt, but two Dual Rectos? Besides, you have a Roadster, which should be plenty.

Good luck to you either way, but this doesn't seem necessary or sustainable. How does this solve only having one guitarist too?

Now I have both the Roadster and Dual going through the L & R of the G Major loop for stereo effects. I should try using the Roadster slave out to the Dual loop return but then I will lose the stereo effects and both amps will sound the same also.

BILLIAM666 said:

Now I have both the Roadster and Dual going through the L & R of the G Major loop for stereo effects. I should try using the Roadster slave out to the Dual loop return but then I will lose the stereo effects and both amps will sound the same also.

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wouldn´t do that. in this case, you would only be able to use the roadster as a full amp, the dual would only be a power amp and you´ll never be able to use the preamp-section of the dual recto.

the most important thing is to make sure, that the input and outputs are coming and going to the same amp. the g-major is running in "full-stereo" or better call it "dual-mono" mode with both inputs used and you´ll get the signal of the left input on the left output and the right signal on the right output.
you don´t get a blend of both inputsignals at the output jacks.
so this is why you must be careful with the wiring.

Great post.

I too have the same setup using two Tremoverbs.

I do not experience gain in the second amp, but never listened for it either.

I do get bleed.

I I select the left amp only on my Radial JX2 A/B/Y switch, the effects bleed or are sent to the right amp.

For example I run Dual Delays and pan them right and left respectively.

If I select one amp I get delays on the other too.

Go figure.

Well I took my rack and the Dual 2 channel to Guitar Center. I hooked up to another Mesa 3 Channel Triple in stereo with a Roadster and still had the severe bleeding. I then tried another head with the Roadster and it worked perfect with no bleeding . . . it was the new Mesa Reborn Multi Watt Dual. The Multi Watt sounded amazing and worked the way I wanted so returned the old 2 Channel and bought the New Multi Watt. The 2 amps sound great together in stereo. Is it possible the bleeding is because the Roadster has a serial loop and the old Rectifier's have parallel loops?

That's interesting, as I just recently modded my amps from parallel to series and do not remember this happening before the mod.

I spoke with Mesa and they had no clue.

Another interesting note was that the CSR did not think that the tone was compromised by going series.

I always felt that in theory it would, having to be converted in the A/D to D/A manner.

At least in parallel you get part of the true analog signal going straight to the output section of the amp, resulting in pure analog tone mixed with however much of the processed signal you choose.

Not sure why you are running two very similar amps in stereo, there really is no need unless one of these three conditions are met.

1. You want your effects in stereo seperation so delay can go back and forth on the stage.
2. You want more power and one head is not giving you enough watts.
3. You are eq'ing the amps completly different to get two different sounds.

If none of those specials needs are needed, I would just say buy a second cab, run one cab on one side of the stage and the other cab on the other side of the stage and use one head, it will give you the same effect.

Yes to all 3. It fills things up with stereo effects. 2 amps does sound a lot better than just 2 cabinets spread apart to me, especially when you eq them to have different sounds.

nothing can beat the sound of a two amp stereo setup!
i know how killer this sounds and yes it´s much more than just hook up another cab to one amp.
if you are the only guitarplayer in the band, go this way. you get a much deeper and wider sound as with one amp.
i would do it again, if i´m the only guitarplayer.

joe web said:

nothing can beat the sound of a two amp stereo setup!
i know how killer this sounds and yes it´s much more than just hook up another cab to one amp.
if you are the only guitarplayer in the band, go this way. you get a much deeper and wider sound as with one amp.
i would do it again, if i´m the only guitarplayer.

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100% True. I never would have thought it would sound as good as it does until I tried it and it blew my mind. Everything has such an incredible 3d depth to it.

Thanks, I run in Stereo.
I am the only guitar player in the band.
I run different output tubes in each amp and eq differently.
I have more than enough power so that is not an issue.
I like the stereo imaging and panning effects available to me with this setup.

Prefer the Mark/Recto mix to the Recto/Recto mix. The Recto provides the bigness while the Mark provides the immediacy.

I love my Stereo Rectifier Setup. Sounds huge and although they are similarly eq'd, the difference comes in the EL34/6L6 power sections. EL's bring the warmth and mid punch, 6L6's bring the bass and high end. Together they sound huge. I use vintage mode on both, and the other guitarist uses Modern mode on his head, so we don't cancel each other out tonally. With Midi switching and a dual live-in flight case, they are basically plug and play.

-AJH

So how do you set yours up in stereo?

Do you use a rack stereo effects unit?

Or, do you use a splitter to split your guitar signal?

I am really curious on what other players are doing to get a real stereo output or setup.

Even a sudo stereo set up is key to me understanding what is really happening in my set up, thanks all.

I plug my guitar into a Boss CH-1, then split into a Dual Recto and Mark V.

That's my home rig. I'm way too lazy to carry all that **** to a bar, so I pick one amp or the other.

O.K., Cool.

I do kinda the same thing, my set up is listed below in my signature.

TremoJem said:

So how do you set yours up in stereo?

Do you use a rack stereo effects unit?

Or, do you use a splitter to split your guitar signal?

I am really curious on what other players are doing to get a real stereo output or setup.

Even a sudo stereo set up is key to me understanding what is really happening in my set up, thanks all.

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At first I tried to split in front of the amps with a Tc electronics SCF Chorus but I got the ground humming. I then got the Lehle P Split which works nice.

I run guitar into pedalboard, which has various pedals and then at the end, I split the signal with my Boss DD-6 Digital Delay. Signal A goes to 6L6, signal B to EL-34. Works pretty good, but I would like to get a true A/B/Y switcher sooner than later, just to have a true split signal. The Delay ping pongs from one head to the other when ran stereo, which can be cool, but I would rather it be just normal.

-AJH