Slave Amp - Tube or solid state

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Tucker44

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I currently gig with a Mark V on top of a Lonestar 410. I also have a Roadking 412 cabinet that I would like to use with a slave amp. Which amps make the best slave amps? What should I look for? I would consider another high quality amp.

Thanks in advance
 
Well the slave out for mesas is derived from the speaker jack, so is a line signal post power amp..
So either tube or solid should work and sound just fine.. I Haven't tried it through a stand alone solid state amp, but you should be able to preserve the tube tone with no problems.. It'll be the cheaper option..

Tube amp... can't go wrong with a tube amp.. Perhaps look into a 2:90 or 2:50 if you want a tube slave.. Or buy another Mesa or other brand secondhand for the power amp.
Have heard some people slave straight into a mixer.. I've tried that once or twice but the mixers I've used never liked it much..
If the 410 you have is just a speaker cab, the MarkV 90W definitely has enough grunt to drive two cabs without using a slave.. You'll have to push it a little more but it will work..
(On its own, I run my dual rect through a 4x12 and a 2x12.. Just fine)
if the two cabs are different impedance you may have a difference in volume between them..

If the 410 is a combo amp, you could slave one of the amps into the other easily enough.. But that means sacrificing one of the preamps..unless you can split each cab into a stereo cab, then each amp would have its output speaker load and then with the use of a tube stereo power amp, you could slave the amps and use the remaining speakers all without having to have another cabinet..


My situation is a little different.. I have a dual rec.. And a fender hotrod deluxe..
The cleans on the recto aren't that spectacular.. The cleans on the fender are great..
The dirty on the Mesa is awesome, the dirty on the fender isn't..
Mesa is 100W, fender is 40W... not much unity there..
But... My dual rect has a parallel effects loop, so.. I have the preamp of the fender going into the effects return on the Mesa for more headroom.. The parallel loop still allows me full use of the Mesa channels too.. But I don't want to lose the use of the open speaker on the combo or waste the power amp of the fender.. So I'm slaving my dual rec with my fenders power amp.
The open back of the fender lets the clean of the Mesa open up a bit.. And tames the bass from the other channels..
And the ability to combine the cleans from both amps really complement each other... Other combinations of channels don't sound great..
And Given the fender is a single speaker combo there's no major risk of blowing the speaker by slaving vs just using the speaker as a cab extension.. (Which the Mesa would chew up and spit out)
The extra tube power amp adds a little more compression and it sounds great with the combination of a 2x12 and the open back fender combo.. And the slave out does offer in effect an extra volume control..

now I have the Chimey fender cleans punching through the 100W power amp of the Mesa and good dirty sounds from the Mesa itself..
Takes a bit to balance but works a treat..
Who would have thought there would actually be an upside to a parallel effect loop..
 
Really depends on your purpose. Do you want the second cab to have the same signal as the primary? As mentioned, the mark v can easily drive both in parallel.

Want Wet/Dry? A solid state amp is often preferable. You'll want it to be a couple hundred Watts for headroom. Want stereo? Probably not a good way to use the slave out.
 
What they said...

You can easily drive both the Lonestar 410 and the 412 cab with the Mark V. However, I looked at the Roadking impedance, bummer that they used 16 ohm speakers. You would have to choose between the V30 pair or the MC90 pair in stereo mode, in mono the cab impedance is 4 ohms which is the limit of the Mark V or any amp in general. If you had a non Roadking version, no problem as the mono is generally 8 ohms.

If you just want to run one cabinet, use the Roadking with the Mark V. I always felt the MC90 paired up with the V30 sounded great.

If it is a must to run both cabinets, you probably could get a series load box for the two stereo 8 ohm loads to give you 16 ohms, and run that on the 8 ohm jack and place the 410 on the 4 ohm jack. This would give you a safe mismatch (it is in the manual of the Mark V). I would not try using the Roadking in mono (4ohm) combined with the 410 as your total load on the amp will be less than 4 ohms.


If the 410 is the Lonestar combo amp, you can run that and the Mark V in parallel using the Mesa Switch Track since that gives you an ABY function. It works very well and switching is noise free, provides isolation between the two amps. I have one and love it.
 
Thanks for the replies. I really don't have a need beyond what I'm gigging with now. My MV combo on top the Lonestar cab are both in wine matching color. The combination of speakers is unique and sounds great. I'm extremely happy with my tone. It just that I have this RK412 that needs something on it lol. The impedance of the RK412 does limit using both cabs. I suppose adding versatility to my rig is the purpose. If a gig lent itself to running two amps with the switch track, it would be something I'd try. I prefer to gig with the Mv so I've considered another Mv in head format and could have 6 modes dialed in on tap with both amps running. I know extreme over kill. Thanks for the replies and ideas, that's what I was looking for.
 
I would not say another Mark V would be overkill. Running two similar amps in parallel sounds epic even if they are the same. It gets even better if you run them in parallel and have different effects in each amp, especially if you have effects that would swamp the signal chain if you ran them in series. (reverb + delay can become too much depending on what the reverb is doing. I have a strymon BigSky and a few of the delay pedals, I cannot use both on the same amp as the one effect I like with the BigSky adds two octaves with delay. I have done something with the effects in parallel but had to do that with the recording gear). After I got the switch track I had to try using the Mark V with the delay and the JP with the bigsky pedal and it worked much better than I expected.

(recording of running the two effects in parallel but only using one amp, Mark V combo loaded with a Celestion 90W Alnico Crème speaker. Also used an attenuator for both the lead and rhythm tracks. What inspired me to create this was the BigSky reverb pedal and I ended up with the following. I tried running the effects in series but the end result got muddy. Keeping the two effects separated worked out. Also had a Boss Terra Echo active in the FX loop of the Mark V. The BigSky and DIG pedals ran in parallel on the mixer. Now I can do the same using two amps without loosing definition. The recording is sort of lame, drumming not very good either but it gets the point across.

https://soundcloud.com/user-353100000/tempted01wav
 
Thanks Bandit, I think that's what I wanted to hear lol. I use TC Electronic G force and also have a nova delay and modulator for my effects. I can see a MV head in my future.
 
As posted above, the Slave Out is tapped from the output transformer and includes all the tube goodness of the power section. A solid state power amp works great for this (as much as I hate to admit), and using the RK cab split the speaker load wont be a problem either. Slave > FX mono in/stereo out >> power amp >> stereo cab inputs.

FWIW I was on the fence with this same issue a few months ago, building a W/D/W rig (more correctly Mix/Dry/Mix) around a RK2 combo. I ended up running the Slave Out thru my time-based FX into a QSC RMX-1450A power amp and 2 Recto 4x12s. :shock: No regrets, killer tones, zero issues. Yes overkill is a good thing.
 
ooh, thanks for the new ideas. That's the least expensive route to using all the speaker cabinets I have available. After experimenting over the weekend, I prefer the tone of the MV combo on top the lonestar 410 over the RK412 at 4ohms. It's way more open. The open back side of the 412 paired with the 410 sounds awesome for the music I play. I think I'm going to stick with the combo and 410 for gigging and get a solid state to run the 412 for my overkill needs. I still see another tube head in my distant future though. I wonder if they'll be a Filmore100.
 
Time will tell if there will be a 100W version of the Fillmore.

Meanwhile, consideirng the tone differences of the Mark V and JP-2C I have been running both simultaneously using the Mesa switch track. It is amazing how the sound transformes into something a bit different when you run two amps with an ABY switch. I had thought the pinnical of tone was running the JP with the TC-100, the pairing of the Mark V with the JP-2C is just unreal. It has an ambience that just sounds awesome since both amps have different response at certain frequenices. I have not done much with the clean channels though I should. Blending any of the lead voices of the Mark V on CH3 with the JP has been quite rewarding.

Point is, if you already have two amps, you can create a totally different effect than slaving from a single amp to a stero power amp. However, the stereo rig would have its own set of character that I am sure is just as epic. No matter how you look at it, running a stereo rig will add up to alot of gear.
 
Thanks for the input about the JP-2C. I've noticed your post about the JP and have wondered as well if it might be a good pair with the MV for me. However, I'm probably one of the few that likes to use the preset on the graphic EQ at about 10 o'clock on all three channels. I may have to find one to try out. I do think I'll go with another amp and an ABY switch instead of slaving another amp.
 

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