Chaining amps into each other?

[HCL]

Or more specifically, ampsims. Anyone else do this? I've done a few projects now where throwing a boosted instance of the 8505 into lecto has given me the best tone. I also find myself using two tubescreamers sometimes.

I guess in the digital realm you can do this kind of thing without blowing amps up or deafening yourself with feedback.

Here's an example of it. Can't remember exactly what I used but it was definitely chained. Pretty sure it was TS>8505>lecto>eq>2pres8>eq then some bus widening and such. Not looking for any mix critique as it's already released

 

[Daybreak]

Well, if it sounds good, go for it, there are really no rules. And it does sound good, actually. What amp sim did you use?

 

[Alphanumeric]

1. Anyone else do this?
2. 8505 into lecto has given me the best tone.
3.I also find myself using two tubescreamers sometimes.
4.I guess in the digital realm you can do this kind of thing without blowing amps up or deafening yourself with feedback.

1. I used to use the standard dual amp thing waaaaayy back when pod farm just came out, it definitely works for that. How are you doing this then, since you're using sims, just staging them one after the other in the plugin chain?
I've found with the axe fx it behaves like real amps would in that having two high gain amps running into each other is completely stupid and sounds bad like the real thing.

2. Yeah it deffinately seems to work for you and usually hate the lecto sound, its definitely take the weirdness out of it that sound like a broken rectifier. However, on some of the more notey riffs its a little undefined, possibly because you have two extremely saturated gain stages going at it, and neither amp is known for clarity.

3. Yeah this is uber common with digital stuff, say, gate>TS>Amp>cab>TS>gate

4. That's certainly true, you get all these elaborate internet metal pod people whose chain is like comp-gate-comp-TS-amp-cab-gate-ts-comp-gate, and that's completely ridiculous in the real world, pretty much proves the fact to get a usable metal tone from certain digital stuff you need to do stupid shit to it whilst real stuff is almost always amp cab and mic hahaha

 

[Bay Studio]

I do it on fairly every recording/mix, but using real amps, and mostly 2 different cabs.
I don´t know if you guys use real amps, but, you can use the radial x amp (yellow/new one) or the Radial Injector (rack unit, up to 7 amps).
Mostly i use a 5150 through a Mesa 4x12 to start with, then it might be a mesa tri rec or a laney (dont know which one, but it adds nice crushing mids), and then into an Orange 4x12 or a Randall 4x12, both cabs in seperate iso-boxes, and an audix i5 on the best speaker of each cab.

When i´m at home, writing stuff for my project, i go the same way, using podfarm 2. Mostly the Spinal Puppet through the "orange" amp. Gain is fairly low on both amps (well, i also play in drop E, so.. haha).

To cut to the chase here; Blending different amps/cab together gives you alot of options in not only creating a "new" sound, but you´re opening a new window in creating unique sounds, that stand out, instead of the traditional 5150 set up. Keep experimenting!

EDIT: When combining different (high gain) amps, be careful. Choose specific amps that have a specific character, for eg the 5150 is a bighty amp with a nice low end. Throwing in a tri rec, using that amp for the warm mids, would make alot of sense. When i do this, gain is probably on 3 on both amps. The gain will give you some trouble, once you find that sweet spot though, it´s heaven on earth!

 

[Daybreak]

I always thought I was overdoing it putting like up to 3 compressors and noise-gates in my chain, trying to achieve a beefier sound, but I guess not then, haha. Have never tried running different amps after each other, might be worth a try. Have tried running them in parallel though, never got a good sound out of there, some of the phase issues were a major turnoff too.

 

[Fox Mulder]

It was mentioned in the Dream Evil thread around here that Fredrik Nordström boosted his ENGL SE with a 5150 on a particular album. Unfortunately I'm unable to locate it.

 

[phoenix18]

HCL loving that track. So you basically set up 8505 to contain most of the lows but less of mids and aded lecto wit pronounced mids ? Must say im loving the idea. please elaborate the whole proccess a bit more in-depth. Im sure more people, including me, would like to hear about it.

 

[nspacestd]

Didn't Nordstrom just use the preamp of the ENGL savage with the 5150's poweramp?

 

[botus99]

I'm a fan of using the Soldono (SoloC from LePou) as a boost on certain things. It really brings out the "stringy" sound and can help with note articulation.

 

[HCL]

HCL loving that track. So you basically set up 8505 to contain most of the lows but less of mids and aded lecto wit pronounced mids ? Must say im loving the idea. please elaborate the whole proccess a bit more in-depth. Im sure more people, including me, would like to hear about it.

There you go man, excuse the lazy ms paint skills.

 

[nezvers]

That's pretty much same principle as Sweadish death metal tone - Boss HM2 heavy distorted into marshal with low gain or sometimes gainy, basically stacking distortion to have grainy texture. Although I haven't thought to chain amps.

 

[Mago]

I like to boost LeCto with SoloC instead of a Tubescreamer sim...sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't..
I think I did that with the LeCto beta when it came out...like....2 or 3 years ago.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3961577/Mixes/Mago_TestingLeCto.mp3


Never found it too awesome with most other ampsims tho...like x50, totally hate to boost it with another ampsim instead of a screamer.

Haven't tried it yet with 2 real amps, or more, a real preamp and a real head, but I think I tried it once with an ampsim...worked, but I prefered the real TS in the end.

 

[phoenix18]

Hey bro, thank you a lot for doing this

EDIT:
I just tried this on one of my mixes and right off the bat sounds really thick and awesome. Cant wait to implement this more in detail on my future mixes. (y)

 

[AntonioPetrole]

Sounds great. To be fair, the drums and bass slay in this, so that helps the guitars a bunch. Regardless it sounds sick

 

[hkollner]

Interesting. I'll try this fo shure!

 

[phoenix18]

i like spacey hi hat and all around swoooshy cymbal presence, but yeah, maybe HCL could give some info on bass guitar. Anyways i listen this kind of downtuned mosh hardcore/metalcore and mix fits perfectly to genre and could easily pass as 5k $ mixjob.

 

[HCL]

There's an asbolute ton of processing on the bass. It's split into the typical three tracks, bass/grit/distortion, and the latter two are EQ'd to hell and back and then a ton of compression and EQ on the bus. One thing I love to do is use the dry/wet knob in reaper rather than only adjusting single bands. I find this helps a LOT with bass and guitar equalisation when getting different instruments to work together. No idea why, everyone has their own methods.

I've also got a MIDI layer of Zombass 3, processed similarly but hipassed on the bus so that only the attack and extreme high end remain. It's not dead in time with the real bass track but it adds consistent top end and attack.

Sometimes when I mix I have the bass really rumbly and present in the sub frequencies and I was definitely focusing on that region here but I tried to get a more developed balance between the bass and the kick, and the bass ended up taking up more of the midbass region rather than the low/sub bass.

After all that it's just balance balance balance, trying to get all the four component tracks to glue together right within the larger mix. It helped that I tracked it on a nice Warwick, although the strings are ancient.

 

[Terminus]

If I'm not mistaken The Haunted (possibly Tue Madsen in this case) slaved a 5150 II's power section with a 5150's preamp section...not sure if that's what you're referring to precisely but it did sound pretty good on that album.

EDIt: Ok seems it was Fred Nordstrom on Revolver.

 

[MotherEel]

I do it on fairly every recording/mix, but using real amps, and mostly 2 different cabs.

Really dumb question...
How does one do this? Where do you take the signal from one amp to put into another? Is it from the output that goes into your cab (normally you've got a few, so you could send the other signal to the other amp) or is it from the direct out (or equiv name)?

 

[phoenix18]

do you eq and compress every bass track individually or leave most of the processing work for bass bus ? also what problems do you tackle on individual tracks and what problems do you adress on bus processing ? thanks