Educate me on "slaving" amps

[tweed]

Do you have an attenuator/ Dummy load

Yes. Weber HP Load dump box.

 

[70strathead]

Steve F from VHT has a great definition. That said there are many ways to do it!!

The term simply refers to the practice of using one amp (typically a head or combo) as the "Master" amp or primary tone source, and another (typically a power amp) as the "Slave" amp which does the work of driving the speakers. Slaving allows you to generate just the right blend of preamp and power amp distortion in your Master amp. The resulting output is then attenuated down to a practical signal or line level which can then be routed to a switching system, mixer, effects processor, stereo power amp, recording console or any combination of the above. These kinds of applications are especially useful in live situations where it is desirable to reproduce a variety of different amplifier and distortion characteristics that may have been originally produced in a studio environment with multiple amps and speakers. It usually involves running the Master amplifier "full out" into an enclosed speaker or "Dummy Load" such as a high power resistor or power attenuator. A low level signal is then taken from the Master amp output using the "line output", an external signal attenuator (pad), or some type of speaker emulation device, which is then sent to an effects system, power amp and then to a pair of speaker cabinets. This is not generally considered to be the most practical of systems, but when done right, it's pretty hard to beat. Anyway, who cares about practical when your main objective is ultimate sonic satisfaction?

Ralph is the man! I used do this with two JMP marshall heads ( one at 100w, the other 50w) and just used my echoplex as the effects route. Thunder!~

 

[OneArmedScissor]

 

[MrDan666]

Hey Ralph, im thinking of using this idea for my rig now..

What kinda options do i have as far as which Attenuator/Dummy load to go with?

Also, would my Carvin X-100B as a poweramp sound ok do ya think? I know it is about as loud as my MKIII and it NEVER ever breaks up, not even when you run it past volume 5. And that is way too loud for any kind of use, aside from stadium volumes

Cheers!!

 

[jrgrady]

Thanks for all of the good information Ralph. I had actually been thinking about using a VHT 2/50/20 for slave purposes. But I have a couple of questions. The VHT is a 2 channel/50 watt per channel power amp. I've got a 100 watt master amp. Can I use the VHT with a 100 watt master amp? Does it not matter whether the power (watts) of the power amp matches the power of the master amp? I guess it wouldn't matter if you could connect the two channels of the VHT together to get a 100 watt channel. Do you know if there is a way to combine the channels of the VHT to get to 100 watts? Sorry for all the questions, you just seem like someone who knows quite a bit about this topic and I'm not interested in spending a lot of money only to blow my rig up. Thanks for your help.

 

[stephen sawall]

The wattage of the slave and master do not matter. They can be more / less/ same. I do not think you can run the VHT 100 watts mono. All the VHT power amps I have played threw sounded about as good as it gets.

 

[Gainfreak]

Hey Ralph, im thinking of using this idea for my rig now..

What kinda options do i have as far as which Attenuator/Dummy load to go with?

Also, would my Carvin X-100B as a poweramp sound ok do ya think? I know it is about as loud as my MKIII and it NEVER ever breaks up, not even when you run it past volume 5. And that is way too loud for any kind of use, aside from stadium volumes

Cheers!!

Sup Dan!!

You have a lot of options for Attenuators/Dummy loads. Just off the top of my head, you have the Hotplate,Any of the Weber Devices,Marshall Power brake,The Gibson hotplate ripoff. The Bad Cat Leash, The ultimate attenuator,The Airbrake, The palmer stuff!! The list goes on and on.You also have the Old school attenuators like the Marshall SE-100 and Rocktron Juice extractor but I would stick to the newer stuff.

Your carvin would be fine as a slave amp for sure.

 

[Gainfreak]

Thanks for all of the good information Ralph. I had actually been thinking about using a VHT 2/50/20 for slave purposes. But I have a couple of questions. The VHT is a 2 channel/50 watt per channel power amp. I've got a 100 watt master amp. Can I use the VHT with a 100 watt master amp? Does it not matter whether the power (watts) of the power amp matches the power of the master amp? I guess it wouldn't matter if you could connect the two channels of the VHT together to get a 100 watt channel. Do you know if there is a way to combine the channels of the VHT to get to 100 watts? Sorry for all the questions, you just seem like someone who knows quite a bit about this topic and I'm not interested in spending a lot of money only to blow my rig up. Thanks for your help.

Hey Jr,

Like Stephan said in an earlier post, It doesn't really matter what the wattage of the slave amp is although you want the poweramp to be pretty clean sounding without distorting (Which wont be a problem with any of VHT poweramps!!)
I'm not sure about bridging the Channels together on the VHT. Most of the guitar based Poweramp were meant to be run in stereo and they don't offer bridging like the audio poweramps do. With that said, most people want to go out to a couple of speaker cabs in stereo when using a Slave Rig. It sounds huge and you get a really wide stereo spread especially when using stereo effects.

If you asked me about bridging the VHT poweramp because you don't have 2 cabs and you only have 1 4x12 you could split the cab in stereo (Most newer Marshall cabs are split in stereo and hook 1 channel of the VHT to the top speakers and the other to the bottom)


Feel free to ask any questions if any of this doesn't make sense!!

Ralph

 

[MrDan666]

Sup Dan!!

You have a lot of options for Attenuators/Dummy loads. Just off the top of my head, you have the Hotplate,Any of the Weber Devices,Marshall Power brake,The Gibson hotplate ripoff. The Bad Cat Leash, The ultimate attenuator,The Airbrake, The palmer stuff!! The list goes on and on.You also have the Old school attenuators like the Marshall SE-100 and Rocktron Juice extractor but I would stick to the newer stuff.

Your carvin would be fine as a slave amp for sure.

Cheers Ralph!!

Well i had a thought, because moneys tight right now...

If i used a 16Ohm dummy load consisting of a box with four 50Watt 4Ohm resistors in it... would i be able to use that for my dummyload instead of say a HP, Weber, Powerbrake etc?

 

[Gainfreak]

Sup Dan!!

You have a lot of options for Attenuators/Dummy loads. Just off the top of my head, you have the Hotplate,Any of the Weber Devices,Marshall Power brake,The Gibson hotplate ripoff. The Bad Cat Leash, The ultimate attenuator,The Airbrake, The palmer stuff!! The list goes on and on.You also have the Old school attenuators like the Marshall SE-100 and Rocktron Juice extractor but I would stick to the newer stuff.

Your carvin would be fine as a slave amp for sure.

Cheers Ralph!!

Well i had a thought, because moneys tight right now...

If i used a 16Ohm dummy load consisting of a box with four 50Watt 4Ohm resistors in it... would i be able to use that for my dummyload instead of say a HP, Weber, Powerbrake etc?

I think that should work no problem. From what I have gathered, Dummy loads are pretty easy to make but Im not the handiest guy in the world!! The thing where it gets tricky is if / when you are trying to build an attenuator. A load for an amp seems pretty simple. The basic idea to the method I use for slaving is to hush up the master amp without having to use a 3rd cab . With that said, if you have 3 cabs and a good master volume on the master amp, you can slave without having to use a loadbox, but you wont be able to crank the main amp,... thats where the loadbox comes in handy.
Basically what Im trying to say in this ramble is that you don't need a loadbox if your main amp sounds great really low (like the boogie) You just need 3 cabs, but if you wantto crank your main amp and get the power section cooking and control the volume at the poweramp, more then likely you'll need a dummy loadbox unless you are playing a coliseum gig !!

 

[stephen sawall]

It's stephen [steve] not stephan [stephanie] I was named after stephen of acts from the new testament. Hence the spelling. I do not know of a tube amp that can be bridged. Marshall cabs are wired left/right. Not up/down. I have wired one bottom dry/top wet {very cool for chorus}........ Use a Hot Plate for wet/dry/wet. That is my favorite of this kind of rig. You can turn the center off or mix it in. A load sometimes feels stiff, because it does not give like a speaker. The Hot plate has a fan in it that reacts to the power coming in, as do a few of the others.

 

[MrDan666]

I think that should work no problem. From what I have gathered, Dummy loads are pretty easy to make but Im not the handiest guy in the world!! The thing where it gets tricky is if / when you are trying to build an attenuator. A load for an amp seems pretty simple. The basic idea to the method I use for slaving is to hush up the master amp without having to use a 3rd cab . With that said, if you have 3 cabs and a good master volume on the master amp, you can slave without having to use a loadbox, but you wont be able to crank the main amp,... thats where the loadbox comes in handy.
Basically what Im trying to say in this ramble is that you don't need a loadbox if your main amp sounds great really low (like the boogie) You just need 3 cabs, but if you wantto crank your main amp and get the power section cooking and control the volume at the poweramp, more then likely you'll need a dummy loadbox unless you are playing a coliseum gig !!

Thanks for all the info Ralph, you rock!!

Im going to order a bunch of 4 ohm 50W resistors, i found em on TedWeber's site for like a few bucks each. I want to use the dummyload idea so i can crank the boogie,feed it to my G-Major then run it into the Carvin and into 2 Speakers!

I can definitly lug around 2 cabs for live use, but no way 3 right now. So this could be awesome if it sounds good!