W/D/W Setup Help Please

[marl3y]

RTers-

After hearing the fantastic clips of folks who've gone W/D/W I'd like to give it a shot. I'm not sure which of my gear in such configuration would be best "I know that's subjective". Here's a couple of shots showing what I've got available. Most of it is pretty recognizable, but feel free to ask if you have questions. I'd appreciate any thoughts, connection tips and starting wet settings. Thanks in advance.

-Scott

 

[Blix]

Quite the collection to choose from there!

Get one of these:

Use you fave head with your fave cab, then feed your Ax-FX with the Suhr box. Go into the VHT power amp out to those Egenater cabs for the wet.

Stand back and drool.

 

[moltenmetalburn]

Herbie into the vht 4x12 for dry!

Axe fx for stereo fx only into the vht power amp.

vht power amp into two egnater cabs left and right.

herbie has a send or use an unused loop send to the axe.
use axe for the fx only turn everything else off.

youll need a guitar splitter of some kind as well.


for added mojo hook up that vht 2x12 and another one of those heads for a second dry amp setup. double harmonics.


sick gear!

 

[glpg80]

dude nice gear

guitar > herbert > speaker out > suhr iso box > out to speaker cabinet

suhr iso box line level out > axe FX mono in >

axe fx stereo L out > left side of 2/50/2

axe fx stereo R out > right side of 2/50/2

egnater cabinets for L and R cabinets. use axe FX for wet/dry ratio of the wet cabinets

and you're set

 

[CaseyCor]

Go with the above, but try the Art SLA power amp you've got there. Should preserve more of the natural tone of your amp using a SS poweramp instead of tubes. Try both though, as the VHT sounds incredible too. Just two different flavors of awesome.

 

[marl3y]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. Sounds like it might actually be pretty straightforward. By most accounts it seems I can pick a head as the primary tone for all cabs. Then using the Suhr ISO feed the AXE-FX for the L/R processing into the stereo power amp of choice, finally out to the Eggie 1x12s. This is probably a dumb question, but why is the ISO box required? Each of the heads has either a line out or a serial loop send, why can't that be used to feed the AXE without the Suhr box? Also, as one poster suggested a second dry head can could be added as well, would that use an A/B/Y box between the guitar and heads? Thanks once again, I was expecting lots of guidance on balancing and avoiding ground loops, but maybe that's not going to be problem. Either that or I'll be back for some troubleshooting in short order.

-Scott

 

[CaseyCor]

AFAIK, you use the ISO box because none of your amps have a Slave Out, just Line sours. Slave outs are post-power amp, line out is pre-power amp. You want your full tone from your amp, so you need the power amp involved.

I'm no expert, I'm learning this stuff right now as well. This is just what I've picked up from some reading lately. I do not proclaim to be 100% accurate.

 

[petejt]

Zachman would know how to help you. He loves w/d/w.

 

[hunter]

If you wanna mix dry amounts in your wet wedges, you should get an analog stereo mixer.

Suhr ISO Out => Mixer In => Mixer Mono Send => Axe FX => Axe L/R Out (100% Wet) to Mixer Stereo Return => Mixer L/R out to VHT2502

if you run through the Axe and it's not 100% wet, you will get phasing issues. But running 100% wet on the outside cabinets can feel a bit weird, depending on how they are positioned or how much FX you add. Also you get a volume hike if you switch the FX On, which can be good or not, depending on what you wanna do.

 

[Shark Diver]

Pretty much spot on from what every one wrote. I'd set the 4x12 on the 2x12 for dry. The 2x12 will have tighter bass response. That would be a great sounding rig. get an Egnater amp switcher and you can instantly swap between all those heads for different flavors with no rewiring.

 

[jlbaxe]

Pretty much spot on from what every one wrote. I'd set the 4x12 on the 2x12 for dry. The 2x12 will have tighter bass response. That would be a great sounding rig. get an Egnater amp switcher and you can instantly swap between all those heads for different flavors with no rewiring.

you wont need the Suhr ISO box with the Egnater amp switcher. It has 4 line outs with vol control for each and since each head is amp switcher out to amp in amp out to amp switcher in you get your post power section in the switcher. The amp switcher puts a load on the 3 other amps not being used while the one amp is going through your cab. It is all midi switchable also.

 

[glpg80]

Pretty much spot on from what every one wrote. I'd set the 4x12 on the 2x12 for dry. The 2x12 will have tighter bass response. That would be a great sounding rig. get an Egnater amp switcher and you can instantly swap between all those heads for different flavors with no rewiring.

you wont need the Suhr ISO box with the Egnater amp switcher. It has 4 line outs with vol control for each and since each head is amp switcher out to amp in amp out to amp switcher in you get your post power section in the switcher. The amp switcher puts a load on the 3 other amps not being used while the one amp is going through your cab. It is all midi switchable also.

the egnater model does not need an external load to operate? i know the CAE one does - it requires an external 8ohm load to be plugged in. does the egnater model require a cabinet load to operate for the amplifier that is selected or can you use it simillar to a load box line out design?

 

[jlbaxe]

Pretty much spot on from what every one wrote. I'd set the 4x12 on the 2x12 for dry. The 2x12 will have tighter bass response. That would be a great sounding rig. get an Egnater amp switcher and you can instantly swap between all those heads for different flavors with no rewiring.

you wont need the Suhr ISO box with the Egnater amp switcher. It has 4 line outs with vol control for each and since each head is amp switcher out to amp in amp out to amp switcher in you get your post power section in the switcher. The amp switcher puts a load on the 3 other amps not being used while the one amp is going through your cab. It is all midi switchable also.

the egnater model does not need an external load for the amplifiers? i know the CAE one does - it requires external input 8ohm load. does the egnater model require a cabinet load to operate for the amplifier that is selected or can you use it simillar to a load box line out design?

Correct it has a built in load for the 3 amps that are on but not going through the speakers.

 

[glpg80]

but you still have to have a cabinet plugged in at all times with the egnater model correct? or can the internal load operate for all amplifiers including the model you are playing?

 

[jlbaxe]

but you still have to have a cabinet plugged in at all times with the egnater model correct? or can the internal load operate for all amplifiers including the model you are playing?

Yes you still need a cab plugged in at all times.

 

[glpg80]

but you still have to have a cabinet plugged in at all times with the egnater model correct? or can the internal load operate for all amplifiers including the model you are playing?

Yes you still need a cab plugged in at all times.

cool thanks for that little tid-bit

 

[jlbaxe]

but you still have to have a cabinet plugged in at all times with the egnater model correct? or can the internal load operate for all amplifiers including the model you are playing?

Yes you still need a cab plugged in at all times.

cool thanks for that little tid-bit

No problem

 

[marl3y]

Thanks again to all who responded. I like Shark Diver's recommendation for the 2x12 and 4x12 for the dry signal. The only difficulty with that is the jack plate on the 2x12 has separate jacks for each speaker which means three speaker cables would be required. Maybe I should rewire the 2x12 for mono only and just use one of the jacks. I'm not sure what current Fryette 2x12 cabs use as a jack plate, if it's more flexible I might replace it. I think the P50Es are 16 ohm, so the cab would be 8 ohm. So, what's the impedance setting on the amp to connect a 8 ohm(2x12) and 16 ohm(4x12) cab in parallel?

The Egnater amp switcher is a great idea, but I'm gonna start with the Suhr ISO box first. I suspect I'm gonna have my work cut out for me tweaking the AXE-FX to get the models and wet/dry balance correct, not to mention leveling with the pure dry cabs. Spatially, would you center the dry cabs and have L/R wet cabs on either side?

 

[glpg80]

Thanks again to all who responded. I like Shark Diver's recommendation for the 2x12 and 4x12 for the dry signal. The only difficulty with that is the jack plate on the 2x12 has separate jacks for each speaker which means three speaker cables would be required. Maybe I should rewire the 2x12 for mono only and just use one of the jacks. I'm not sure what current Fryette 2x12 cabs use as a jack plate, if it's more flexible I might replace it. I think the P50Es are 16 ohm, so the cab would be 8 ohm. So, what's the impedance setting on the amp to connect a 8 ohm(2x12) and 16 ohm(4x12) cab in parallel?

The Egnater amp switcher is a great idea, but I'm gonna start with the Suhr ISO box first. I suspect I'm gonna have my work cut out for me tweaking the AXE-FX to get the models and wet/dry balance correct, not to mention leveling with the pure dry cabs. Spatially, would you center the dry cabs and have L/R wet cabs on either side?

spatially yes. the farther the spread of the wet cabinets, the more natural and realistic chorus effect you get = sounds bigger and more badass

as for the cabinet load question, it comes out to 5.3ohm load. since both cabinets are not perfect 8 ohm and 16 ohm impedance loads, it is more close to ~4.8 ohm load.

still, that is high enough that i would recommend wiring the 16 ohm cabinet into 8 ohms and running dual matched 8 ohm pairs into the head so the load is more evenly distributed. you will also get a better power output mixture, as the 2x12 in parallel with the 16 ohm 4x12 - the 2x12 will get 2/3 more of the power output of your amplifier and the 4x12 will get only 1/3 of it - not an equal balance and then you get into phasing issues etc etc etc

rewire the straight to 8ohms and save alot of headache

 

[marl3y]

Thanks again, I agree the rewire options will make things a bit more straightforward.

I got the line out box today, hooked things up and it sounds quite good. Ideally a bit more space would allow me to spread out a bit and undoubtable sound better. Need to get permission for that though. In the meantime I'm gonna work with what I've got.

If I'm using the AXE-FX for the effects what's the best way to test out a few settings in the W/D/W configuration? I'd like to test out a few of the v10.1 presets and get a sense for what I like and don't like. For my quick and dirty test I shunted the amp block and left the rest. Is there a global wet/dry mix option? I couldn't seem to fine it and I must admit I haven't taken the time to fully comprehend all the capabilities of the AXE-FX. I know some folks use 100% and others like a bit of dry signal passed through as well. I'd like to find a relatively simple way to do this for the factory presets without having to edit each block of each preset separately. I hope that's clear.