WANT TO RUN MULTIPLE AMPLIFIERS BUT DON'T KNOW HOW?

Hi and welcome.

We are Mooretone(TM)Music, LLC.  We primarily cut our teeth in the Music Industry, some 14-years ago officially, with modernized twists on Vintage Guitars and Single Coil Pickups--since then, we have Bridge Inventions and Custom Tube Amplifier offerings as well.  I  have been a Musician for more than 25-years.  This little "Guide" is our way of helping the younger or new Electric Guitar Players, with some set up tips and helpful hints to get you going and keep you interested in the Art of Music.

Quite frankly, I could sit here for hours and talk about every aspect of guitar woods, strings, pickups, cords, amplifiers, tube choices, pedal affects and blah, blah, blah--all have some or allot of affect on what goes into an amplifier, and then what comes out to your audience.  And, believe me................with all the products good and bad, all marketing and advertising to your emotional needs to achieve some successes with your music, it can be trying and expensive--especially when you find that you wasted money on the obsolete, or.....................that you simply had a great thing, but didn't have it set up properly.  In this case..............multiple amplifiers.

First..................I am going to make a hurtful and expensive point here................which is.................to achieve a totally full and rich guitar sound, you really should play through more than one amplifier--it is just simple physics.  Amplifiers, whether Valve State, Solid State or Stereo, all do one thing...............boost the signal created by your pickups from guitar to speakers to audience or listener.  Without getting overly technical (there are tons of others out there who can confuse you better than I) let's keep it really basic and simple and to the point.  Whatever AMPLIFIER you choose, its sole purpose in life, is to take a small electrical signal from your pickups and boost it into an audible sound that you and your audience can hear.  And, within every amplifier exists its processors, whether it be from Printed Circuits, Point to Point circuits or whatever is used to boost and shape what your pickups are saying--one thing they all share in-common--it has to be loud enough to be heard nearby or across the room.  Now, while processing that which your pickups are telling your amplifier, within the amplifier itself, are lots of signal processing components.................capacitors, resistors, potentiometers (adjustable resistors by the way) with power filtering and magnifying parts--in most tube amps it is just that--tubes which boosts that small audio signal into a bigger one.  Whatever it is you choose to AMPLIFY your pickups each amplifier attempts to magnify 3-frequency ranges..............Bass, Mids and Highs.  And depending upon how much AMPLIFICATION or volume you choose, those frequencies can fluctuate even by the way you play your guitar or the pickup selection from one setting to another or from chord to individual note.  Therefore, when you depend upon one AMPLIFIER for your total musical presentation, you will NEVER get the fullness of sound or width within each frequency range unless you play through multiple amplifiers.  To fully present fuller and wider ranges within each frequency range, you have to AMPLIFY your guitar through more than one amplifier so that each compliments the other, where certain ranges maybe lower or less audible.  For instance...................maybe one amp has Trebble or High Frequencies that sound more muffled or less "Piercing".  By adding another amplifier that hits on those "Piercing highs", the combination of the two combined, makes for a "Wider" range within that frequency.  The real misconception in the Music Industry and more so with those less knowledgable, is that "The Greatest Guitarists" played through multiple amplifiers just for the "Loudness Factor"--not true!  Most played through multiple amplifiers because the more amps you have, the more "Width" you will have in each Frequency Range!  Imagine it like this............you are holding a funnel and pouring motor oil into your car.  As the funnel's hole gets wider more oil can seep through it, which makes it seem like it is flowing faster, but really.............the rate is the same due to gravity, but the restriction of the opening in the funnel is less constrictive.  So...............not only will more amplifiers widen your overall frequency ranges, to sound fuller, but each amp will require less energy in its divided outputs as the combination of two means each has to work half as hard to get the same overall volume from just the one.  Now add a third amp and fourth and you can see that not only does adding more amps lessen the energy demands on the one, but also widens the frequency ranges in direct proportions.  Thus..............your amps will run cooler (tube amps especially) with more efficiency while offering more sustained frequencies as they are not interrupted by heat, friction or volume settings which can push the speakers into overload cause components to stray from their proper or engineered ranges.  And so and so forth.

So then...............what to do, when you want to run multiple amps, but none of the Affects Pedal manufacturers offer multiple outputs--a pet peave of mine, as the costs of adding a couple more shielded output jacks with a slight signal boost mini-transformer, would be maybe a few bucks, but would offer huge versatility for those running multiple amplifiers.  Or...................you could do what allot of guys do and chain your amps together Inputs to Outputs from amp to amp.  but then, you risk a couple of issues:

1.  You risk creating a Ground loop which can affect those frequencies you hope to "widen".

2.  You risk damaging an amp, as the inputs are usually designed to handle the input signal from a low voltage pickup.

3.  If you do get a voltage peak from your power source (IE:  Wall Outlet) it can take the other amps with it.

In 99% of the cases, the absolute safest and best way to run multiple amplifiers, is to have a dedicated shielded output going from a single source to each amplifier independently.  As such...........................listen up carefully...........................  V  O  O  D  O  O     L  A  B  S ...................makes a " Multiple Amp Selector Switch" pedal that is without a doubt, and hands down in my opinion, the absolute B   E   S   T pedal you will ever use!  Here is why.................their pedal is designed around exactly this principle of "Frequency Widening"!  You can run all your affects in front of the Voodoo Labs pedal, where it has 4 Amp Outputs with miniature Power Transformers that will help you adjust the power of your pickup's wee little voltage "Line Signal".  What that means, is this...............when you play even through just two amps, your guitar's line signal is cut in half. It is cut even more, depending upon whether you are using two different length cords from your pedal to each amp.  But to keep it simple--without an adjustable signal boost and just the normal Affect Pedal's "Bi-Pass" feature...........if your pedal is not turned on, your guitar's pickups and that wee little electrical signal is cut in half!  The result..............less signal getting to the Pre-amp stages of the amplifier and less volume and width of frequency ranges your pre-amp stage starts out with!  There are few pedals we at Mooretone are willing to promote, as most suck--well maybe not, but we've sure had our share.  This pedal by Voodoo Labs, even in lieu of its price tag (about $220-240.00) is the best investment you will ever make in your music--assuming you want the best sounding guitar on stage--which is most easily begotten from multiple amps.

Here is another little tip................and this elludes many a Guitarist............when you play through multiple amps, you should use a Multi-plug with built in surge protector, and or...................if only running two amps................make sure you plug into the same power source--your wall outlet.  Again...............running each amp to different outlets can cause hum, buzzing and excessive ground loops or ground canceling affects!  Did you hear that?  PLUG BOTH AMPS INTO THE SAME POWER SUPPLY SOURCE--WALL OUTLET!!  We've had amplifier customers call us after getting thier custom Mooretone Vintage Amp and complain that it was noisy or that it somehow had a grounding or shielding issue.  Within 5-minutes, and 100% if the time, they were running through Extension Cords to two different outlets, so that they could plug in thier 9v effects pedal power distribution board or individual packs.  Effects pedals have shielded inputs and outputs (usually) and various grounding sources, so they can be run to a separate outlet, which means you CAN and MUST keep both amps plugged into the same outlet--run your pedals off a different one.

Finally...............let's say you are like me and run 4 or more amps at one time.  Each by today's codes and standards, is designed to operate on about 117-120volts AC--in some States with high demand usage, can see 130vAC at the wall!  Alternating Current goes into an amp's Power Transformer where it gets a boost from the little voltage to larger voltages needed to run it (in a tube amp's case) which is then Rectified or converted to necessary DC or Direct Current.  Again, keeping it simple.................if you intend to run all 4-amps from a single outlet, it is conceivable that each amplifier may only be getting 100 volts from the single outlet (or less) which can cause the Transformer to have to work harder.  But, if your house's electrical wiring and Breaker Box is modern and up to code, usually the outlet will be capable of handling the load of all four amps--I tested ours and we get 117-120vAC consistently.  Just know this...........voltages are not the definitive for measuring energy--Amperes are.  So, the usual 10 or 20 Amp Breakers in most modern up to-date households should easily be capable of handling the demands of 4 amps.  And if not, usually the Multi-plug will pop its little overload switch and kill the power to the amps.  If that is the case, you can run two amps at different outlets with separate circuits, since the Voodoo Labs pedal has built in ground switches for each output!  I swear they thought of everything in this pedal.  Anyway, another nice feature is that if you do plug all 4 amps into a surge protected multi-plug device and run into a single wall outlet, the slightly lowered voltages each amp might be getting, can be adjusted at the Voodoo Lab's pedal by way of boosting your guitar's line signal to off-set those drops in voltage!  However, most modern day home and commercial codes require minimum 10Amp Breakers and 15 Amp is the norm, which is more than sufficient to run all your amps.  But, if you do have to split them between two outlets, do use a multi  imput device with surge protection--at Wal Mart, maybe $10.00--$20.00 for a really good one and they will protect your amps from power company related surges.  Always unplug your amps when you are done playing, and then disconnect all your pedals, and by then................you can turn on your Standby switch (assuming you have one as most amps have them) which "poofs" the stored electrical charges in your Power Filter Capacitors--this ensures they last a long time, and it removes any residual voltage that might be leaking throughout your amplifer, even when in the Off position!  This keeps your circuit board components protected, from getting forced voltage spikes when you turn on your amp the next time--new voltages bombarding residual stored ones--sort of internally spiking your components.

Finally.................good guitar cords are a must!!!!!!!!!!  That is your guitar's heartblood and it's your pedals and amplifiers hearblood too--hey, your amp and pedals only modifies and then magnifies whatever your guitar is telling it.  So.................don't skimp on good cords.  We won't make any specific recommendations due to keeping things less Monster-ous in the tons of options out there to choose from!  But, good shielding and gold tips are helpful in selecting which cords to buy.  Also.......................never use longer than 15ft cords if you can avoid it!  Yeah, yeah................it puts you in the middle of your amps, if you center yourself there.  But, longer cords means less signal--think of time and distance and friction which can affect the mechanics of energy.  Now here is the caveat..................you can go as long as you want if you have the Voodoo Labs pedal!  But..................again..................the longer the cord, the more chance you have for stepping on it and creating kinks which can separate or damage the inner cord's shielding--causing them to separate which then leads to other ugly things that can either affect the strength of your input signal (guitar pickups wee little 2 volt signal) or can create buzzes and hums which you might think are amplifier related but are not!  Stick to the rule of thumb--15ft. is a safe and still very usable length.

In conclusion........................if you are serious about your music, as a Guitarist with a mission..............you have to widen your frequency range which will happen when you drive one amp less hard by driving two amps for the same dB--Decibles of sound produced.  You know, you can do that even by just mixing a lower cost low quality amp, to your more prized and higher quality amp.  Sometimes, all you need is just a little more widening.  But for the absolute best presentation................. two or more amps just sounds so much better and you don't have to be wealthy to sound like a PRO!!  Here is a tip:

Fender "Ceasar Diaz" Vibroverb 1 x 15" speaker.............about $1,600.00 on average used at eBay.

Peavey Classic 50 4x10 or 2x12" speakers....................about $400.00 on average used at eBay

Voodoo Labs Amp Selector Pedal................................about $220.00 on average new

Good pedal chain cords and guitar cords.......mmm..........about $60.00

Total for a killer great sounding set up............$ 2,300.00 divided by years of enjoyment..............maybe a few cents per-day!

Good luck and hope this helps you get going and stay on the path to Greatnesssssss.  Remember..............this and other "Guides" are NOT absolutes--just directions for you to consider.  You can and should experiment at some point.................whether it be with amps, guitars, pickups, bridges, affects pedals, etc, etc, etc.............  You can even A/B your two amps, and see how you like that sound--maybe you like it more than investing the bucks into a Voodoo Labs pedal.  But, you have to have fun and be willing to spend the dough on your equipment--after all--you are only as good as they are.

Ciao!