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Posted by: johnymac Jan 5 2008, 02:51 AM

i have two different amps at the moment a line 6 spider III 15w and a marshall mg30dfx and i was curious if there is a way to connect them together to get a different sound. or is that just rediculous

Posted by: bmh1109 Jan 5 2008, 09:16 AM

i don't know of any way to connect 2 amps together, as neither have an effects loop and even if you did connect them it probably wouldn't sound too good.

Posted by: Tank Jan 5 2008, 09:51 AM

My friend uses this set up, with a fender valve, and an orange. The fender has got a clean reverb sound, and the orange puts out a crunch. The trick to it is that you need to put a stereo signal splitter in the chain, just before the amps. The splitter will take the line in from your guitar, but provide two line outs, one to each amp.

Alternatively, I believe some multi effects, (such as boss GT series) have stereo out, so put the left out to one amp, and right out to the other.

Posted by: Milenkovic Ivan Jan 5 2008, 12:02 PM

You need stereo out on your pedals or from the guitar to do that, or maybe spider has a FXloop. Then you might try to hook them up, but really I don't see the point. Maybe if you would have some decent Marshall preamp, like this...

Posted by: Bogdan Jan 5 2008, 12:04 PM

You can use AUX OUT , OR PRE-EQ OUT(tuner out) if one of your amps have it..It will send the dry signal out of amp , and you can connect it to a input jack on the other amp..

Posted by: Milenkovic Ivan Jan 5 2008, 02:52 PM

Or even if you have phones out on your spider, send it to marshall, and walla - you'll get your own 2 amp configuration.

The best use of two amp is when you have stereo effects, and then you send one channel to the left one, and the other to the right one.

Posted by: johnymac Jan 7 2008, 07:45 AM

thanks guys for the ideas i'll let you know how it works out

Posted by: Hisham Jan 7 2008, 11:30 PM

line out from the main Amp to the second Amp in put

Posted by: Hardtail Jan 8 2008, 02:43 AM

Please do NOT do this.

The "Line Out" on an amplifier is a high power output channel used to drive cabinets or individual speakers. You will damage possibly both amps if you do it.

The device you need is common and it called an AB-Y switch. Not only will it allow you to play both amps at once but you can also switch between them. Careful with your expectations though. A passive AB-Y only has a set amount of juice to send, so if you split the signal between the amps the volume of the amps will drop.

In my experience these devices are best used when switching independently between amps or simply running both at once. Switching on the fly will cause volume changes you cannot adjust for unless it is between songs.

Hardtail

Posted by: MickeM Jan 8 2008, 10:06 AM

I think he meant the "line level out" that runs to a PA/mixer, not Extension cabinet. Line level out would maybe go at 1V which i assume could be achived overdriving a humbucker pu so that should be ok for the input. Or?

Posted by: Hardtail Jan 9 2008, 03:02 AM

"Line Level Out" or "Aux Out" or "Mix Out" or "Preamp Out" would have all been fine but I'd hate to see someone damage a bunch of equipment out of a little carelessness. I know Hisham meant well but I just wanted to throw up a red flag to prevent any undue stress for Mr. johnymac.

Hardtail

Posted by: johnymac Jan 9 2008, 06:17 AM

thanks for the warning hardtail i will look into this more before i do anything that might damage my amps