andrewrx7 Posted February 7, 2009 Share Posted February 7, 2009 Can anyone recomend a signal splitter? I wish to take the bass signal and split into two lines to go to two seperate amp heads. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thisnameistaken Posted February 7, 2009 Share Posted February 7, 2009 You could use a Boss LS-2 for that, it's a pretty versatile little box. There's [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BOSS-LS-2-LINE-SELECTOR_W0QQitemZ270338550928QQihZ017QQcategoryZ22669QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem"]one ending tomorrow on Ebay[/url], currently looking quite cheap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silent Fly Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 (edited) [quote name='andrewrx7' post='403029' date='Feb 7 2009, 08:26 PM']Can anyone recomend a signal splitter? I wish to take the bass signal and split into two lines to go to two seperate amp heads. Thanks![/quote] If you don't need separate volume controls before the amps, you can use a [url="http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=31562"]Y-cable[/url]. If the amps have a low imput impedance and you use a passive bass you may have a small tone loss. To avoid this you can connect a non-true-bypass pedal before the Y-cable. I hope this helps, Silent Fly Edited February 8, 2009 by Silent Fly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dannybuoy Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 You can also use a stereo chorus pedal set to a very slow subtle setting. This will thicken up your sound a bit as well as splitting your signal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thisnameistaken Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 Yeah actually I use my Planetwaves tuner for this sometimes, there's a thru output on it, so send the normal out to my amp, the other to my audio interface. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrewrx7 Posted February 8, 2009 Author Share Posted February 8, 2009 [quote name='dannybuoy' post='403473' date='Feb 8 2009, 04:01 PM']You can also use a stereo chorus pedal set to a very slow subtle setting. This will thicken up your sound a bit as well as splitting your signal.[/quote] Was actually looking at this, this morning! I've got a Danelectro Cool Cat Chorus which has a stereo out. Was also wondering about another pedal (Bad Monkey) which has two outs, labelled amp and mixer, if I remember correctly. I was going to try them at rehearsal this week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silent Fly Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 [quote name='andrewrx7' post='403502' date='Feb 8 2009, 04:31 PM']Was actually looking at this, this morning! I've got a Danelectro Cool Cat Chorus which has a stereo out. Was also wondering about another pedal (Bad Monkey) which has two outs, labelled amp and mixer, if I remember correctly. I was going to try them at rehearsal this week.[/quote] The BM has an amp out (which is straight from the effects processing) and a mix output that filters the amp out signal through an amp simulator (in practice a steep low pass filter). The outputs are not the same but it you don't mind the treble cut on the mix out, it might be what you look for. Silent Fly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Heeley Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 Or for a few quid and half an hour with a soldering iron you can put together your own a/b/y box: [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=40389"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=40389[/url] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrewrx7 Posted February 8, 2009 Author Share Posted February 8, 2009 [quote name='Al Heeley' post='403538' date='Feb 8 2009, 05:01 PM']Or for a few quid and half an hour with a soldering iron you can put together your own a/b/y box: [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=40389"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=40389[/url][/quote] Saw that thread earlier! Interesting......! Thanks for the info! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dannybuoy Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 Only thing with the Bad Monkey is that the amp output has a speaker sim on it that dulls your sound, even when the pedal is off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrewrx7 Posted February 8, 2009 Author Share Posted February 8, 2009 [quote name='dannybuoy' post='403727' date='Feb 8 2009, 08:13 PM']Only thing with the Bad Monkey is that the amp output has a speaker sim on it that dulls your sound, even when the pedal is off.[/quote] Duly noted, thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Woodcock Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 [quote name='thisnameistaken' post='403075' date='Feb 7 2009, 09:58 PM']You could use a Boss LS-2 for that, it's a pretty versatile little box. There's [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BOSS-LS-2-LINE-SELECTOR_W0QQitemZ270338550928QQihZ017QQcategoryZ22669QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem"]one ending tomorrow on Ebay[/url], currently looking quite cheap.[/quote] I've got one that I could sell, mint condition, only gigged once. Andrewrx7, drop me a PM if interested. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrewrx7 Posted February 9, 2009 Author Share Posted February 9, 2009 [quote name='Stickman' post='403983' date='Feb 9 2009, 02:28 AM']I've got one that I could sell, mint condition, only gigged once. Andrewrx7, drop me a PM if interested.[/quote] Will bear that in mind, thanks! Got a few options to play with this week before I think about buying the splitter/pedal. (I also found two other splitter boxes that seem to have very good reviews, one by a company called Lehle, and another by Palmer. Too many options to consider!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Heeley Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 lehle have a very good reputation Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrewrx7 Posted February 9, 2009 Author Share Posted February 9, 2009 Thinking about it, splitting a signal is what the heads do anyway, so there isn't a need for a seperate splitter? Don't you achieve the same thing by taking a line from one of the heads? For example, an extract from the TE head manual - says the effects send can be used as a pre-master volume line out and the signal throught the pre-amp is only broken when a jack is inserted back into the return plug. So basically, you can take a signal from the head with no need for a dedicated splitter. It's a learning curve, isn't it! You don't know until you start to experiment! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coasterbass Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 This is a subject that I've spent some time looking at. The bottom line is 'suck it and see' - results can be unexpected, and it also depends how critical your listening ear is. However, there are a couple of points to make: 1) using the fx send will not give you a clear split of signal to another amp. The fx send will (generally) be affected by the preamp of the send amp. Thats the purpose of fx loops, to allow the signal to be boosted by the preamp gain before adding the fx. 2) You may get big earth loop problems. Ideally the splitter would have two earth lifts, one for each amp. This is custom build territory. 3) you may get phasing problems between the amps which can destroy your sound. effectively they'll start to cancel each other out due to minute delays in the signal chain. 4) Guitars send High Z signals which the earth lifts necessary can affect. All of the above are 'ifs' and 'maybes' so just try stuff out and see what happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dannybuoy Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 If one of the amps has a tuner out, you could use that to link to the other amp. If the tuner output is buffered then even better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silent Fly Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 [quote name='andrewrx7' post='404490' date='Feb 9 2009, 04:56 PM']Thinking about it, splitting a signal is what the heads do anyway, so there isn't a need for a seperate splitter? Don't you achieve the same thing by taking a line from one of the heads? For example, an extract from the TE head manual - says the effects send can be used as a pre-master volume line out and the signal throught the pre-amp is only broken when a jack is inserted back into the return plug. So basically, you can take a signal from the head with no need for a dedicated splitter. It's a learning curve, isn't it! You don't know until you start to experiment! [/quote] If I understand correctly, you are thinking of getting the signal from the SEND of the first head and connect it to the RECEIVE of the second head... Providing the amp doesn't cut the connection to the power stage when the jack is inserted in the SEND, it should work. You lose the tone and volume controls on the second head but it might be an advantage. You control everything from the first head. Electrically speaking, it should be like a Y-cable used after the preamp. If you don’t have other connections between head 1 and head 2, the risk of ground loops should be minimal but I agree with what coasterbass says: until you try you can’t be sure. One word of advice: be careful. The return jack is a direct connection to the power stage of the head. In other words there are no attenuations: all the power of the head is directly amplified regardless of the volume settings on the head. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Heeley Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 What's a High Z signal? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldGit Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 This will split the signal and give you gain controls for £17 .. [url="http://www.dv247.com/invt/30362/"]http://www.dv247.com/invt/30362/[/url] I have one and the battery change process is terrible (I pulled the connector out of teh pedal and re-assembled it with teh 9v battery outside of the box. It eats batteries. A power lead helps but the connector socket was loose on mine which lead to some interesting problem chasing during a sound check ... In contrast my guitarist bought one at the same time and his has been fine ... However for £17 it's a cheap way to test the concept ........ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silent Fly Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 [quote name='Al Heeley' post='404908' date='Feb 9 2009, 11:12 PM']What's a High Z signal?[/quote] A signal in itself is not High-Z (or Low-Z). Z stands for impedance. It is a number that represents how hard it is for electricity to flow in a conductor/device at a given frequency. In audio electronics, an [b]input[/b] is High-Z (high impedance) if the impedance is high enough to not change the characteristics of the signal sent from the source. For bass guitars it is usually any impedance above 500k ohm. [b]Output[/b] impedance can be seen as the number that gives us how good is a device to keep the output level constant with different loads. Low output impedance means that the output voltage does not change significantly changing the device that receives the signal. As a rule of thumb, it is better if basses and guitars see high impedance devices. Equally, it is better if audio devices have low output impedance. Moreover, basses can have a high output impedance (passive basses) or low output impedance (active basses). You can find more information [url="http://www.tape.com/resource/impedance.html"]here[/url]. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silent Fly Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 [quote name='OldGit' post='404918' date='Feb 9 2009, 11:26 PM']This will split the signal and give you gain controls for £17 [...][/quote] ...and other interesting side effects like noise, unreliability and unpredictable distortion. [quote name='OldGit' post='404918' date='Feb 9 2009, 11:26 PM'][...] However for £17 it's a cheap way to test the concept ........[/quote] True. (I wouldn’t use it a permanent solution though) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrewrx7 Posted February 10, 2009 Author Share Posted February 10, 2009 I did see the AB100 from another site. Had a quick look at good ol' Harmony Central and the feedback was not favourable. So I dismissed it. BUT, I appreciate your point about the cheapness of it to prove the point.....before splashing out for a more expensive, but ultimately better, piece of kit. Thanks for the suggestion! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldGit Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 [quote name='andrewrx7' post='405254' date='Feb 10 2009, 12:25 PM']I did see the AB100 from another site. Had a quick look at good ol' Harmony Central and the feedback was not favourable. So I dismissed it. BUT, I appreciate your point about the cheapness of it to prove the point.....before splashing out for a more expensive, but ultimately better, piece of kit. Thanks for the suggestion! [/quote] Oh yeah, it's maintaining the Behringer small kit reliability reputation for sure .. but that's to be expected at that money .. I guess you could use the box and build the maplins special inside .. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toasted Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 Just using the parrallel out of one of your pedals would work - or a cheap mixer. Behringer seem to do enough of those. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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