Wet/Dry rigs

[Vin Venal]

About to start down this dark path. Got an LS-2, a rat and a cheap beringer EQ on the way. Plan is to run a little loop of guitar drive/distortion/fuzz, blended with my clean signal run through the beringer with most of the high end rolled off.

 

Basically my favourite pedals are all guitar pedals, especially overdrives, so this was bound to happen. 

 

Just wondering what other people are doing regards to signal splitting. Show me/describe to me your rigs! How do you split/recombine your signal?

 

If you similarly EQ or LPF your clean signal for the blend, where do you find its best to cut the frequencies?

 

What do you find is the optimal % to blend in cleans?

[Boodang]

Combine my signal and effects by using an EHX tri parallel mixer. % of blend depends on effects... for overdrive it's 50% wet/dry, compressor into octaver is 100% wet but then combined in parallel with a 50% mix from another channel separately running an lpf. Same for envelope filter / lpf (not sure of the cut off frequencyas using a Seamoon funk machine to do the job and just turn the freq knob until itsounds good!). Echo, reverb and phaser are post tri mixer.

Edited May 24, 2022 by Boodang

[mr4stringz]

Different deal with what I do but I’d be lost without a split signal. I’m in a two piece bass/drums band so have a bass and ‘guitar’ thing going on through my rig. 

 

My rig is a Crown power amp and Hilbish Design Beta preamp. As both the power and preamps are two channel I use one channel for ‘bass’ and one for ‘guitar’ (which has an octave up and fuzz in the pedal chain). Each channel goes through its own cab, and I switch between either or both channels from my board.
 

Can’t say either channel is ‘clean’ though. The signal gets hairy to blown out once the drive dial on the pre is cranked a little. That’s Sunn clones for you though…

 

 

Edited May 31, 2022 by mr4stringz

[fretmeister]

This was how I used to do it

 

 

 

2 Output bass.

 

Output 1 into the Ampeg SVT-BSP. 2 sounds blended together.

Output 2 into the L6 Bas Pod ProXT. Another 2 sounds blended together.

 

Those into Yamaha P5000S Power amp. 1 cab for each preamp.

 

 

Now I do that all in a Helix.

 

 

But - In the past I've one it with just a LS-2 and some pedals and 1 amp.

 

The secret is to get a compressor on the clean side. Overdrive naturally has compression so the clean note decays faster than the driven one so it sounds un-natural. So compress the clean as well and match the decays so it sounds like 1 signal.

 

 

There is no optimum blend percentage. Each drive / fuzz will need something different. So set the clean tone first. Then go with a 50/50 blend on the LS-2 and then tweak the level of the drive to work with the clean. It's more about volumes than percentages.

 

But always start from the compressed clean because that is what will always be there underneath.

[Vin Venal]

38 minutes ago, mr4stringz said:

Different deal with what I do but I’d be lost without a split signal. I’m in a two piece bass/drums band so have a bass and ‘guitar’ thing going on through my rig. 

 

My rig is a Crown power amp and Hilbish Designs Beta preamp. As both the power and preamps are two channel I use one channel for ‘bass’ and one for ‘guitar’ (which has an octave up and fuzz in the pedal chain). Each channel goes through its own cab, and I switch between either or both channels from my board.
 

Can’t say either channel is ‘clean’ though. The signal gets hairy to blown out once the drive dial on the pre is cranked a little. That’s Sunn clones for you though…

 

 

Sounds awesome! I've thought about adding an octave up to do the bass/rhythm guitar combined thing. Would be kind of a half arsed version compared to what you've got going on there though.

[Vin Venal]

25 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

This was how I used to do it

 

 

 

2 Output bass.

 

Output 1 into the Ampeg SVT-BSP. 2 sounds blended together.

Output 2 into the L6 Bas Pod ProXT. Another 2 sounds blended together.

 

Those into Yamaha P5000S Power amp. 1 cab for each preamp.

 

 

Now I do that all in a Helix.

 

 

But - In the past I've one it with just a LS-2 and some pedals and 1 amp.

 

The secret is to get a compressor on the clean side. Overdrive naturally has compression so the clean note decays faster than the driven one so it sounds un-natural. So compress the clean as well and match the decays so it sounds like 1 signal.

 

 

There is no optimum blend percentage. Each drive / fuzz will need something different. So set the clean tone first. Then go with a 50/50 blend on the LS-2 and then tweak the level of the drive to work with the clean. It's more about volumes than percentages.

 

But always start from the compressed clean because that is what will always be there underneath.

Good tips, thanks.

 

Hadn't thought of a compressor. At the moment, I just use the comp on my amp, but that'll sit after the loop. I'll see how it all sounds, and then see if I need a separate one in the clean loop.

[BigRedX]

All done inside a Line6 Helix Multi-effects. Outputs direct to the PA and an FRFR for on-stage monitoring (should the PA foldback not be up to the job). Has eliminated so much clutter from the rehearsal room, band van and on stage.

[Downunderwonder]

Clean blending only works easily when the effected signal comes back more or less in phase with the clean. That is by no means even likely when distortion and chorus among others routinely come back 180° out. Even working well it's hell murky compared to separate passbands.

 

Back in the day I had a very complicated fx rig that sent a high pass from crossover to the fx while the low pass carried on clean. Then there was a multi channel phase switching blender to take the two and reassemble. Depending on how many phase flipping pedals were on I had to switch which of the blender channels were employed. All this to avoid a dropout in the crossover range which was around 120hz, kinda important!!

 

This was pre Helix tech. Still a darm sight cheaper if you have the pedals already 

 

The other advantage is it gives a single signal for FOH that doesn't need to worry about what jiggerypokery is going on.

 

The famous Mr Sheehan is possibly the most known exponent of the dark art. Even he gets pushback from FOH over a 2 channel bass.

 

[Vin Venal]

46 minutes ago, Downunderwonder said:

Clean blending only works easily when the effected signal comes back more or less in phase with the clean. That is by no means even likely when distortion and chorus among others routinely come back 180° out. Even working well it's hell murky compared to separate passbands.

 

Back in the day I had a very complicated fx rig that sent a high pass from crossover to the fx while the low pass carried on clean. Then there was a multi channel phase switching blender to take the two and reassemble. Depending on how many phase flipping pedals were on I had to switch which of the blender channels were employed. All this to avoid a dropout in the crossover range which was around 120hz, kinda important!!

 

This was pre Helix tech. Still a darm sight cheaper if you have the pedals already 

 

The other advantage is it gives a single signal for FOH that doesn't need to worry about what jiggerypokery is going on.

 

The famous Mr Sheehan is possibly the most known exponent of the dark art. Even he gets pushback from FOH over a 2 channel bass.

 

Yeah, I hadn't considered phase inversion.

 

I don't think any of the pedals I'm currently planning on running in the dirty loop are known to invert phase, but if they do, I'll have to switch the LS-2 for an OBNE, or I guess I could stick a single transistor boost last in the loop, cuz I think they all invert phase?

[Downunderwonder]

10 hours ago, Vin Venal said:

stick a single transistor boost last in the loop, cuz I think they all invert phase?

You must know more about that than me. The switch would need to go back and forth as pedals get switched on and off. Inverting an inversion puts you right side up again.

[Vin Venal]

Things got out of hand. Lol.

 

 

 

Got to say though, early experimentation is it sounds great. No phase issues, and no problem with different sustain on the low end - maybe because I have quite a lot of compression later in the chain anyway.

 

Those are three pedals I love on bass, but they aren't really usable sounds. Running them this way opens up all sorts of potential.

 

In general, these are the sounds I've been looking for - massive. I'm not sure if there's another way of getting that thick, distorted tone with all the harmonics and still having a big round bottom end.

 

Signal splitting is the way forward.

[Downunderwonder]

That's messy but a long way from out of hand. Out of hand is a pedal board that is too heavy for a comfortable one hand carry. Don't ask me how I know.

[BigRedX]

13 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

That's messy but a long way from out of hand. Out of hand is a pedal board that is too heavy for a comfortable one hand carry. Don't ask me how I know.

 

Or the band whose guitarist showed up with an enormous pedal board that covered half the available floor space on the stage. He then went back to the car and brought out a second one that covered the rest of the area...