Remote Controlling your Tube amp from the Guitar

[Ricker]

You know with all these new boutique amps etc coming out......it's all a re-hash of the same thing...........no-one is offering anything new actually..........Boring!!!
What some of us live players would really like to do is control certain aspects of our amp from where we are standing or from the guitar.

How about being able to remote control the gain knob of your amp to taste on your pedal board or actually on the guitar via a motorized pot..........
How about dialing in a bit more treble or a bit less bass on the fly.....
How bout that lil volume boost or the reverb depth or anything for that matter..........right on your guitar 'stick on' control pad.

Lets get a proprietry interface that you hook up to your guitar with the knobs and buttons right there to adjust and control the amp.......

Wouldn't that be something new and special for a few of us that just wanted to tweak something while we where out front and didn't want to rush back and wait for a gap........
Imagine the control you would have of your prized tube amp while playing live........
Remote controlled motorized pots........Yeah!!!

C'mon guys let's get a bit more inventive without going the whole digital route.

Rich

 

[Jahn]

Like this, but with amps instead of pedals? I think a few folks already make one for pedals - one foot controlled, another clipped to your mic stand.

http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20090199700

 

[GCDEF]

Personally other than an occasional tweak during sound check, I never touch my amp when I play and have never felt like I wanted to. With modern multi-channel amps and effects processors, You can preset and dial in pretty much any sound you want without having to touch your amps.

When you're playing your hands are busy anyway, so control is better done with your feet.

 

[Tone_Terrific]

I have had the same thought!
The most useful control would be a master volume on the amp.
The second would be a drive/gain. Beyond those it would be too busy, imo.

It could be done. A separate data/signal cable would be needed or integrated into a single cable with special jacks. Control circuitry could be in the amp.

Three people would buy it.

 

[Member 995]

Remote controlled motorized pots........Yeah!!!

I remember a few devices doing this over the years. Soldano and Yamaha both went the motorized pot route. And Neil Young has his Whizzer.

I haven't seen the controls mounted on the guitar . . . or have I? What did Danny Gatton control from his guitar? Maybe his echo?

 

[Ricker]

Well one of the things I've always wanted to control on the amp was the gain knob........
My techie is going to be installing a remote controlled motorized pot for my budda sd80's drive knob.

I hate using the guitar vol control into a high gain channel.........just not as good as using the amp gain.

I'm going to get this done in the next few weeks so I will report back.
I reckon I will install it onto my pedalboard....

Rich

 

[The Kid]

I have an assistant.

 

[rockon1]

I have had the same thought!
The most useful control would be a master volume on the amp.

Volume pedal in the loop= foot controllable MV. : > ) Bob

 

[Ricker]

Volume pedal in the loop= foot controllable MV. : > ) Bob

Yeah but then you're putting a volume pedal with two long sucking cables that have to drag your loop signal all the way out to your pedal board again and then drag the **** back to the amp again resulting in quite a bit of tone suck......I have tried that and listen up when I say i wouldn't recommend it....
It may work for some and some may think it works well but when you actually AB this scenario without it ......then you hear it falls way short.........sorry

Rich

 

[bigdaddy]

?

 

[Ricker]

?

Nice Volume control pic..........
That doesn't work like the gain knob on an amp......it's different....
With the gain knob on amp the pickups are always putting out full strength which is way different to closing down the pup........

Try it into a higher gain amp head that gets it's drive from inside the amp and you'll see

Rich

 

[rockon1]

Yeah but then you're putting a volume pedal with two long sucking cables that have to drag your loop signal all the way out to your pedal board again and then drag the **** back to the amp again resulting in quite a bit of tone suck......I have tried that and listen up when I say i wouldn't recommend it....
It may work for some and some may think it works well but when you actually AB this scenario without it ......then you hear it falls way short.........sorry

Rich

I actually dial in my rigs with two 10' cables and the loop connected thru my modest pedalboard. Every once in a while I'll plug straight in and wonder why its too bright-then I realise the board isnt connected! lol! Bob

 

[scelerat]

The 1962 Epiphone Professional hollowbody had a special multipin connection between the guitar and the matching amp that let you control reverb and tremolo from the guitar. A while back I saw someone on ebay asking $2999 for it. Don't know if it sold for that.

 

[doctord02]

OK, I'll play. So now you have to run *two* separate cables between your guitar and your amp. One for control data and one for audio. Lets say a CAT5 cable and a standard 1/4 inch audio. And your axe now has to have some dedicated controls and electronics added...

'Cause you know, one of those cables will go bad at some point while you are playing and you'll have to scramble at a gig to replace it. So they cant be tied together, unless you wanna replace both when you swap out for the good one... But you dont really want two separate lengths of unconnected wire dragging around, snagging on stuff, etc, do you?

And so on and so forth...

 

[Tone_Terrific]

And so on and so forth...

And all your guitars would have to be converted, etc.

SO...we all know that MIDI control of some amps/preamps, etc., is available, now, which leaves the somewhat obvious solution of having tube amps controlled from MIDI footboards, freeing the guitar from the connection hassle, and this has been done.....somewhere..surely...just can't remember any... but doesn't address the 'wishlist.'

 

[bonchie123]

I know Tim Caswell made a footswitchable amp that was fully tube but that used presets that controlled motorized pots. So you could have a ton of patches, just like a POD or something, but it be completely tube driven sound.

 

[FourT6and2]

I know Tim Caswell made a footswitchable amp that was fully tube but that used presets that controlled motorized pots. So you could have a ton of patches, just like a POD or something, but it be completely tube driven sound.

Why would you need motorized pots when you have presets or MIDI controllable amps? Does it really matter that the knob, itself, is moving when you change presets?

OP, you're over thinking this. This "feature" hasn't been made readily available yet because there isn't a demand for it. I set my amp and leave it. I use my guitar's volume knob and some effects pedals. I have no need nor desire to adjust my amp's EQ on the fly. My amp is even MIDI switchable (Diezel VH4) and I still don't even use that function. I could set like 193839439 different sounds with this thing and have them all at the touch of a button from a MIDI controller. But, I just don't need it all.

If I played a song where I need to go from 3:00 on the gain knob to 8:00 on the same knob, I'd just use two presets and a MIDI controller. There's no need to have wireless, motorized pots on the amp and all sorts of controls on the guitar.

Simpler is better.

 

[teemuk]

Potentiometers with motors attached to their shafts are pretty old-fashioned this day and age. Today we have plenty of integrated circuits to do the same thing that was once done by a potentiometer subject to wear and corrosion and an expensive motor that needed a complex driver circuit.

A clever designer can assign such circuits to take input from MIDI UART, memory banks, ordinary resistive potentiometers or even optical encoders that do not have resistive tracks that would wear out.

The reason you don't see the kind of features you request much is a) you are shopping for too old-fashioned equipment, or b) the feature's you describe are not the first ones in the priority list designers are implementing to the units so they are quite rare.

 

[GCDEF]

Yeah but then you're putting a volume pedal with two long sucking cables that have to drag your loop signal all the way out to your pedal board again and then drag the **** back to the amp again resulting in quite a bit of tone suck......I have tried that and listen up when I say i wouldn't recommend it....
It may work for some and some may think it works well but when you actually AB this scenario without it ......then you hear it falls way short.........sorry

Rich

Nonsense. The effects loop is low impedance. You could put hundreds of feet of cable in there and not hurt your tone.

 

[bonchie123]

Why would you need motorized pots when you have presets or MIDI controllable amps? Does it really matter that the knob, itself, is moving when you change presets?

OP, you're over thinking this. This "feature" hasn't been made readily available yet because there isn't a demand for it. I set my amp and leave it. I use my guitar's volume knob and some effects pedals. I have no need nor desire to adjust my amp's EQ on the fly. My amp is even MIDI switchable (Diezel VH4) and I still don't even use that function. I could set like 193839439 different sounds with this thing and have them all at the touch of a button from a MIDI controller. But, I just don't need it all.

If I played a song where I need to go from 3:00 on the gain knob to 8:00 on the same knob, I'd just use two presets and a MIDI controller. There's no need to have wireless, motorized pots on the amp and all sorts of controls on the guitar.

Simpler is better.

Don't ask me. Ask him.