Wet/Dry/Wet Rig question

[sodapopinski]

Hey guys,

Question about the signal chain.
Dry= distortion only, I understand that.

On the Wet signal do you run a clean guitar signal only into the WET side or do you also include the distortion into that signal?

I've tried searching, but no luck. A follow up question, if you run only run clean signal into the wet do you make it 100% wet to only hear the trails?

I've included a diagram that shows what I'm thinking. Forgive me in advance, I'm sure this has been asked a million times, but I've been away from TGP for a few years and GAS has brought me back.

In the diagram the Dry signal will go into my amp and the Wet stereo signal will go directly into the house via a Strymon Iridium.

 

[NorCal_Val]

GTR into amp
dry amp out to 4x12
Slave Out to rack mixer with FX send & return.
Mixer out to rack power amp
Rack Power amp to 2 1x12s for stereo effects

 

[peterdjp]

 

[Blix]

Dry= distortion only is not usually what you want, I would put all the drive pedals in front of the JHS splitter. I have personally no interest in hearing distorted tone + effected cleans.

 

[sodapopinski]

Dry= distortion only is not usually what you want, I would put all the drive pedals in front of the JHS splitter. I have personally no interest in hearing distorted tone + effected cleans.

Thanks, that's what I was thinking. None of the videos I watched played a clip of the wet channel with distortion that I could hear, it all sounded clear to me.

So then the diagram would be like the one below right?

 

[mentoneman]

Start over with the idea that the “dry” mono centered sound is any tone you would create if all you had was one guitar amp and speaker. clean, dirty, lead, clean with drive pedals...that’s your core mono sound you are starting with. And the main purpose of a wdw system is to maintain the integrity of that core dry tone without having to add verb/delay etc in the dry tone,
or using a traditional stereo rig and struggling with getting lost in the mix or having a hard time hearing yourself onstage when monitoring yourself acoustically and stepping outside of the sweet spot.

The stereo “wet” element—let’s say a stereo delay fx-
Is being fed a line level signal of your dry tone,

either by a line or slave out from the amp itself if your amp has that feature,

Or by inserting one many load box/attenuators on the market, between your amp and speaker, and creating a line output to feed your stereo effect.

My advice is that if this is your first foray into this world you might experiment with wet/dry first, just to get a glimpse of the benefit of blending a wet cab against the dry cab to appreciate the increase in clarity when using time based effects.

 

[brain-eating amoeba]

Hey guys,
On the Wet signal do you run a clean guitar signal only into the WET side or do you also include the distortion into that signal?

That's up to your taste, but I like a little less distortion (compared to dry distortion) in the wet side for clarity. But don't send wet only to the FOH--you need a mix.

 

[GearAche]

Dry= distortion only is not usually what you want, I would put all the drive pedals in front of the JHS splitter. I have personally no interest in hearing distorted tone + effected cleans.

My W-D-W is:
Tone/drive pedals=> Mesa 5:25 Express Plus combo =>efx out to Lehle Splitter ll:
Direct => 5:25 efx in
Iso => mono input on time based stereo effects
Stereo effects=> stereo efx return on Crate Power Block 150 => Stereo Cab.
Sounds great.
Bonus for Lehle P-split II? Reverse it to take mono from Odyssey => Lehle ISO =>
Out Lehle Input and Dir => stereo Efx. From fat to huge. Don’t ask me how it works, but it’s in the manual.

 

[Pmg]

It’s up to you what you do. I run modulation, delay, reverb into the wet amp but not the dry. Same drives into both.

 

[RicardoUK]

There's a bunch of ways to do it and it depends on what sound you're trying to get.

As said earlier, drive pedals after the split isn't orthodox. Think about what you're saying to the listener when you stomp a pedal on, and if you retain your clean signal after putting your foot through the Metal Zone then it is a bit of a mixed message.

Heres a good tip though: have your wet amps with more headroom than your dry amp, you need fidelity, clarity and articulation to make your modulation and time based effects sound good.

 

[The Opera Panther]

I got the Ambikab Jr a couple months back. It’s so good for this application. Simple, and sounds great.

 

[mallcorn]

Hey guys,

Question about the signal chain.
Dry= distortion only, I understand that.

On the Wet signal do you run a clean guitar signal only into the WET side or do you also include the distortion into that signal?

I've tried searching, but no luck. A follow up question, if you run only run clean signal into the wet do you make it 100% wet to only hear the trails?

I've included a diagram that shows what I'm thinking. Forgive me in advance, I'm sure this has been asked a million times, but I've been away from TGP for a few years and GAS has brought me back.

In the diagram the Dry signal will go into my amp and the Wet stereo signal will go directly into the house via a Strymon Iridium.

Simply put shape your guitar sound/tone before you leave the main/center (dry) amp head where gain or distortion will be added. Grap the dry amp head signal after the amp but before the speakers. Usually with some type of Line-Out device (Suhr RL or etc.). Send the line-out signal to your wet effects and the dry signal on to the speakers. If the line-out signal is clean then the dry signal is clean or if the line-out signal is distorted then the dry signal is distorted. The line-out signal will feed your wet effects (delay, reverb, etc.). Some delay/reverb type pedals perform better with distorted tone than others do. Example: H9 will sound better than a Strymon. Strymon will sound better with a clean signal. You can hate me for saying it but it is simply a fact. Try it.... You can setup the wet pedal, depending on which you buy, to respond after the pedal such as when you stop adding the wet effect does the signal trail off with repeats or just simply stop the wet signal sound. All depends on how you want to set it up within the wet pedal.

Once your guitar signal hits your wet effects - set the wet pedals to 100% wet or you can mix a little dry with them too. I prefer 100% wet but either work fine. Send the wet signal to a "re-amp device" such as the Loop Return of another amp, a power amp (stereo power amp is best), and then adjust the wet signal loudness to match what you are doing so the wet loudness is less than the dry signal, not louder or it just doesn't sound good.

I prefer a Stereo Power amp so I can send a wet delay to one side (left) at say 350ms and a wet delay to the other side (right) at say 700ms. Also, you could send reverb down one side but not both. It is truly a great sound. Have fun..

 

[cardinal]

Wet/dry with separate amps/cabs is generally for delay, reverbs, modulations.

If you wanted just a blend of drive and "not drive" through the cabs, you could achieve that by just running your drive pedal in a mixer like the Boss LS2 or Xotic pedal etc. that lets you blend a loop of pedals with the drive signal.

 

[ufguy73]

Simply put shape your guitar sound/tone before you leave the main/center (dry) amp head where gain or distortion will be added. Grap the dry amp head signal after the amp but before the speakers. Usually with some type of Line-Out device (Suhr RL or etc.). Send the line-out signal to your wet effects and the dry signal on to the speakers. If the line-out signal is clean then the dry signal is clean or if the line-out signal is distorted then the dry signal is distorted. The line-out signal will feed your wet effects (delay, reverb, etc.). Some delay/reverb type pedals perform better with distorted tone than others do. Example: H9 will sound better than a Strymon. Strymon will sound better with a clean signal. You can hate me for saying it but it is simply a fact. Try it.... You can setup the wet pedal, depending on which you buy, to respond after the pedal such as when you stop adding the wet effect does the signal trail off with repeats or just simply stop the wet signal sound. All depends on how you want to set it up within the wet pedal.

Once your guitar signal hits your wet effects - set the wet pedals to 100% wet or you can mix a little dry with them too. I prefer 100% wet but either work fine. Send the wet signal to a "re-amp device" such as the Loop Return of another amp, a power amp (stereo power amp is best), and then adjust the wet signal loudness to match what you are doing so the wet loudness is less than the dry signal, not louder or it just doesn't sound good.

I prefer a Stereo Power amp so I can send a wet delay to one side (left) at say 350ms and a wet delay to the other side (right) at say 700ms. Also, you could send reverb down one side but not both. It is truly a great sound. Have fun..

curious why you say that about H9 vs Strymon? I have been using a Timeline for a while and haven’t noticed any issues with gained up tones?

also, if you add dry into the wet cabs via not setting modulation pedals 100% wet, don’t you need to worry about phasing/latency issues between the dry in the dry can and whatever amount of dry you have in the wet cabs - especially if the modulation pedals have A/D/A conversions of the dry signal (like the H9, for example) and are not analog through?

 

[mallcorn]

curious why you say that about H9 vs Strymon? I have been using a Timeline for a while and haven’t noticed any issues with gained up tones?

also, if you add dry into the wet cabs via not setting modulation pedals 100% wet, don’t you need to worry about phasing/latency issues between the dry in the dry can and whatever amount of dry you have in the wet cabs - especially if the modulation pedals have A/D/A conversions of the dry signal (like the H9, for example) and are not analog through?

Regarding the H9 versus the Strymon - I knew it was coming... I have owned both. I have always been a "big three" (Strymon) guy. When the H9s came out, I gave them a try and this is what I experienced. I looked into it further to find that there are many others that share the same result. A/B them side by side. That is the best advice I can offer a person in doubt. Always buy and believe in what you have tried and tested to be the best for your application.

I have two H9s that are post gutiar amp. They are setup to run thru whatever signal they are fed. If the H9 adds delay/reverb, the post signal has delay/reverb added to whatever signal it received. If the H9 doesn't add anything, the signal is passed thru the same way it enters. When I tried adding some "input dry" to the wet reverb or delay, I didn't experience any latency or phasing but much preferred the all wet output. The more stuff you stack on to a complicated setup the more issues you might uncover and have to work thru. The only issue I found was having too many grounds when I ran a guitar amp, PSII, stereo power amp, and pedal-board power thru the same power source, it introduced ground loops. I could replace the PSII with another product that addressed the grounding in a different way and I then didn't experience the ground loops. If you use a mic mixer to mix and feed wet and dry to a power amp you might introduce phasing and latency that you mentioned above but I've never tried that.

 

[ctreitzell]

I've come here researching how to build my tube based WDW rig. I'm already running my solid state version of WDW which has 2 Dry amps which can be Dual MONO or STEREO via switching). In my world, I don't always want my DRY completely DRY- sometimes I want a swirling cloud of FX through every speaker. I also want a KILL DRY and MUTE ALL with a switch. My rig is capable switching the DRys to wet and the wets to dry...or be 4 cabs of DRY. Obviously the true completely DRY and 100% wet scenario getting the most play and probably the most useful.

I don't use any pedals- all rack except MIDI controllers. My current rig has 3 mixers and a loop switcher. The reason for all the mixers is setting levels easily; I want level control at the FX outputs not just at the input stage to FX or within the FX box.

It would be great if a discussion could step outside the accepted WDW scenario and we could discuss various ways of achieving WDW or some facsimile thereof. There really are quite a few ways to handle WDW...one thing I haven't spent any time with is identical amps and cabs for each; which is what I am thinking to experiment with next...then on to hexaphonic and a different amp per string for the DRY and various switching for different mixes of wet sends.

One routing I use often is:
phase shifter>amp pre>mixer>main out goes to DRY amp(s) and the mixer sends feed wetFX;
My wet FX then go through a Zone Mixer and then thru small mixer to have a single volume control for the wet mix.
This set up has the potential for a mine field of ground loops and EMF interference; but the sonic gains are so worth the effort. It is part and parcel of chasing ground loops and EMF interference with multi amp rigs.

The thing which immediately comes to light when using multiple amps and FX is that levels can get away from you fast...before you know it, you'll be wanting to control level in parts of your routing you hadn't considered before. Running around to three amps with guitar in hand can be a tedious exercise and make you crazy in a gigging or practice situation.

 

[ctreitzell]

Hmmmm, I've watched the Thorn vid and a few others now.

I think the way forward is diagram the scenario.

Is anyone using the Landau method of micing the speaker cab to feed wets? Isn't there going to be excess delay in that scenario?

Here's what I know for sure:
the VHT 2150 I gigged with back in 1995 sounded amazing. I want that sound again, or somewhere near it. I was playing MONO with the 2150, so never experienced the true benefits of WDW.

Wow, I guess I should start my own thread about whether I should sell what I have and start over...it just doesn't seem worth it, tho

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Any splitter you want to use for W/D/W ought to have isolation, ground lift and phase reversal. Radial ABY is an inexpensive option. Put your dry effects like filters, pitch and gain before the splitter. Send one output direct to the center amp. Send the other output to a chain of pedals that splits the signal again along the way (i.e. stereo chorus, stereo delay/reverb) and then send those two outputs to the left and right "wet" amps. Your uncle's name is Robert.

 

[Ole Tin Ear]

I ended up with a slight variation on the W/D/W concept after much experimentation. One of the main sonic benefits to using two amps is the way they may tonally interact. My Roland JC-40 has a bright, slightly mid-scooped, hi-fi sound. My Koch Jupiter 45 has a thicker, fuller, but less bright sound. Together they create an excellent, almost 3D tone. When I started experimenting with wet/dry I figured I would utilize the JC-40 for stereo effects to complement the mono Koch. The only problem with this set-up is that the tone benefits of the amp pairing was lost when the JC-40 was used only for wetness. So I ran my wet signal to only one of the speakers in the JC and ended up with a D/W/D configuration. Since I really don't need true stereo separation of the effects, this works fine. When I want an ambient, 100% wet sound I use a footswitch to make the dry feed wet and wa-la: total wettness. BTW I've got a Gigrig Wetter Box to handle phase issues and blending duties.

 

[ctreitzell]

Any splitter you want to use for W/D/W ought to have isolation, ground lift and phase reversal. Radial ABY is an inexpensive option. Put your dry effects like filters, pitch and gain before the splitter. Send one output direct to the center amp. Send the other output to a chain of pedals that splits the signal again along the way (i.e. stereo chorus, stereo delay/reverb) and then send those two outputs to the left and right "wet" amps. Your uncle's name is Robert.

uh, yeah...well....your scenario is just one way to go about it using pedals.
A mixer or two and some form of looper is going to improve the situation you describe. True WDW is going to employ a mixer on the wets. Having your Wet FX in serial routing is not the best solution for tone. Serial can be of use in the Wets, yet parallel routing on the Wets is the point of the exercise as parallel preserves tone.

There really are so many possible routing scenarios for multiAmp setups. I have no uncles named Robert.