Can I Plug a Preamp into an SWR Black Beauty's Effects Loop And Bypass the BB's Pre?

[AndyMan]

Hey Everyone--

I have an Acoustic 360+ pedal preamp, and I want to use the Black Beauty just as a power amp and cab.

Signal Chain: bass into Acoustic 360+ into input of effects loop on BB

Will that bypass the BB's pre and allow the Acoustic 360+ to work as a stand alone pre?

Thanks!!!!

Andy

[MuthaFunk]

According to this:

http://music-electronics-forum.com/a...eamp-rev-e.pdf

You should set you effects blend to the full wet position and input you bass into the Acoustic then out of the Acoustic into the effects return on the black beauty.

[Got2SadowskyNYC]

I've done this with other SWR stuff. The full wet is not 100%. It still leaks dry and will sound different than if you went in the front of the amp.

I had far better luck running the pre into the front of the amp and setting the eq flat and the aural enhance to full left.

Watch the output on the pedal so that you're not clipping to input of the SWR.

A note about the Enhance knob: When it's set to full left it's NOT off. It's still effecting the sound slightly.

I wish it was more like Peavey's "power amp in" jack. This is a 100% bypass for the internal pre. and works extremely well for this application.

[AndyMan]

thanks guys

[dincz]

Originally Posted by Got2SadowskyNYC

I've done this with other SWR stuff. The full wet is not 100%. It still leaks dry and will sound different than if you went in the front of the amp.

But if there's no signal going into the front of the SWR, then surely there won't be any dry signal to leak?

[Got2SadowskyNYC]

Although you are not applying a signal to an input, there is still signal present.

Unplug your bass from the input of your amp and turn the volume up. You'll hear "system hiss". This is signal.

This leak effects how it sounds. It's going to sound wimpy compared to running in the front of the amp.

As I said. You get far better perfomance if you plug into the front of the amp and set it flat. It's just going to sound better as long as you're not clipping the input of the amp.

You not going to hurt anything so try it both ways. I'm confident that you'll agree.

[AndyMan]

The SWR BB manual says you can run the effects return this way and 100 wet and use the BB as a "powered speaker cabinet.."

[jungleheat]

Originally Posted by Got2SadowskyNYC

I've done this with other SWR stuff. The full wet is not 100%. It still leaks dry and will sound different than if you went in the front of the amp.

I had far better luck running the pre into the front of the amp and setting the eq flat and the aural enhance to full left.

Almost everything I've ever seen you post has been wrong in some way. You really need to stop. It cannot "leak" dry if there is nothing running into the pre. Yes, you might get some hiss, especially if you leave the preamp gain cranked. But depending on the way the amp is wired, you can often turn the pre ALL the way down, meaning that all you will get is any hiss inherent in the power amp, which you would be getting no matter what.

Originally Posted by Got2SadowskyNYC

Although you are not applying a signal to an input, there is still signal present.

Unplug your bass from the input of your amp and turn the volume up. You'll hear "system hiss". This is signal.

This leak effects how it sounds. It's going to sound wimpy compared to running in the front of the amp.

As I said. You get far better perfomance if you plug into the front of the amp and set it flat. It's just going to sound better as long as you're not clipping the input of the amp.

You not going to hurt anything so try it both ways. I'm confident that you'll agree.

That's not signal, that's noise. Hence "signal to noise ratio". If you plug in your bass and don't hear anything but hiss, you don't say "well, I clearly have signal, so I wonder what the problem is?"

There is no "leak", that's not really how it works. It shouldn't sound "wimpy" unless something is wrong with one of the pieces, or you have your settings in some strange, extreme way.

There IS a possibility depending on the in and out levels of the 360 and BB that it MIGHT work better running into the front end. But if you were worried about "leaking" just from the inherent hiss of the BB pre (which knowing SWR should be minimal anyway, if not absent with the gain turned down), I don't see how actually running through the entire preamp would be a better alternative. Because then you are definitely getting coloration from the pre no matter what, and probably dealing with too many gain stages to be good for the health of your signal (your actual signal, not the pretend signal).

[jungleheat]

The way you can test this out is thusly.

Plug your bass into the BB front end as normal. Turn the gain all the way down until the knob doesn't move any more. Crank the master and crank the effects blend all the way up. Play your bass. How much bass do you hear? None? Then there is no "leaking". Even if there is it's probably extremely minimal. Now plug the bass into the 360 and into the return. Start with the bass volume all the way down. Play while gradually increasing the bass volume until the volume in the room is unbearable and/or the speaker starts having trouble and/or you just realize how silly it is to worry about something so inconsequential with the relative levels we're talking about.

[MAMMOTHvolume]

Originally Posted by Got2SadowskyNYC

Although you are not applying a signal to an input, there is still signal present.

Unplug your bass from the input of your amp and turn the volume up. You'll hear "system hiss". This is signal.

This leak effects how it sounds. It's going to sound wimpy compared to running in the front of the amp.

As I said. You get far better perfomance if you plug into the front of the amp and set it flat. It's just going to sound better as long as you're not clipping the input of the amp.

You not going to hurt anything so try it both ways. I'm confident that you'll agree.

What? You're going to get noise either way, plugging into the return without a signal in the send normally bypasses the preamp though.

[MuthaFunk]

Originally Posted by Got2SadowskyNYC

I've done this with other SWR stuff. The full wet is not 100%. It still leaks dry and will sound different than if you went in the front of the amp.

I had far better luck running the pre into the front of the amp and setting the eq flat and the aural enhance to full left.

Watch the output on the pedal so that you're not clipping to input of the SWR.

A note about the Enhance knob: When it's set to full left it's NOT off. It's still effecting the sound slightly.

I wish it was more like Peavey's "power amp in" jack. This is a 100% bypass for the internal pre. and works extremely well for this application.

I don't agree with much of what's said here. You should be mindfully of the signal level you send the Effects Return as you dont want to overload the poweramp input. Truth is, by the time you overload that input stage, the speaker or poweramp itself will likely be clipping. You'll have to use your ears like when using any amp.