Mesa Boogie 400+ question

[nukes_da_bass]

Regarding the use of both channels- someone in a post recommended using a Y cable to be able to blend both channels at once.

I have a really good A/B box I don't use right now- what if I plugged into that, then A B'd into channels one and two- selected both A and B (my box allows for that 3rd choice).
I'm so dumb about tube amps it really needed to be asked- I'm the dude who kept making the same impedance mistakes! Don't want to blow up this amp i really like it.

Would this essentially be the same as the Y cable? I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel- its just that things are tight with the twins and I don't want to spring for new equipment right now under the current budget crunch.
My wife "organized" my office and surely found all the Warmoth parts in the closet- its gonna come up in the next drag out fight watch! LOLOLOL

[rayzak]

That should work fine. It's basically doing the same thing as a Y cable. If not, I have a spare I'd be willing to send you. Your box will work though. Let me know.

[nukes_da_bass]

Thanks. Rayzak- gotta feed the twins, I'll dig out the A/B box in a few hours I wanna try some different sounds!

[Nightlyraider]

An A/B box could provide some interesting choices, but keep in mind that levels are going to be quite a bit different when you are going from both to just one input.

I like to keep input 1 around 7-8 and bump input 2 up a little over 3. At those levels I could use input 1 as a stand alone signal as well, but would definitely have to fiddle with the amp if I wanted to only use input 2.

[nukes_da_bass]

Nightlyraider good point- i finally A/B'd it and channel 1 is such lower gain im gonna need to tweak some to get it just right...

But even after a minute of noodling its obvious this is the way to use this amp- I now have THREE distinct preamps- channel 1 alone, channel 2 alone, and both combined (channel 1+2?)! All from a footswitch with easy controls.

Initially I adjusted channel 2 to a gain of 2 and channel 1 to a gain of 3. Combined theres some really sweet overtones in the harmonics- guess I'll try really upping the gain on channel 1 like you suggest.

Its like NAD (new amp day) all over again!
Nukes

[BurningSkies]

When I had my 400+ I ran it with both channels and a Y cable about 85% of the time. It does give you a bigger fuller tone, but you have to be careful not to get too tubby with it.

FYI, a cheap Y cable from Radio Shack runs about 3 bucks...so it's not much of an investment if a user doesn't have an A/B/Y box. I bought a handful of them then was sure to have them around, even though I pretty much left it plugged into the amp all the time, even with the rack closed and during transportation.

[NecroticImbecil]

For my purposes the best use of this feature was with effects. I Preferred CH 2 tone, so I ran my effects on CH 1, set the CH volumes where I wanted them, and used an A/B/Y box to switch between clean, effects only, or blend of both. It's normal to need to run CH 1 Vol much higher than CH 2 to get the 2 CH volumes equal.

[crapshack]

I've got a 400 not 400+ and running both chans with an A\B\Y box can really give you some beefy options. Feed a nice booster or overdrive into chan 1 for some amazing backbone crunch. Always liked having the option to run a dry and wet signals at once.

[levis76]

My Morley Power Wah Fuzz into Ch1 and Ch2 dry sounds like raw evil. Nice crunchy distortion with a nice clean bottom, does it get any better? I think not!