Running a Dry Signal to a Passive input, effected to Active

musicmansf · #1 01-06-2010, 06:27 PM

Hello there,

Had a thought...I'm thinking of running a dry signal from my effects board to the passive input on my amp (Which, yes, I know is a few -db's louder), and the wet signal to the active input as a way to get a blend of separate effects. Do I, A. Blow out my pre-amp doing this, B. Blow out my cabs doing this, or C. It all works as intended?

RickenBoogie · #2 01-06-2010, 06:34 PM

I don't think it works at all, since there's no control to blend the 2 inputs. And, they're inputs, not channels. As always, I could be wrong, but I think a blender pedal would work alot better either way.

musicmansf · #3 01-06-2010, 07:04 PM

I figured haha, had to ask. I'm planning on having a dirty channel come out of my whammy from the dry input on it (I think the OD of the dirty pedal would overwhelm even the strongest of cabs with some of the whammy settings) and then into the stereo input on my delay pedal. I don't even know if that will work, but I digress. I've checked out the BOSS LS-2, so I can see that as an option too.

Amitio · #4 01-06-2010, 07:07 PM

It worked for me using my behringer amp. i had clean tone going into passive and distorted & octave up going into active. Twas gnarly!

musicmansf · #5 01-06-2010, 10:11 PM

Hmmm interesting...

Stuggi · #6 01-06-2010, 10:50 PM

Depends on how they did the input section on your amp, if it's done the old school way with just a resistor on one jack, then it would work, but unless you're sitting on the schematics for your preamp it's hard to say. A blender pedal would be better though, one could probably make a really cheap and simple one with little more than 2 potentiometers and 2 jacks.

bongomania · #7 01-06-2010, 11:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stuggi

Depends on how they did the input section on your amp

While it's true that some amps will allow you to use both inputs at the same time, and others won't, even in the best case scenario you've got passive blending. That means if the dry signal is direct from a passive bass, then its tone will suck, and even with an active bass you will risk a feedback loop (the two signal paths electronically connect at the Y split and at the amp input).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stuggi

one could probably make a <blender pedal> really cheap and simple one with little more than 2 potentiometers and 2 jacks.

Again, that's passive blending--home of potential tone suck and feedback.

Go ahead and try it with the amp, you won't hurt anything. The negatives I described are just things that sound bad, not things that will hurt the amp (usually). If it sounds OK to you, with no weird signal dropout, tone loss, or feedback, then you're golden. It could happen. All I'm saying is don't count on it.

Stuggi · #8 01-06-2010, 11:16 PM

Yeah, a passive blend is of course something of a non-ideal compromise, but it can sometimes work. I wouldn't wanna mix the passive signal straight into the blender without some sort of a buffer in between.

Still, I usually say that if it sounds good to you it's ok, tone sucking or not, there are a lot of great tones out there that aren't "kosher", just look at the guys feeding the speaker output from one tube amp into the input of another.