So when I get more money and start playing fairly large gigs I might start venturing into bi amping. I'm thinking of having one stack of 15's or 18's and the other with two 4x10s or a 8x10. What I want to know is, how would I do this? I've heard before that you can do it with something like the Morley ABY box, but how would I use it to bi amp my signal?
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Thinking About Bi Amping
- Thread starter marshmallow83
- Start date
Bi-amping use to be the hot thing to do but has fallen out of favor these days. Anyway, you'll need a crossover. This is a device that devides the signal into a high part and a low part. You then send the high signal to the amp that is driving your 10's and the low part to the amp that drives your 15's or 18's. A few years back amp heads came with a built in crossover. I had a PV Mark IV and still have a Crate BT350 that have a builit in xover. This way you only need one extra amp to drive either the high or low side, the amp in the head can be used for one of the sides. Another rout is to buy a pre-amp with a builtin xover. The best one I know of is an Alembic F1-X. Using it with a big stereo power amp (like a Crest, Crown, or QSC) is just wonderful. The down side to bi-amping is complexity of setup. If you're like me, sooner or later you just get tired of hooking it all up.
Biamping means to send highs to one (or set of) speaker(s) and the lows to others. The Morely switch won't do that.
Depends on how many amps you are planning. Biamping involves a crossover before the power amps.
Edit: OK, so I'm slow on typing.
Depends on how many amps you are planning. Biamping involves a crossover before the power amps.
Edit: OK, so I'm slow on typing.
Thanks for your reply. I realized I would need a crossover, but forgot to mention it in my post, sorry to waste your time. I'll soon be getting a Peavey Tour 450, which has a built in crossover. I am a little confused as to how it all would be wired up, do you know of a diagram or something to show this? Also how would you get the separate signals from the crossover coming from the amp? Sorry, I'm a noob when it comes to electronics, so I'm a little confused.
Let's start from the basics and then make it pretty is what I say.
So you have the first step which is a 2 Way Xover and it is built into your amp. 2 Way means the Xover provides a high and low signal split.
Ok for starters you need 2 power amps and 2 types of speakers. Now the amps could be the left and right hand side of a single power amp, or 2 different power amps. Furthermore your amp might have 1 or both power amps built in like some of the bigger GK heads and the Hartke 7000.
Next the Xover will give you a hi and a lo out. Usually the crossover point is variable and will be up to you to decide the this point. Say 100 hx or less for the lo and the balance for the highs. Many Xovers also have volume controls built in for the hi and lo send. If not you will have to adjust the balance on the individual amps and possibly use the master on your crossover for an over all gain control.
I suggest you learn the basics first and use either 15's or 18's for the low but not both and the same theory for the highs. The rational here is that the more types of speakers you mix the more complex it will get.
With Xovers you are in smome way entering the pro PA world.
For example if you had a 3 way Xover you could send the lo to an 18", the mids to a 15" and the hi to the 10's. This of course needs another poweramp and more cables.
As for amp size the higher the frequency band the less watts you need. I usually a 2:1 ratio. In a simple system I'd allocate say 200 watts and 100 watts to the high.
In closing I hope this helps and the the pro's out there will not find to much wrong with my writing here.
PS: a very good Pre amp when you can find them for this is the Yamaha PB1 I think is the name.
CP
So you have the first step which is a 2 Way Xover and it is built into your amp. 2 Way means the Xover provides a high and low signal split.
Ok for starters you need 2 power amps and 2 types of speakers. Now the amps could be the left and right hand side of a single power amp, or 2 different power amps. Furthermore your amp might have 1 or both power amps built in like some of the bigger GK heads and the Hartke 7000.
Next the Xover will give you a hi and a lo out. Usually the crossover point is variable and will be up to you to decide the this point. Say 100 hx or less for the lo and the balance for the highs. Many Xovers also have volume controls built in for the hi and lo send. If not you will have to adjust the balance on the individual amps and possibly use the master on your crossover for an over all gain control.
I suggest you learn the basics first and use either 15's or 18's for the low but not both and the same theory for the highs. The rational here is that the more types of speakers you mix the more complex it will get.
With Xovers you are in smome way entering the pro PA world.
For example if you had a 3 way Xover you could send the lo to an 18", the mids to a 15" and the hi to the 10's. This of course needs another poweramp and more cables.
As for amp size the higher the frequency band the less watts you need. I usually a 2:1 ratio. In a simple system I'd allocate say 200 watts and 100 watts to the high.
In closing I hope this helps and the the pro's out there will not find to much wrong with my writing here.
PS: a very good Pre amp when you can find them for this is the Yamaha PB1 I think is the name.
CP
Thank you very much for your help musicman, but thing I'm confused about is where will the two signals come out of from the crossover? Will it be out of two jacks at the back or something?
maybe a download of the user manual would be a good idea ? It's a fairly new amp, not many folks have experience with it yet so you may need to step up and do some readin'
FWIW - the reasons biamping fell out of fashion include
1. full range amplification has gotten a whole lot better
2. biamped setup's tend to be kinda finicky or at least more complicated than necessary
3. biamped setups tend to be larger than most folks find convenient
Your mileage may of course vary ...
FWIW - the reasons biamping fell out of fashion include
1. full range amplification has gotten a whole lot better
2. biamped setup's tend to be kinda finicky or at least more complicated than necessary
3. biamped setups tend to be larger than most folks find convenient
Your mileage may of course vary ...
Chef
In Memoriam
Man, you want to carry waaaaaay more gear than I do.
The Peavey Tour 450 doesn't appear to be biamp ready from what I see in the manual; and 450 watts wouldn't be near enough to push 4 cabs anyway.
The Peavey Tour 450 doesn't appear to be biamp ready from what I see in the manual; and 450 watts wouldn't be near enough to push 4 cabs anyway.
I use two amps and I don't use a crossover. 
It works just fine for me, but I've been told it's very wrong. :scowl:
It works just fine for me, but I've been told it's very wrong. :scowl:
Chef
In Memoriam
What I meant by bi amping was splitting the signal before it hit the two amps, so I could say have my effects going into the 10s and and have a clean signal running underneath into the 15s or 18s. Sorry I didn't make this clear in my first post, If there is anyone that bi amps in this way do you have any tips or anything for me?
You are welcome.
Yes on any dedicated Xover there will be a hi and a lo out. usually 1/4" but could be balanced XLR depending on the quality. This of course may vary if it is built into an amp.
More in a diff. post.
Oh sounds like you want to do more of a multiple rig thing like Bootsy Colins 3 rigs or something equally silly.
Oh well what ever floats your boat.
You need a buffered signal splitter that goes to the bass. I don't see any reason to use different cabs if your not really "Bi-Amping" unless you really like the two different tones of the different cabs and want to switch between them or mix them together (which is bad in my opinion, but what ever).
Oh well what ever floats your boat.
You need a buffered signal splitter that goes to the bass. I don't see any reason to use different cabs if your not really "Bi-Amping" unless you really like the two different tones of the different cabs and want to switch between them or mix them together (which is bad in my opinion, but what ever).
That could be seen as a whole differrent subject.
Here is what I'd do.
First off lets set up the amp and here is my vision of what you are describing.
2 heads each powering one type of cabinet. Say one powers a 15" and the other powers a 4 x 10.
I would run my instrument pre any effects into the amp powering the 15" rig.
Take an effects loop line out of this amp and run that into your effects unit(s) and then run that out into the amp running the 10's. On that amp back off your lows a lot.
Now the above could really vary depending on the amps in ? and their patching capability.
Finally play the 15" rig first to get the volume and tone to taste then slowy bring up the 10" amp with the effects on to taste.
This really the poor mans Xover.
As an asside there are some effects that will filter out the lows and just give you the highs which can sort of simulate this.
Finally if you are doing big shows you must have a big FOH so you could simulate this by having FOH take two sigs from you. One pre and one post effects. Fold the Efx back into your wedge monitor as there will be virtually no lows in it.
And the truth is I have found that effects on a bass almost nearly wash out in a live performance and only work if the bass is pretty much the only instrument playing at that point. trust me done it allm even the Roland midi set up, still got pretty much lost.
Studio is a whole different beast.
Hope I haven't bored or confused you 2 much but I know a fair amount about this and have been down all the roads mentioned above.
Hey I used to use the Yamaha PB1 I mentioned and crossed it over at about 80hz and fed that into my hartke 410. By cutting out those lows I had an amazing sound.
Cheers etc.
CP
I use programmable stereo effects and run one output to each amp...so I can set it to chorus just the higher end amp and leave the low amp straight signal.
You are wanting to run parallel mono. Send the same signal to 2 different amps. A simple Y will do.
Sorry for the slow response, I went to bed.
Thanks for your help once again, but the way I was thinking of setting it up was splitting it with an Morley ABY box and having the effects running to the 4x10 and a clean signal to the 15 or 18. I would adjust the EQ on both heads to compliment the cabs. Do you have any experience with that sort of setup?
