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Tri-Amp? Anyone?
- Thread starter Teknoman
- Start date
I mostly played with 3 amps until recently.
2 went in a pair on 2x15's and the 3rd went into an 8x10.
Had enough for all my gigs.
2 went in a pair on 2x15's and the 3rd went into an 8x10.
Had enough for all my gigs.
I currently bi- amp but have a mixer on order.I got to thinking that I have an extra amp around and was thinking to tri-amp.Was this a Frankenstein moment?
They’ve been tri-ampimg stereos and PA’s for years. Also checkout the fearful 1515/66/T - it's a 3-way speaker that only requires one amp.
The title reflects a line from the original FRANKENSTEIN movie. Remember: the more complicated any system is, the greater the chances of failure. The KISS principal applies in mobile equipment.
Unless you run 3 different signals (low, mid/high, and distortion for example) and call that "tri-amping."
Tri-amp is usually like a crossover to:
1. Sub/Low amp
2. Midbass/mids amp
3. Mids/HF/tweeter amp
Used all the time for FOH. Loudest levels you'll get. Clean and transparent. warm in = WARM OUT. For example sub amps can be driven well into clipping and the heard distortion will be minimum.
This is another forum "Live Sound"
1. Sub/Low amp
2. Midbass/mids amp
3. Mids/HF/tweeter amp
Used all the time for FOH. Loudest levels you'll get. Clean and transparent. warm in = WARM OUT. For example sub amps can be driven well into clipping and the heard distortion will be minimum.
This is another forum "Live Sound"
I too am thinking about the concept of tri-amping. The amp/set up speakers I am thinking of is
2 1x18s for the low end
2 1x15s for the mid
2 1x10s for the treble/distortion channel
the low and mid speakers would ideally go into two identical amps whereas the amp for the two 1x10s would be A marshall guitar head that I have hanging around .
Does this sound like a good idea or would I be better leaving out the 2 18s and just doing 2 1x15s and 2 1x10s.
Bearing in mind I have the 2 1x10s already
2 1x18s for the low end
2 1x15s for the mid
2 1x10s for the treble/distortion channel
the low and mid speakers would ideally go into two identical amps whereas the amp for the two 1x10s would be A marshall guitar head that I have hanging around .
Does this sound like a good idea or would I be better leaving out the 2 18s and just doing 2 1x15s and 2 1x10s.
Bearing in mind I have the 2 1x10s already
eight years later nobody bothers with stuff like that anymore, you let the PA handle it 
that said, if you just gotta have a tower of doom behind you, best skip the 18s entirely, use the two 15s for the main bass tone, then all you’d need is probably one ten for the overdrive part.
that said, if you just gotta have a tower of doom behind you, best skip the 18s entirely, use the two 15s for the main bass tone, then all you’d need is probably one ten for the overdrive part.
Interesting. Okay thanks for your input and feedback. So has this sort of stuff really fallen out of favour within the past eight years ? it seems weird to me as I only started playing 8 years ago but I'm into bass players like John Entwistle, Jack Bruce, Billy Sheehan so I might be stuck in the dark ages in terms of speaker use. I just think there's something to be said for having 'the tower' behind you rather than it all just coming from the P.A
My Acme B2 is a 3-way 210 cabinet. It has full range capabilities for clear highs down to thumpy lows. Handles nasty distortion with aplomb. And I get all that by driving it with one amplifier. Granted, I'm not playing big venues but even if I was, that's what FOH is for. In my opinion "towers" have much more to do with optics and ego. Consider: who benefits from the "tower", you or the audience?
Why make things more complicated than necessary?
Why make things more complicated than necessary?
IMHO it wasn't really that common even when it was "a thing." I have run biamp rigs a couple of times in my career and I still own a couple of GK 2000RB that have variable crossovers. I also own a GK 700RB but the crossover is fixed at 5khz. Anyway with the state of art of modern bass speakers I think biamping or triamping is not really going to be beneficial except in extremely rare circumstances. Speaker designers who make multi-way cabs put a lot of time, effort, and skill into selecting drivers and designing their crossovers to resolve phase and timing issues.
If you just select random speakers and a three way crossover, none of the design phase is really being done, so you should not expect the resultant quality to be as good.
Now if you plan to buy a high end speaker controlller that has delay correction, all pass filters, extensive parametric EQ, programmable compressors and limiters, etc, then you are off to a good start. You will also want some sort of measurement program like SMAART so that you can measure the response of each speaker and calibrate the processor so they all integrate properly.
If you just want to stack up a bunch of boxes and have some fun, knock yourself out. You can get a decent sound using crossovers, EQ, poweramps and your ears. It's just not likely to be as good as the cabs made by today's top designers.
i suppose more modern incarnations of that vibe are players like tim bob from rage, chris wolstenholme from muse and of course dug pinnick from king's X, guys using big complex bass tones with distortion layered in there.
these days that kind of thing is more about sending multiple blended channels from various sources to the PA, some of which might indeed be mic'ed amps. a lot of modern preamps and amps have a blendable overdrive sound separate from the main clean bass sound, again all about creating something to be sent to the PA.
on stage there's no reason to be any louder than the drummer (this goes for the guitar players too
); if the audience can't hear the drums then the bass and guitars just sound stupid, and if the PA is big enough to let the drums hang with giant bass and guitar rigs then you no longer need the giant bass and guitar rigs, just use normal-sized rigs and put them in the PA too.in fact, the bigger the gig and the better the PA the less you need bass and guitar rigs at all
