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Two Heads One Bass

W

WorldCarver

Jun 30, 2011
24
0
#1
I recently got my hands on a couple of Marshall bass heads and want to run them through my rather large rig. My end goal is to run each head through it's own cab, through my Sans Amp, and into my bass... The complication is how.

I've read into a bit of the pros and cons of using a A/B Y pedal with only one real concern which is dealing with tone fluctuation/changes. However, in my mind it makes more sense to just use a Y cable (skip the pedal/more straight forward) but have found a lack of information on why that's a good or bad idea.

Tl;dr
I want to run two bass heads into one bass possibly without a pedal. Can a Y cable handle that on its own?
 
#2
A y cable alone will halve the impedance on your pickups, which is tone suck. Better getting a buffered split to keep tone, and an isolated buffered split to lose ground loop noise that comes with split rigs. The Sansamp will do the buffering. Plus, if you want same thing going to each amp Might as well plug into one and slave the other one from it, if they have the appropriate connectors.

I use two different rigs, and have my bass wired with its own output for each pickup, much more tonal variety that way.
 
#4
The right way (to me) is Lehle little dual. Otherwise you aren't getting the best straight bass path from guitar to each amp. Use one or the other or both with no loss. I use them for guitar and once did a two amp bass set up....one clean one with effects.
 
#5
Are you planning on using different tones on the heads? If you just want one masive tone maybe you can run a line out from your primary head into the FX return of the secondary one (utilizing its power section directly).

For running two amps with different tones (sometimes for fun I'll do this... one rig clean, the other OD) I think what you want is a good quality Y box or another type of pedal which can serve as a Y. A cheap A/B/Y box into two amps can cause a feedback effect... not sure exactly why (maybe "loose ground loop" that Fox mentioned), but it's a common symptom.
 
#8
Regardless, I recommend using an a-b-y box..very versatile.

With a b y , you can also reverse it and use 2 different basses into one head..switch basses with click of a switch.

Haven't used mine in a while, but I believe you can KILL everything and use the A B Y as a MUTE box as well??..
 

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