Amp ISO question

[niangelo]

So me and my kin have been blessed with a new church building, and doubly super duper blessed to have a room offstage where we can isolate and mic our amps and really crank them. Now I have my AD30 which I can run head on stage, a speaker cable for that 40 feet or so offstage, and then into my cab in it's hidey hole.

But my other guitarists are playing combos. As far as I see it, I have three options:

1. Run a long guitar cable from their pedal boards. That's far too much for a guitar cable run.
2. Wireless gear. We don't want to drop for wireless gear really
3. Buy an external cab and run speaker wire from the output on their amps, but it's not the best idea to drop cash on that either right now.

Any other options I'm not aware of to get a guitar signal a long distance?

[Jondog]

That sounds like a long run for even a speaker cable let alone a guitar cable. Why not just get a good quality buffer or line boost for the guitar cable and leave all the amps in the room.

[danbond]

Is it really going to sound better through the PA than having the amps a little quieter than you'd like on-stage with you?

If I am honest, it sounds like a nightmare and probably no-one will notice any tone-loss you might experience from not cranking the amp. Unless your PA is amazing, it might even sound worse.

[hitgar]

Congrats on the new building. NBD thread? "We don't believe it unless we see picks" still apply?

+1 Jondog
Running the guitar cable with a quality line buffer will preserve the signal pretty good. Many people have pedalboards so large that you might as well have the guitar cable going to a different room, and their buffers seem to keep their signal going strong.

[niangelo]

Is it really going to sound better through the PA than having the amps a little quieter than you'd like on-stage with you?

If I am honest, it sounds like a nightmare and probably no-one will notice any tone-loss you might experience from not cranking the amp. Unless your PA is amazing, it might even sound worse.

Well, since this is a church that seats around 500, we can not only NOT crank our amps, but we can't even get close to getting the power amp singing in any way. The volume rules are a bit different that a club, for sure!

And yes, the PA is amazing, so I guess we have that going for us.

[niangelo]

Congrats on the new building. NBD thread? "We don't believe it unless we see picks" still apply?

+1 Jondog
Running the guitar cable with a quality line buffer will preserve the signal pretty good. Many people have pedalboards so large that you might as well have the guitar cable going to a different room, and their buffers seem to keep their signal going strong.

Thanks I might get some pics up sometime

Where do I put the buffer, right after the pedals? The other guitarists are running m13s. Does the buffer just give a flat boost? Would a Boss GE-7 with a flat EQ and the the master boosted work?

[niangelo]

And I feel kinda silly asking this question, but is this was the "thru" jack on a passive DI is for? I've only ever used DIs to turn line level into XLR so...

[bclaire]

To be honest, with the room acoustics in every church I've ever been in, I wouldn't think you could hear much of a difference if you ran a long guitar cable or not. You'd lose a little but I'd bet it wouldn't be too bad...

[a.hun]

To be honest, with the room acoustics in every church I've ever been in, I wouldn't think you could hear much of a difference if you ran a long guitar cable or not. You'd lose a little but I'd bet it wouldn't be too bad...

A 40 foot unbalanced insturment level cable will dull things noticably, but if you ran a balancing DI box or good buffer before the run you certainly wouldn't have major tone losses. And longer speaker cable runs aren't a terminal problem either - much less so than with low level signal cables.


Andy.

[OrangePaul]

I'm with Andy on this. Make up some long speaker leads from good quality mains flex if you're going to try this. Least that way you can still fine tune the amp on stage and switch channels or reverb etc...

For the guys running combos... tough!

Their only other option that you didn't mention would be to buy a nice new orange head and run that to the speaker on their combos..

[Jondog]

Call me cautious, but I don't trust running a long speaker lead where I can't see it.

[a.hun]

Call me cautious, but I don't trust running a long speaker lead where I can't see it.

Okay, you're cautious. The main bits you need to keep an eye on are the ends.

Well, and the bits in the middle too I suppose...

Yeah okay, I don't like having people near my speaker connections either. But in a house of God the punters should be well enough trained not to go messing about with the fixtures. No?


Andy.

[Jondog]

Call me cautious, but I don't trust running a long speaker lead where I can't see it.

Okay, you're cautious. The main bits you need to keep an eye on are the ends.

Well, and the bits in the middle too I suppose...

Yeah okay, I don't like having people near my speaker connections either. But in a house of God the punters should be well enough trained not to go messing about with the fixtures. No?


Andy.

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