Grateful Dead Music Forum

why would one want to play through multiple amps? how exactly does this work? for example i was reading how john mayer has two two-rock amps and a fender vibroverb on stage with him. whats the point of jerry using both the blackface and silverface pre-amps in his rig?

Reamping makes the sound HUGE!!!!!!

Well, Jerry's second Twin head was just a backup, he didn't use both at the same time.

But different amps have characteristic sounds; some players might use a switcher with an old Deluxe Reverb for a clean Fender tone, and a Dumble or Two Rock for a creamier overdrive, a Marshall or Soldano for high gain, etc. etc. etc.

Steve Kimock brings a lot of amps on the road with him.

Some guys do a WDW (wet-dry-wet rig) where they'll have two "wet" amps for a stereo effects onstage, with a third "dry" amp in the center for their basic tone.

reamping or is he using a switcher to activate which amp he wants for different tones?

Jerry's blackface was a backup

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Dozin wrote:Jerry's blackface was a backup

The ubiquitous "two Twin chassis-in-one Twin combo cabinet" preamp unit made its first appearance at the Day On The Green, Oakland 10/9/76

SF as the primary and the BF as secondary or backup has for years been the popular theory,(which I am not disputing), however lately I've been noticing more and more stage pics from 70's/80's-era shows where he's plugged into the BF head. Yeah, I know I used to post and date every little observation I made... I've fallen off my game. Anyway, he seems to have gone to his backup head fairly frequently... which seems a little odd to me, considering how little there is to fail when you cut the Twin's power section out of the equation.

Just for the sake of argument though ...perhaps (perhaps) they were just slightly different flavors, one with slightly "darker" tubes than the other? Just a random notion worth debunking imho.

I run a stereo rig any time there is room for left/right speaker cabs on the stage.
It doesn't translate to the audience at all, and I usually only mic one cab.
Im my case, the 3-dimensional surround-sound is something that makes me feel the instrument better, and imho, play better, because it sounds so killer from where I am standing, or sitting at the Pedal Steel.
If you follow the Kimmock gear page, he is always purposely missmatching speakers as well as running mismatched speaker/output-transformer impedances, for a more complex stereo field of disspersment on stage.