Using two heads (preamp of one/power of other)??

emptycartridge · February 15, 2014, 10:42:55 PM

Hello all,

My first post, so apologies if this has been discussed/solved/etc.. I did search first but didn't come up with much

I recently bought an Orange OR15. Was really going for a hovercraft dwarfnaut but by the time I could afford one, they were unavailable and it appeared that they would not be making too many more (if any at all). I always liked the Orange OR sound, and I won it in an auction on ebay for a bit over $400. I know these are just reissues made in china, so i wasn't expecting the same sound and voice of the vintage models or anything, but i figured for the price, why not?

When I got it, it turned out to be pretty much brand new and I actually liked how it sounds quite a bit so i was happy with it. The only thing I would change? MORE VOLUME!

I also have two Carvin heads (X100b and MTS 3200), both of which have no shortage of clean volume. But thats all they really offer is the clean headroom with very, very little breakup, which i do like because of the crazy amount of pedals I typically use.

I dont know much about effects loops (dont use them really), but all of my amps have them. I know they're basically a bridge between the pre and power amp, so that brings me to my main question.

Can i use the effects send of the Orange and run it into the effects return of one of the Carvins to get the base sound of the OR with the power/volume of the Carvin? Has anyone ever done this? Is this possible or do i just sound like a dumbass? I would just give it a try to see what happens but I'm too paranoid of wrecking something.

RAGER · February 15, 2014, 11:40:08 PM

I thought for sure this was gonna be a liquidsmoke thread.

liquidsmoke · February 16, 2014, 04:37:44 AM

What is down tuning?

Quote from: emptycartridge on February 15, 2014, 10:42:55 PM
Can i use the effects send of the Orange and run it into the effects return of one of the Carvins to get the base sound of the OR with the power/volume of the Carvin?

Yes however you'll need to make sure the Orange is plugged into to a cab. There are other options but I have no experience with them.

Ombrenuit · February 17, 2014, 01:20:15 PM

As long as it's one effects send to another's effects return (NOT the main input), it should work no problem. I have a peavey and a fender that labels the effects loop sends/returns "Preamp out / Power amp in".

apekillman · February 17, 2014, 06:20:04 PM

should be cool, but like previously mentioned, make sure each amp is plugged to a cabinet so there is a load on the speaker outs of each.

Mr. Foxen · February 17, 2014, 08:06:23 PM

15w amp won't bee too tough to sort dummy load for.

AgentofOblivion · February 18, 2014, 02:22:37 PM

I have no idea so don't do this unless someone says it's ok, but could you just make a little box with an 8 or 16 ohm resistor and use that as the load since no real power will be delivered to it?

RAGER · February 18, 2014, 02:39:36 PM

That's a resistive dummy load Mr Foxen is speaking of. The particulars will have to be explained by someone else though.

jibberish · February 18, 2014, 04:56:49 PM

if you will use that semi-permanently as a pre-amp, can you just pull the 2 power tubes and run it that way?

emptycartridge · February 20, 2014, 08:31:08 AM

Thank you all for all the input. I decided to give it a try, and ended with some good results.

I ran the Orange into my 2x12 with v30s, and the Carvin MTS into a Eminence loaded 4x12 (2 governors, 2 wizards) and certainly found well more volume and sound than I was even looking for. I especially like how the 2x12 ended up handling most of the mids and highs since its only pushed by 15w, with the 4x12 handling a majority of the huge low end from the carvin. Kind of like a 2 way hifi speaker of sorts.

So would it also be safe assume that any effects I would use in a loop (just a delay and reverb) could just go between the Orange and the Carvin like using the loop as it's meant to be used?

AgentofOblivion · February 20, 2014, 11:08:56 AM

I'm confused... you put the FX loop Send of the Orange into the FX loop Return of the Carvin, had a cab hooked to both (because it's a no-no to turn on an amp without a cab hooked to it) and you still got sound out of the cab hooked to the Orange? The suggestions here, as far as I understood them, was to hook up a speaker just so the amp has a resistive load for electrical purposes, not because it's supposed to actually make sound (hence my suggestion about a box with a resistor in it).

Maybe the FX loop on the Orange is parallel and not series so you have an FX dry AND wet going to the power section, so by routing the "wet" signal path to the Carvin you still have the "dry" going to the power section, hence the signal to the speakers. Interesting...

jibberish · February 20, 2014, 12:00:12 PM

Quote from: AgentofOblivion on February 20, 2014, 11:08:56 AM
I'm confused... you put the FX loop Send of the Orange into the FX loop Return of the Carvin, had a cab hooked to both (because it's a no-no to turn on an amp without a cab hooked to it) and you still got sound out of the cab hooked to the Orange? The suggestions here, as far as I understood them, was to hook up a speaker just so the amp has a resistive load for electrical purposes, not because it's supposed to actually make sound (hence my suggestion about a box with a resistor in it).

Maybe the FX loop on the Orange is parallel and not series so you have an FX dry AND wet going to the power section, so by routing the "wet" signal path to the Carvin you still have the "dry" going to the power section, hence the signal to the speakers. Interesting...

that is strange. coincidentally, my 1watt greta does that too. I will have to make a dummy load to turn the speaker off by plugging it into the external speaker jack.
sometimes, while I am piping the pre-out into something else, I want the greta to not play its 4" speaker.

I should try feeding the greta pre out into the egnator for double tube pre, just to hear what that sounds like.

AgentofOblivion · February 20, 2014, 03:27:48 PM

I just looked at the manual for the OR15 and it says the FX loop is wired in series with the pre-amp. I have no idea why there would be output if you didn't have anything going to the FX loop return of the Orange...sounds like it would be an open circuit to me. Anyone else know what might be going on?

RacerX · February 20, 2014, 05:14:33 PM

Majick?

emptycartridge · February 21, 2014, 01:08:19 AM

I apologize for any confusion from my previous post. That's my fault. Half of that post wassupposed to be the original post of adding more questions that I realized the answers to add I was typing them i.e. why don't I have any sound from the cabinet on the Orange? And the question of pedals between the two.

I figured out pretty quickly myself that the preamp was no longer giving signal the the oranges power side. Duh.

So what I ended up trying was putting my stereo reverb between the two, running one output to the return of the carvin and the other to the return of the Orange. This is how I got sound out of the 2x12. It seemed to work ok with out any weird issues so far, so I assumed it was safe. That part was supposed to be in the last post but was foiled by my hasty editing. I think I need more sleep.

jibberish · February 21, 2014, 07:37:50 AM

ahhh, thee old reverb splitter trick eh. heh. alle ist klar.

this is sort of for agentO:
to clarify, this fender greta was some kind of goofball design by fender. it is set up to play your ipod through it if you want.
but greta is more like a tube powered table radio without the radio. it doesn't even have effects in and out. but it has 1/8" jack line in and outs and a 1/4" ext speaker jack.

it makes no sense to still be making noise while lining out. whatever is up, having the speaker playing while feeding something else is both cool and irritating depending upon what is going on. I would prefer it to turn off when a jack is plugged into line out. but then again, what components are needed to create a 1/4" jack make/break deal like every 1/4" speaker jack in the world works, but you only have an 1/8" jack to do it with?
maybe they said:
"plenty of buffer beef to run both the amp and line out, the expense will exceed engineering goals, so fuck it, let it play and just parallel off the pre out...."(only a guess)

here is a 2 minute video showing that this is actually a clever toy, very clever toy. esp when scored for $100. this guy even makes mention of the genuine tube overdrive sound for less than an overdrive pedal part. but still a toy amp for toying around.
I modded mine. I put a handle on it haha.

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I also am still wondering, even though the circuit diagrams look like the output xformer is disconnected from complete circuit without a power tube, is there any other craziness that can happen without the power tube(s) socketed?

I like the idea of not just burning up power tubes for no reason if I am going to only use the front end of a tube amp as a pre. I guess that's where i'm going here heh.