Recent Recap: A while back, I decided to separate my heads and cabs, keeping the heads in my workstation area, and putting the cabs about 20 feet away for a variety of reasons that worked out fine. Having the amp heads in the workstation area means I can adjust levels and tone controls on the heads, and operate the recording gear (including hardware) without disrupting my workflow.
I have both heads hooked up to their respective cabs, and the inputs to both amps are wired up via a Lehle splitter box, so I can run either or both at the same time, and only have to connect one cable to my pedalboard to set up everything. So that's easy.
But I want to take this farther, and for that maybe you guys can make some suggestions on what's available once I explain what I want to do.
Here's a shot of the current setup. I recently discovered it's not terribly unlike Tim Pierce's setup (he's a very well known session player out of LA whose work is on probably 1000 major label records). Well, except that he has a ton more amps. And he's...you know...a much, much better player. But I digress.
Having the heads on a table top (mine's about 4.5 feet wide and 2 feet deep) means I can get to the controls on the top of each amp easily, and also get to the back of the amps easily. There's no having to pull the amps out of shelves to make connections or adjust settings on the rear of the amps, etc. I considered having shelves on wheels built, but what's the point if this works? The basket underneath holds cables, headphones, etc. The drawer the load box is sitting on pulls out as a work surface also.
So I want to talk about what I'd like to do to take this to another level. First, let's state that these aren't the only two amps I'm ever going to own, or bring into the studio for session work. I'm always adding gear, bringing in session players, etc. I actually have another table top of the exact dimensions of this one that I can use down the road, in my storage room for now.
What I want to do is be able to use either head with either cab, AND use either head with a load box like the Mesa Cab Clone that's sitting under the amp heads in that pull out shelf. In addition, if someone brings in a head for a session, or I get another one, I want to be able to add that to the system. And I want to be able to use cabs of different impedances. I'd like to keep the load box and the cabs hooked up to the system. The idea is that without having to re-cable, any amp can be patched electronically into any cab or the load box.
From this I conclude that what I need is some kind of head/cabinet switcher like the Palmer PTINO and others on the market like it, but one that will handle multiple heads and cabs, not just two heads and one cab.
Does this kind of thing exist? If so, I haven't been able to find it. Anyone have any ideas? I'm not really excited about having something custom built if it's avoidable.
EDIT: I may have found such a box. I didn't see one on the CAE site, but there's a German company called Ampete that makes a 4 amp, 4 speaker cab, switcher that does the electronic switching I'm talking about, though its limitation is 1 amp at a time into 1 or 2 cabs. I've never heard of this company, but one never knows...I'll do more research and report back. It's around $1800, 2 rack spaces. Might work for what I'm thinking about.
Meantime, I'm still interested in suggestions.
I have both heads hooked up to their respective cabs, and the inputs to both amps are wired up via a Lehle splitter box, so I can run either or both at the same time, and only have to connect one cable to my pedalboard to set up everything. So that's easy.
But I want to take this farther, and for that maybe you guys can make some suggestions on what's available once I explain what I want to do.
Here's a shot of the current setup. I recently discovered it's not terribly unlike Tim Pierce's setup (he's a very well known session player out of LA whose work is on probably 1000 major label records). Well, except that he has a ton more amps. And he's...you know...a much, much better player. But I digress.
Having the heads on a table top (mine's about 4.5 feet wide and 2 feet deep) means I can get to the controls on the top of each amp easily, and also get to the back of the amps easily. There's no having to pull the amps out of shelves to make connections or adjust settings on the rear of the amps, etc. I considered having shelves on wheels built, but what's the point if this works? The basket underneath holds cables, headphones, etc. The drawer the load box is sitting on pulls out as a work surface also.
So I want to talk about what I'd like to do to take this to another level. First, let's state that these aren't the only two amps I'm ever going to own, or bring into the studio for session work. I'm always adding gear, bringing in session players, etc. I actually have another table top of the exact dimensions of this one that I can use down the road, in my storage room for now.
What I want to do is be able to use either head with either cab, AND use either head with a load box like the Mesa Cab Clone that's sitting under the amp heads in that pull out shelf. In addition, if someone brings in a head for a session, or I get another one, I want to be able to add that to the system. And I want to be able to use cabs of different impedances. I'd like to keep the load box and the cabs hooked up to the system. The idea is that without having to re-cable, any amp can be patched electronically into any cab or the load box.
From this I conclude that what I need is some kind of head/cabinet switcher like the Palmer PTINO and others on the market like it, but one that will handle multiple heads and cabs, not just two heads and one cab.
Does this kind of thing exist? If so, I haven't been able to find it. Anyone have any ideas? I'm not really excited about having something custom built if it's avoidable.
EDIT: I may have found such a box. I didn't see one on the CAE site, but there's a German company called Ampete that makes a 4 amp, 4 speaker cab, switcher that does the electronic switching I'm talking about, though its limitation is 1 amp at a time into 1 or 2 cabs. I've never heard of this company, but one never knows...I'll do more research and report back. It's around $1800, 2 rack spaces. Might work for what I'm thinking about.
Meantime, I'm still interested in suggestions.
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