I’m looking at options to use the pre-amp section of a valve amp for guitar in a studio setting. I have an IR loader that will do power amp and cab/speaker/mic emulation from there on in.
Originally I was going to use a dummy load of some form (resistive if DIY), and then use the FX send on the amp to feed the IR loader.
I was just wondering though whether you could just add a switch on the HT feed to the power amp as a way to run the amp without a cabinet attached?
Seems to easy a solution to be something I’ve not heard about people doing, so what is it I’m missing?
Originally I was going to use a dummy load of some form (resistive if DIY), and then use the FX send on the amp to feed the IR loader.
I was just wondering though whether you could just add a switch on the HT feed to the power amp as a way to run the amp without a cabinet attached?
Seems to easy a solution to be something I’ve not heard about people doing, so what is it I’m missing?
Switching the feed to the power supply will typically let the B+ to the preamp "soar". This really makes little difference to the amplifier, but messes-up the player's "calibration" from finger to distortion.
Jerry Garcia ran a Twin Reverb as a preamp into a big solid state Mac amp. I have a friend who duplicated this setup, and I can verify that it sounded fantastic. The amp was used that way for a very long time. Still is in use, actually. I cobbed up a voltage divider at the Twin pre out for him, and he simply ran with no output tubes installed. "Just as Jerry did".