Attenuators
And Their Many Uses
working on a live amp. With the attenuator
set to “load,” just plug the speaker output
of the amp into the “amp input” or similarly
named input and you’re ready to go. What’s
nice about this is that while working on the
amp you won’t have to deal with the noise
coming from a speaker cabinet and all of the
hiss that goes along with a loud amp. Just
remember that although you don’t hear any
sound or see that electricity, it’s there, and
it’s lethal. Make sure you know what you’re
doing, and re-read the caution at the beginning of this article.
The Wet/Dry Rig
If your attenuator has a line out available,
you can use it to set up a Wet/Dry rig. A wet/
dry rig is great for keeping the dry tone of
your amp intact while bringing in effects on a
separate power amp and speaker. Once you
have the dry tone set to your liking, take the
line out of the attenuator and feed it into the
desired effects, then into a separate power
amp. Make sure you don’t overload the input
of the effects by using the line out’s volume
control to taste. From there, you can run
a second speaker cabinet, effectively slaving the tone of the main amp but with the
effects. Controlling the output of the power
amp will bring up the “wet” level on the second cab, and you can mix to taste. Of course,
this is best used for effects like delay, or any
effect that you want on the back end of the
tone. Pedals like compressors and distortion
boxes are best left to the front end. Make
sure if you’re using a delay or reverb that you
set the effect to 100% so you’re not bleeding
in the dry signal.
Creative Cabinet Choices
Ever wonder what a Superlead would sound
like through an AC30 cab but were afraid to
try for fear of blowing the Celestion AlNiCo
Blues? Once again, as long as the impedance
is set correctly, and the power is scaled back
to accommodate the speakers, who says you
have to use the same cab as the head was
designed for? Many times I’ve been in the
studio and knew that the tone of the amp
was dialed in, but wanted a different color.
Rather than running the typical, closed-back
4x12, I was able to choose between the many
different cabs available by attenuating the
signal down enough to allow safe operation.
It’s a great way to experiment with tone and
to further lessen the volume assault. This is
great for live situations as well. Imagine how
Line Out/New Power Amp
If you really want to tame the volume of an
amp, but find that the lowest settings on the
attenuator suck too much tone out for your
liking, you can once again put that dummy
load and line out to good use. First, set the
attenuator to “load.” Then, like the wet/dry
rig, use the line out to feed a power amp out
to the speaker cab of your choice. In essence
this is like using a “slave out” that used to be
a big mod back in the eighties from the amp
hot-rodders. Back then it was used to power
yet another head, but these days it can be
used to bring the volume down to a controllable level and still retain the full sound of the
amp. Will it be exactly the same as with the
power section of the main amp? No, but neither will it be the tone of a highly attenuated
signal, so it’s a matter of taste.
