Scott Henderson Discussion

[uglyamerican69]

Hey Scott,

In my search for good information on the subject matter, I've found one too many conflicting ideas about what a true wet/dry rig is.

I watched a couple recent videos covering your (live) wet/dry rig and found it to be far less complicated, and far less expensive, than others are making it out to be.

Unsurprisingly, most making it out to be far more complicated (and expensive) than it needs to be are either those who stand to profit from it, or those who uncritically accept what those who stand to profit from it are trying to peddle.

A certain, infamous, former associate of yours recently put out some videos of his own about what he claims is "true" wet/dry. He essentially argues that I need to have a parallel mixer on my wet side if I want to do it right. I'm certainly open to the idea, but saw no such thing in your set up.

My dry side is identical to yours; however, for my wet signal, I want to run a Strymon El Capistan (delay) and Strymon Flint (reverb/harmonic tremolo) on my wet side. If not a parallel mixer, would I at least need a volume pedal or some kind of interface box?

For what it's worth, both amps are single channel and don't have an effects loop. I only have four pedals on my dry side, my KingTone 9V power supply, and a Suhr line out box. My wet side is only a Strymon Zuma R300 power supply, El Capistan, and Flint.

I'm only asking you because you're not trying to sell me a product - especially one that I don't need. And considering your live tones of late, it's clear you know what you're doing.

[Scott Henderson]

I go out of the 2nd speaker jack of my dry amp into John's line box (it has a through jack if your dry amp has only one speaker jack). Then the signal goes from the line box to a volume pedal (in my case an SVC volume knob), and then into my Boss SE-70, set to 100% wet. The effect output goes into the front of a Fender HRD, and I use the preamp of the Fender to EQ the effects. Really simple, and all I need is a line box and a small Fender combo. Why would you need anything else?

Maybe this person is telling you about the mixer because you want to use 2 effects in the wet amp. That could be a problem, because there can't be any dry signal in the wet amp. That means your delay pedal will be putting out only delays, which will feed the reverb pedal, and all the delay repeats will have reverb on them. I don't mind that, but the problem is, you won't hear the reverb immediately when you hit a note, because it's after the delay pedal. For recording, I put delay and reverb on separate buses so they're independent of each other and I hear them immediately. In my SE-70, they're also independent of each other. A mixer after the line box would allow you to put both pedals in it so you can hear them both immediately.

I'm trying to think of an infamous former associate, because I've never worked with another guitar player, and you made it sound like it was someone I used to like but don't anymore. Is it Ted Nugent?

[uglyamerican69]

Your explanation is clearer than what the-guy-who-gained-infamy-by-rebranding-another-manufacturer's-product-and-passed-it-off-as-his-own said.

Minus the parallel mixer, I have everything else I need. So now it's just about choosing between the GigRig Wetter Box and the Suhr MiniMix II. Hmmm....

Once again, you've saved me a lot of wasted time, money, and stress. Thank you.

Hopefully well soon get back to enjoying some live music, our kids can get back to school and play together, we can be a bit less afraid of everything, and perhaps even be a bit more civil and kind to one another.

[Scott Henderson]

Understood! About the mixer, if you're going to use two effects in it, the mixer would need to have 2 sends and 2 returns. I only see 1 send jack and 1 return jack on the Suhr mixer - maybe those jacks are stereo and you need those stereo Y cables? I'm a little confused about it.

[uglyamerican69]

I've since read the online manuals for both the Suhr MiniMix II and GigRig Wetter Box.

Being in unfamiliar territory, I find the Suhr manual leaves more questions than answers.

Despite the GigRig's outward appearance, the manual did a good job of breaking it down to where I can easily see where it would be able to fulfill my needs.

While there are quite a few YouTube videos on The Wetter Box--and other parallel mixers--that showcase its sonic potential and myriad applications, I've yet to find anything on the Suhr MiniMix II.

As I like to get the sounds I want with as few knobs, switches, channels, pedals, tweaking, and gear as I can get away with, I was initially leaning toward the Suhr.

One GigRig Wetter Box: Sold!

[dizzy]

Hey Uglyamerican

I was in the same situation as you.

I did what michael landau does and it works great:

Get an ab box and then run one dry signal to one effect and the other to the other effect. Then send each to their own input on the amp(My wet amp is a fender so it has 2 channels.

Then you can blend effects with channel volumes. Of course this only works with a wet amp with 2 ins.

But the only bummer is that the flint and el cap don’t have killdry(why strymon ?
So I kept flint and elcap on my board for my one amp set up and then when I run wet/dry I bring 2 different pedals with killdry.

[uglyamerican69]

Sorry, dizzy, but am I missing something here?

From the Strymon El Capistan Owner's Manual, "MIX: Controls the balance of dry signal and wet signal from 100% dry at minimum to 100% wet
at maximum. The mix occurs entirely in analog. Set to 3:00 to get a 50/50 mix."

And from the Strymon Flint Owner's Manual, "MIX: Controls the reverb wet mix from full dry at minimum to full wet with no dry signal at maximum. A 50/50 mix occurs around 3 o’clock on the mix knob."

Sounds to me like they do 100% wet and are up to the task.

The GigRig Wetter Box has yet to arrive so I'll have to wait and see.

One way or the other, I'll eventually get there. If I screw up, at least I'll have learned something for all my troubles and be better for it next time.

[dizzy]

But the only problem is that then there is no way to raise and lower the delay level easily. The delay level knob becomes unusable.
So you can change the level from a mixer or from the wet amp but it is simpler to have the level control on the pedal itself by your feet.

[uglyamerican69]

Perhaps the giant mix knob on the GigRig Wetter Box (parallel mixer) can perform that function? Or maybe the expression pedal that I ordered with it? Or one of those EWS Subtle Volume Controls that Scott uses?

Once the unit arrives and I try it out, I'll be sure to check back in and let anyone who cares know how/if it works, etc.

[funksteroo]

Hey Scott, are you running your amp at 8ohms so the 4x12 matches the hrd too?

[Scott Henderson]

I run my amp at 8 ohms for tone reasons, because Marshall style amps, and most Fenders too, sound the fullest at 8 ohms. The original design was a 100 watt Marshall head with two 16 ohm cabs, making an 8 ohm load - I use one cab but my speakers are 8 ohm Greenbacks, so it's an 8 ohm cab.

The HRD also runs at 8 ohms, because it's a one speaker combo with an 8 ohm speaker. That being said, the wet amp could run at 4 ohms, 16 ohms, or it could even be a solid state amp, because it only has reverb in it - for that purpose you could use just about anything.

[funksteroo]

So the overdrive and other pedals’ sound come through the wet amp when I run it like your setup with a head, cab and hrd? I don’t have a se-70 though just a digital delay pedal. Idk why I always thought it was just clean delay in the wet amp coming out. I’m dumb!!

[Scott Henderson]

Here's how the wet/ dry rig works, just in case you're still confused about it.

Your guitar goes into your distortion and modulation pedals, and then into the dry amp. From an extra speaker jack in your dry amp, you go into this line box, which converts speaker signal to line level. If your amp has only one speaker jack, this box has a Thru jack.

https://www.suhr.com/electronics/tone-tools/suhr-iso-line-out/

From the line out jack, you go into your digital delay pedal. The pedal has to be set at 100% wet - that's important because any dry sound in the wet amp isn't going to sound good. The output of the digital delay pedal goes into the wet amp, and you can use the tone controls of the wet amp to EQ the delay.

If you want, you could put a small volume pedal between the line box and your digital delay, so you could have control of the wet and dry mix.

Hope that helps!