WET-DRY
WHAT IS A WET/DRY RIG?
In a wet/dry set up, the "wet" refers to your signal that has any time based effects on it and often the modulation as well, while the "dry" refers to your signal that has your gain pedals.
The wet/dry rig involves two main components:
- Wet Signal: The wet signal is the processed guitar sound. It typically goes through various effects pedals, such as reverb, delay, modulation, or other types of effects that add texture and ambiance to the sound. This processed signal creates a sense of depth and atmosphere in your guitar tone.
- Dry Signal: The dry signal is the signal that you don't affect with your drives, maybe compression and modulation, but no time based effects such as reverb and delay.
A wet/dry rig allows for a balanced blend of the clean sound in the centre and the processed, ambient effects on the sides. It provides a sense of spaciousness, depth, and clarity, enhancing the overall guitar tone and making it more captivating and three-dimensional.
By separating the wet and dry signal and using multiple speakers or amplifiers, the wet/dry rig enables guitarists to achieve a more professional and studio-like sound in live performances or recordings.
WET-DRY & WET-DRY-WET RIGS IN ACTION...
How Do You Set Up A Wet/Dry Rig?
Connect your guitar to your drive, modulation, compression and any other effects you want going in to your dry amp.
Once you've decided what you want to go to your dry amp, you'll need to place a splitter in after the last 'dry' effect, therefore allowing you to send your signal to two different places.
You're going to take one side of the signal coming out of the splitter and plug this into your dry amp.
With the other signal from your splitter, feed this into the rest of your effects that aren't in your chain yet. Then, plug this into your wet amp.
Sometimes when we run two amps at the same time, we can find that the phase (the waveform produced) from both amps will counteract each other resulting in a thin sound. Most splitters will have a way of flipping the phase to one amp, which should give you a full sounding tone. Turn your amps and listen to the combined sound before and after you've flipped the phase, and decide which one you think sounds right.
This is the part where you need to decide how loud you want the amps to be to each other. It's personal preference on how 'wet' you want your overall tone to be, so take the time to get it right!
How To Choose 2 Amps For Wet/Dry
You want a wet/dry rig, but you’re not sure what amps will work well together? And what about power, gain, phase and digital latency?
It’s pretty simple in theory, but you need to be aware of a bunch of things when choosing your two amps.
Wet-Dry Guitar Tones In A Single Cab?
[Warning - May Contain ’80/90s Power Amps & EVs]
Welcome to the show! I’ve been on this quest of sorts… that began with a pedalboard build we did all the way back in 2017. The idea was using pedal-format valve preamps feeding a power section. That power section could be via the effects loop return in something like a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, for example – or it could be a dedicated power amp.
What then followed was a chance encounter with a Mesa/Boogie rackmount power amp and, much later, a mid-’80s Mesa/Boogie 212 with EVM-12L speakers. All of which leads us to ‘modern’ pedals and board, but with an amp/speaker solution resurrected from times past.
