Hi Folks,</p>
I'm still new(ish) to this forum and have usually asked questions.. so this time I wanted to report the results of my little experiment to increase the usefulness of my A-100 in our rehearsal studio by combining speakers and instruments. Nothing complicated.. mainly just following some good advice I've seen here, and as a result have become a big fan of Hammond power amplifiers(!) among other things. Maybe some other folks will be tempted to try this out as well.
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First, not surprisingly, my A-100 as played through it's internal amp/speaker combo is sorely lacking in treble clarity due to the (by design) high-end rolloff, and I assume to a lesser extent by drifting specs on aging components.
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I wanted to hear the A-100 in all it's sonic glory so I tried the 'G-G' solution. I stripped one end of a 1/4" instrument cable and used alligator clips to connect the G-G outputs on the preamp to the single 1/4" (rotary) input on my Leslie 2101mkII. The initial result sounded awful.. I overloaded the input of the Leslie terribly. I have a small passive mono mixer sitting around, so I put this inline between the organ and the Leslie to lower the signal. NOW we're talking! The padded signal going into the Leslie resulted in a wonderful tone with all those (previously) missing highs and swirly goodness! Using the mixer I can vary the balance between the Leslie and the A-100 speakers, which have the ballsy low end and the reverb. The 2101mkII has additional line outputs for it's low rotor sim and sub bass so there are more speaker options yet to be explored..
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My only (small) concern is the signal coming from the A-100 is a *little* noisy. I'm wondering if using a G + Ground hookup would be cleaner and/or quieter than the G+G, but I didn't notice any tab labeled "GND" on the preamp itself. Maybe someone can help clarify this.
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My A-100 is, for the first time, truly inspiring to play. It sounds so much closer to the holy grail Hammond sounds I love, and combining the low-end from the built-in speakers creates an enormously full sound. But I couldn't leave it alone..</p>
I read here about using the RCA "phono" input on the A-100 (or M-3, etc.) for an additional instrument. So I plugged my guitar, a late 70's Telecaster, into my pedalboard and ran the pedalboard into the RCA input. The guitar is preamped by a Paul Cochrane "Timmy" stomp box. The Timmy is a clean-to-mild-distortion overdrive with plenty of clean gain and a great EQ, but I have a feeling any decent preamp, boost or mild overdrive pedal would do well. Once again.. WOW. The Hammond power amp is *amazing* with guitar, and the necklace reverb gives this setup a quality not unlike a vintage Fender amp, except bigger and bassier.. Could be a little bass heavy for humbucking pickups, but for my low output single coils it was really nice. </p>
Now.. to switch on the Leslie (already hooked up to the A-100) and run both. OK, now I'm running out of superlatives.. the Leslie adds a high end sparkle to the guitar, and that swirl.. instant guitar heaven! Half a dozen George Harrison guitar lines come to mind.. </p>
So.. tonight I'm trying my '79 Rhodes stage through this same dual amp/speaker setup.. Is there such a thing as too much sonic nirvana? ;-)
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