Hi all. I recently came across a great deal on a tube amp - a Victory V30 that I could not pass up. I do not currently have any tube amps as I sold mine (Revv G20, Blues Junior, Princeton) to purchase the quad. I use the quad either with headphones (practice at night), into an interface to record, through a Fender FR12, or through an orange pedal baby into a 2x12 cab with a v30 and creamback. My favorite way to use the quad cortex is through the power amp. With getting this tube amp, I am going to replace the pedal baby with the V30 and utilize it’s preamp and power amp through the 4 cable method.
I understand the routing and know that the output of the quad (3 or 4) will go to the return of the V30 and the amp will be connected to the speaker cabinet and will always need somewhere for the load to go. The question that I have is could I use the preamp of the tube amp with an IR going out of 1/2 into an interface and have output 3/4 muted so that no sound goes to the cabinet (amp will still be connected to cab). This would allow me to record the tube amp with quad cortex effects silently. I have a few IRs of different speakers from my physical cab that I really like to record. I understand that I could capture the amp, but I do not have a load box and do not want to purchase one. Without a load box, I would only be able to capture through the cab and not be able to use my own IRs. I feel like it is probably a dumb question, but I want to make sure I would not damage the amp by not running the signal back through the return. Thanks.
So the idea is to use the amp’s effects loops send as a preamp output, going into the QC.
- Victory V30 amplifier output to speaker cabinet
- Guitar into QC input 1
- QC output 3 into Victory amp input (must remain active)
- Victory amp effects loop send into QC input 2
- Use IRs, effects blocks, etc., with QC input 2
- Send to QC output 1 & 2
The wildcard piece of information here is whether or not the Victory amp will go silent once you plug a cable into the effects send (but not the return). Presumably the signal chain should be disrupted before reaching the power amp stage. Try this out and see if it works.
You may need to tweak some input and output settings on the QC to play nice with the tube amp.
Also want to mention, you’re only accessing the preamp this way–much of the tone of an amp comes from the power stage. A unit like a Two Notes Torpedo Captor will let you pull a safe line-level signal off of the amp’s power output.
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Thanks for the input. I had planned to have a cable going into the effects return of the victory amp, probably out 3 of QC. I had just planned to mute that output. My expected routing is guitar in 1, QC send 1 into amp input, amp send into QC return 1, QC out 3 into return of amp, out 1/2 into interface. I had planned to use the fx loop into an IR (potentially power amp capture as I wanted to try those). To stop output going to cab, I would just mute that output or put a volume loop in turned down prior to output. I am assuming this would work, but I wasn’t sure if running the preamp and stopping signal would damage amp or QC.
As long as the amp remains connected to the load (speaker cab), you should be fine.