Fender VS Vox - Ask Zac 79

well hello friends and welcome to
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another Ask
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Zac today i just wanted to look at the
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fender versus vox sound
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so here's a video where you can hear
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one guitar being played through classic
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examples
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of defender sound via a real 1965 deluxe
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reverb
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and the vox sound via a 1964
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ac 10 that's in a uh well it's
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it's in a a new cab that's got a 12-inch
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speaker
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so that way you kind of have a better
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comparison 12 against 12.
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so yeah so this is just I'm going to
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switch back and forth I'm going to use
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different pickups on the guitar
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and yeah i feel like
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first off let me give you the complete
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low down on each amp
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so again this is a 1965 deluxe reverb
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I've had it for about 10 years
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it is stock except for the bright cap
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has been clipped on here
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which just gives it uh less
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kind of treble at low volumes also the
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speaker has been swapped for a celestion
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vintage
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30 that's eight ohms and it's for those
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that care it is the
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mesa boogie version of the vintage 30. i
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just found that out recently by
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checking the numbers on the uh on the
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frame so yeah and I've got
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it set at three uh volume on three
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treble on four
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bass on five reverb on two and a half
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and then of course no vibrato of course
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I'm plugged into the vibrato
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channel so i can get reverb and
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this is a vox a 1964 vox ac 10 that as i
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said
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you know it it's been recapped because
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the original cab was gone
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it has a single 12 inch celestion blue
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speaker
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it uh you know has the e I'm using the
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ef 86 channel
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uh yeah this is kind of the classic
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uh and this one's kind of been hot
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rodded to where it's like an ac 15.
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so it's not it doesn't it the inputs
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aren't padded so they they
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i don't want to get too far into the
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gobbledygook but
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the ac-10s originally they put they
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padded the input so that it'd have more
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difference in volume between the ac-10
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and the ac-15 so this is basically an
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ac-15
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and you know of course you have the uh
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1965 deluxe reverb
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uh they both have a mix i think this is
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all new old stock tubes so it has all
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vintage tubes
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this has a mix it has new power tubes
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and then some
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new old stock tubes in there and of
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course
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this is my 1957 esquire that's had a
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neck pickup added
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uh it's a Ron Ellis tall neck
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uh using diaderio tens and using like a
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fender medium
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type pick uh yeah i guess that's that's
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what we need to know
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so let's just let's just dive in I'm
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going to start
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on the neck pickup and I'm just going to
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kind of look over at the amp so you know
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which one
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so we're starting with the fender
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[Music]
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all right so that's a neck pickup
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so think about what you're hearing and
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think about the treble
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middle and bass differences that you're
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creating and also maybe compression
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now again this is YouTube so there's a
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fair amount of compression on there
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but uh yeah think about all those things
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so uh yeah so that was that was the neck
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pickup
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let's go to the back pickup
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we're starting on the box
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[Music]
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all right
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let's uh let's hear like some classic
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like fender-y licks and uh and I'm gonna
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play them
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in between the fender and the vox
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okay so let's start with the fender
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[Music]
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[Music]
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now
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let me say another you know kind of
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caveat I'm not using a looper here so
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some of you might accuse me of playing
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differently when I'm playing
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through each amp and that's a valid
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accusation because the feel is different
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when you play through the
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the two amps but i don't have a
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sophisticated looper that i can keep
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feeding different things and so I've
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gone for this
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methodology and so I'm trying my best to
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play the same way
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and these are both my amps i have no
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reason to make one sound
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worse or better than the other
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my point in making this video is for you
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to hear
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okay this is kind of the classic fender
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sound
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which you know i mean again with fender
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with saying that you could say which era
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offender
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but we're going to say blackface deluxe
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reverb and then we're going to say
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you know kind of a i don't have an ac30
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and this is
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more of a match with the deluxe so this
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is kind of the sounds
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and part of my point is hearing the
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difference and also realizing
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that playing through them makes you
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change the way you play
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okay because this amp
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has more low end it makes you play
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different
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because this amp has less low end more
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mids
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and has more compressed highs it makes
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you play differently
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so yeah so that's that's kind of part of
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the equation also is just letting you
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hear those things
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okay here's some more uh
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some more kind of you know back pickup
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stuff
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[Music]
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you can hear more lows
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you know and and it's it's just it's a
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little
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pillowy at times yeah that's that's kind
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of what I'm hearing and though you have
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the compression and you have this
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compression and stringiness coming
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from the vox so
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here's kind of
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[Music]
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so
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[Music]
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all right so you've heard a lot of
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things
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again where I've you know tried my best
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to play the same way through
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both amps and hopefully you're hearing
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the difference
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so that you can think about this is the
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vox sound versus the fender sound
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one sound is not better than the other
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they both have
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strength and weaknesses and things in
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which
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they you know sound better doing
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like this this thing that i played on
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the neck pickup
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even though it sounds cool on the box i
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think this sounds better
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on the fender
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[Music]
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play it through the box you get this
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[Music]
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there's nothing wrong with that sound uh
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but yeah there's just things that maybe
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if I'm gonna play r and b
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you know if I'm gonna play some uh you
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know Cornell Dupree or stuff like that
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i probably want to play through the
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fender but a lot of rock a lot of
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stringy stuff and a lot of country stuff
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i mean even
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even like uh you know Roy Nichols you
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[Music]
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know
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and that sounds pretty great through the
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vox and here it is through the fender
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so uh one other thing as far as the
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signal chain
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um to make things as even as possible
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well here I'll just tell you what I'm
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what I'm using so I'm using an a b
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box you know just a like a morally type
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passive a b box
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then because of the ground loop issues
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i have a an old
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axis electronics buffer box that has an
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isolation transformer and that's to
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prevent there being a whole lot of crazy
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noise
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also that allows me to keep the amps in
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phase
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when at the end i play through both of
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them at the same time
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so that's that's the signal so the
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signal is a b box
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buffer with isolation transformer into
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the deluxe reverb
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the vox is going into a
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boss rv2 so a late 80s digital reverb
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set
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on the on the plate setting and so what
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that does is it evens things out because
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now both signals are buffered
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and both signals have reverb so you're
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not hearing one overly dry and of course
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I'm trying not to use too much
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reverb so i think we've kind of heard
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you know both of them on their own so
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now I'm going to let you hear
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both of them together actually I'll play
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one the other and then both together so
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[Music]
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do
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[Music]
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all right that was both amps so at the
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end of the day
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what you need is a box and a fender and
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you play through both them at the same
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time and you get uh
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you get a big sound you get the the the
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pillowy lows of the fender
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and you get the uh the compressed highs
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and the
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in the mid-range push of the of the vox
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that's actually uh uh
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quite a nice sound and uh
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yeah all right well i hope you've
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enjoyed this uh
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comparison of vox to fender
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and yeah and i just want to thank
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everyone that supported me
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uh buying t-shirts uh friends have Ask
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Zac
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and yeah putting money in the tip jar
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i really appreciate it so thank you guys