Understanding the Suhr™ Reactive Load with Pete Thorn

World renowned Suhr Artist Pete Thorn gives a us detailed look at the Reactive Load.

The Suhr™ Reactive Load delivers a simple solution to capture all of the warmth, and dynamics of your sound, without the hassle of miking a speaker cabinet during a live or recorded performance.

The Suhr™ Reactive Load takes the place of your speaker cabinet in your signal chain. It provides an 8Ω load for your tube amplifier (maximum 100 watts), and produces a balanced and unbalanced signal that interfaces with recording devices, effects, and power amplifiers.

Traditional resistive load boxes will safely load your amplifier, but they also alter the tone, dynamics, and response of your amplifier. Real speakers do not have a fixed resistance across the entire frequency spectrum.

Real speakers are reactive & so is the Suhr™ Reactive Load.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapters

0:28 -The Reactive Load, What is it?
1:20 -Basic Understanding of Impedance, Filtering & Speaker Simulations
2:33 -Using the Reactive Load with Your Amplifier
3:58 -Is it Normal for Reactive Load to Make Mechanical Noise?
4:35 -Connecting the Reactive Load
6:34 -Connecting to a Recording Interface
8:54 -Setting Level
9:28 -Getting a Tone
15:02 -Connecting to Your DAW Using the Reactive Load
17:20 -Using Impulse Responses with the Reactive Load
25:13 -Thank You

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To learn more about the Suhr™ Reactive Load

To experience all of our other incredible Suhr™ products,

Music By: Pete Thorn
Song: À l’avenir
Album: 'PETE THORN II'

[RyanEvanCordova]

Received mine yesterday. Went to my buddies studio and plugged it in with my 6505. Played with some of the onboard IRs, used some 3rd party IRs as well, recorded some tracks to test and…Im a believer. This unit is fantastic and gives you a TON of flexibility. Don’t sleep on it. This thing is awesome.

[e.g.systems]

Beautifully clear video, covering everything in logical order. Surely john needs to make Pete a new wine red sig guitar as a think you? :O)

[silvioschurig]

Wow - from the title I was expecting an infomercial and it obviously featured the product. But as a whole this still is probably the best comprehensive / introductory video on the topic that I have seen. Thank you for that!

[theHAL]

Have come back to this video and a number of other Pete Thorn videos more than once to reference the wealth of information being shared. Terrific informative video.

[punkpop]

Pete is the man!!!! That last part about us not hearing at the cabinet height is spot on. That's why if you want to check if a cabinet is bright you should stand down and listen with your ears at cabinet level.

[ThatMFShawnzy]

Got mine yesterday and haven’t gotten a chance to plug it in, but wanted to see exactly what I was going to do before I started with it. Thanks for this!

[mattdelange]

Pete, Your explanations are exceptionally well organized and demonstrated. Really a huge help. And nice to have a demo in which the presenter isn't dumming it all down. Reactive Load seems like what I always wished the Scholz Power Soak could have been. Perfect for us home studio folks who don't want to be killed by our lady or our neighbors. Thanks!

[bobbygotsch]

Pete, Suhr, these videos are so helpful. Thank you.

[chrisb]

Thank you for the excellent tutorial. It took away all my nervousness about hooking up the Reactive Load. I was afraid of connecting it incorrectly and either blowing up my amp or just getting an unusable sound out of the thing. Thank you!

[soundknight]

It's always good to get a reaction after releasing your load.

[TexasJackdaw]

Yet another great video. I swear, Pete, I’m goin got go broke watching your channel! This is another piece of gear I need to get. Thank you again for sharing your knowledge. Enjoy your trip to Germany.

[andyracksthecams]

Magician. You get me back into fiddling and testing. I bought so much stuff I got turned off but seeing you recently on the Classic Rock Show and your Youtube channel has enlightened me again to pick up the guitar and try.

[swingthestatue]

Excellent as always, Pete is the tone guru!

[blackie]

I'm late to the part here, but this was super helpful. Thanks, Pete 😉😎

[darrenmcsorley]

Im glad I watched this video, You sorta answered this same question on Last Sundays Live stream, I know it's a bit of an older video, but its a great video and answered a lot of my other questions, so thank you. Anyway I just purchased the PT-15, so I can't wait to dive into it, but my question is, how to create that stereo field in my DAW as the Pt -15 will only give me a mono output from the line out. . Should I run my stereo modulation effects like Delay and Reverb between the line out and my Daw, or from the reactive load output, and my Daw. Im just confused on how to create the stereo tone in my Daw, through my monitors or headphones. Thanks Darren

[armandodiaz]

Excellent video, happy to see an overview of the Suhr RL finally available. The only thing missed was the process of using it with an overdriven amp. Kind of surprised this was missed as I would think 95% of people interested in purchasing the RL would be for working with overdriven tones. Overdriven tone unlike the clean tones from the video will require a bit more “boost” to the signal as it is a more compressed signal. This can be accomplished via the level pot on the RL, the level adjustment on your interface/DAW or even a combo of the two. 👍🏻

[jacobsmith]

Pete you are obviously an incredibly intelligent dude and you know your gear like nobody I've ever seen. Awesome presentation. I'm looking into whether a reactive load box will be right for me in the future if I go down the route of buying an amp head (wife willing)

[kenerb]

Was doing some research on my load box and although it's not the Suhr this video applies. Thanks for clearing things up. I noticed you have all your faders in the UAD interface all the way up. I usually keep them at 0 unless I need more level on my monitor mix. Am I missing something?

[jasoncummings]

Cool stuff! I haven't been able to afford a lot of Suhr products, well any, but been saving up to buy a Suhr guitar that I have been eye balling! Anyway, always enjoy learning about new gear. Great video!!!

[axguitarist]

Excellent video, Pete. It's first time I truly understand not only the reactive load, but how you can use it in a practical application.