The Whatever Thread .. For Gear!!

[Dapper Bandit]

I’ve got two 800rb’s and enough cabs to bi-amp highs and lows with a crossover, so hopefully that’ll do it. If not I’ll bite the bullet and just get a 15” main with a tweeter, a sub, and a power amp and drag it around. I’m not super worried about things being heavy if it does what I want.

The Digitakt really seems like it can do everything with enough programming/pre thought out stuff. Since we don’t have a dedicated synth guy I love the idea of sequencing to keep it hands free.

The Digitakt could almost certainly do everything you want, especially with judicious sampling. Would probably give you a better idea of what you might want in a dedicated synth, if you do move further down that road.

[Dapper Bandit]

Sparks were pretty interesting, but the Hitler moustache is never, EVER a good idea. i wouldn't doubt that at least 1/3 of their potential audience was turned off by that.

The Hitler 'tache didn't turn off any potential fans as there was so much weirdness going on before you even got to his face. This is the case in the UK at least, I understand they never really took off in the US. They had a residency a few years back (I think in the Albert Hall?) where they played an album a night in some sort of career-retrospective live extravaganza which I've always thought was really cool.

[dubkitty]

yep, too unconventional for US radio. as per usual they might have done much better if they'd started in the late 70s rather than the early 70s; there was no context at all for them when they first appeared, but i think they'd have fit into the "New Wave" swimmingly.

[K2000]

I wish I understood gain staging better, specifically how hot my output signal should be, when sending to the PA.

I play tabletop electronics, outputting everything through a 6 channel Behringer mixer. Am I supposed to raise my main output levels as much as possible (before clipping) and send the PA a very hot signal? When main outputs are turned up, this usually means (for me) that individual channels need to be kept fairly low. Because I don't know what I'm doing, I've kept individual channels 'medium low' volume and main output also 'medium low', trying to split the difference. I wonder how hot individual channels should be, in relation to the level of main outputs.

It would be great to be able to get the optimal sound from the PA, and maybe some natural compression to crush the dynamics *slightly* so that when new sounds (channels) are added or removed from the mix, it doesn't have a major impact on perceived volume (I want it to seem loud whether 1 channel is up, or 4 channels). Not to have a massive dropout in volume, as I fade channels out ("some" volume reduction is good in this scenario, of course).

I hope that made sense. Any comments are appreciated. What are the best practices?

[mcatano]

Gain staging sort of depends on what your goal is with the equipment you have on hand and whether you consider your behringer mixer to be something that's contributing to the overall sound of your set or just a utility that your actual musical equipment is passing through. Assuming the latter (the mixer exists just to mix and not to otherwise colour or shape the signal), and that you don't have access to any additional dynamics shaping (limiters or other outboard gear) I'd suggest the following:

1) go through the channels 1-by-1 on your mixer and figure out the maximum input that's hitting each. that is, what is the loudest signal that ch 1 will possibly receive during your set? use that to set the input gain for that channel so that you're averaging around -12 (like, the bottom of the yellow section). Do the same thing for every channel, and do it one-by-one-by-one. What you're doing here is setting the maximum input level with the trim pot so that you have a comfortable amount of headroom and the signal is adequately loud to cover the noise floor of the mixer. Minimum hiss/no peaks or distortion.

2) use the faders to get your balance between channels, again using the absolute loudest part of your set (all 6 channels receiving signal at the loudest full blast room clearing settings your equipment will produce). Again, at this point you want the master channel to be showing around -12 average (again, comfortably in the bottom of the yellow section). Be honest about how loud you're going to get especially when it comes to short spikes or transients or anything disruptive and unexpected. If those are hitting the red pull that channel down.

3) run through your set and keep an eye on the faders, both individual channels and the output. Are you staying in the yellow? Cool. Are you hitting the red consistently? Turn things down. are the quietest parts of your set so quiet that you're hearing hiss and other noise from the mixer? yes? ok you probably need to reduce the dynamic range of your set to make it work live. An easy way to do this is to invest in an outboard stereo compressor and run it in the master inserts or between the line outs and the DI to FOH.

Basically here's what you want to avoid:
a) overall output that is so low during the quietest moments that you hear the sound of the mixer (problem: soundperson turns up your input level at FOH and then gets angry when things get loud)
b) max output that is distorting the input channel at FOH (problem: soundperson turns down your input level and now everything that isn't a peak signal is too quiet)

Having some dynamic range in your live set is obviously important but chances are wherever you're playing is not a Critical Listening Environment™ and most of that range is going to be lost to the room and also to the FOH engineer riding the input to try and keep things audible-but-not-too-loud-as-however-they-define-too-loud. Unless you have your own soundperson, you're going to want to be consistent with a reasonable amount of volume range and not have anything happen during your set that is going to result in the FOH person just turning you down super low because they're irritated with you.

[lost in music]

Just mentioning Sparks is enough to get this song stuck in my head.

[K2000]

Gain staging sort of depends on what your goal is with the equipment you have on hand and whether you consider your behringer mixer to be something that's contributing to the overall sound of your set or just a utility that your actual musical equipment is passing through. Assuming the latter (the mixer exists just to mix and not to otherwise colour or shape the signal), and that you don't have access to any additional dynamics shaping (limiters or other outboard gear) I'd suggest the following:

1) go through the channels 1-by-1 on your mixer and figure out the maximum input that's hitting each. that is, what is the loudest signal that ch 1 will possibly receive during your set? use that to set the input gain for that channel so that you're averaging around -12 (like, the bottom of the yellow section). Do the same thing for every channel, and do it one-by-one-by-one. What you're doing here is setting the maximum input level with the trim pot so that you have a comfortable amount of headroom and the signal is adequately loud to cover the noise floor of the mixer. Minimum hiss/no peaks or distortion.

2) use the faders to get your balance between channels, again using the absolute loudest part of your set (all 6 channels receiving signal at the loudest full blast room clearing settings your equipment will produce). Again, at this point you want the master channel to be showing around -12 average (again, comfortably in the bottom of the yellow section). Be honest about how loud you're going to get especially when it comes to short spikes or transients or anything disruptive and unexpected. If those are hitting the red pull that channel down.

3) run through your set and keep an eye on the faders, both individual channels and the output. Are you staying in the yellow? Cool. Are you hitting the red consistently? Turn things down. are the quietest parts of your set so quiet that you're hearing hiss and other noise from the mixer? yes? ok you probably need to reduce the dynamic range of your set to make it work live. An easy way to do this is to invest in an outboard stereo compressor and run it in the master inserts or between the line outs and the DI to FOH.

Basically here's what you want to avoid:
a) overall output that is so low during the quietest moments that you hear the sound of the mixer (problem: soundperson turns up your input level at FOH and then gets angry when things get loud)
b) max output that is distorting the input channel at FOH (problem: soundperson turns down your input level and now everything that isn't a peak signal is too quiet)

Having some dynamic range in your live set is obviously important but chances are wherever you're playing is not a Critical Listening Environment™ and most of that range is going to be lost to the room and also to the FOH engineer riding the input to try and keep things audible-but-not-too-loud-as-however-they-define-too-loud. Unless you have your own soundperson, you're going to want to be consistent with a reasonable amount of volume range and not have anything happen during your set that is going to result in the FOH person just turning you down super low because they're irritated with you.

Awesome! Thanks for your help!

[MechaGodzilla]

why are there some many versions of the phase 90. which ones sound Good (script) and have decent bypass?

i don't wanna fork out for the whirlwind (they hardly ever come up secondhand) but it defo sounds the best in demos. I'd build a clone but idk if that would sound as good as the whirlwind anyway!

and why are phase 100s so much more expensive these days?? i bought one for about £55 a few years ago and sold it on again a while later for about the same. there aren't any under 100 on ebay/reverb as far as i can tell

[The Eristic]

I dunno if GC will ship internationally, but there's always a bunch of Whirlwinds on there cheap. Here's one for $79.

https://www.guitarcenter.com/Used/Whirl ... t-Pedal.gc

[Dandolin]

I'm enjoying the sounds from this drony synth/delay thing by Resonance Circuits--somewhat reminds me of a poor man's Lyra 8:

Though, from the looks of their prices, maybe not too much cheaper, if at all. Still, sounds good to me....

Also, this was pretty cool:

[Dandolin]

wtf sorry

[MechaGodzilla]

I dunno if GC will ship internationally, but there's always a bunch of Whirlwinds on there cheap. Here's one for $79.

https://www.guitarcenter.com/Used/Whirl ... t-Pedal.gc

they don't even let me look at the site w/o a proxy type thingy

[Dowi]

Spent last time jamming with the only pedal-maniac friend in my area. He is more into simple but effective stuff, which is probably a good idea. He has a lot of new EHX stuff on the board so I got the chance to finally try the Mel9. I must say that I expected something better.

Tracking is not that bad, but my opinion is that it sounds good mainly on the lower notes.when I went up on the last strings I got the feeling that it loses its character and everything simply becomes a sort of reverberish sound with a slow attack.
Speaking of attack the sound is generally better when the attack knob is set above 9. Too bad because in that way you don't have the immediate punch when you struck a chord or a note, so it's quite uneffective to play fast phrases. Yeah I know that's not made for this but to me that's important.
Also the only mode that sounded very good is flute mode, which has a nice vintage/lo fi vibe.

General feeling is that it's a pedal that plays well if used to add some nuances in the background with the dry signal still defined and in the front mix.

[MechaGodzilla]

i heard the best clean octave-down effect at the weekend - a chinese mini pedal (rebranded mooer type ting) into a digitech bass xpander. sounded soooo much better than the pog and subnup i tried (on their own and into drives, not with anything like the xpander).

[ognoy]

Anyone here who has started playing violin/viola/cello as adults?

I love the sound of strings, but string players are usually boring and not really keen on playing with loud amps and weird pedals.

Thinking of picking up a viola. Not planning on playing classical stuff, but if I can manage to play some simple melodies, drones and screeching noises I'm pretty happy.