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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
Electric Rig Tech Support?
Electric Rig Tech Support?
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HarpNinja
1105 posts
Feb 14, 2011
7:56 AM
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This past week, I tried running a "new" pedal board straight into the PA...
Ultimate 57
Kinder AFB
BBE Opto Stomp
Lone Wolf Harp Break
Line 6 M13
PA then fed to monitor
The Opto gave me some headaches. First, with the pedal set to unity (volume 5 compression 3), I had a huge volume loss (the pad was turned off and not the cause). I then turned it all the way to 9 to get the same volume. Ok, I think I can live with that, but don't get the volume loss.
The real issue was I had some sort of clipping, similar to having the Kinder turned too high, that gave me an unuseable tone. Let me clarify that the Harp Break and M13 were in the chain but NOT turned on. I should have had a clean tone from the PA.
I then took the Kinder out of the loop. No change in the weird clipping/smacking sound that occured no matter how hard I played or had the PA set.
Next, I took turned off the Opto Stomp - everything worked fine, although, I did end up using the Kinder unit.
Thoughts on what the Opto was doing? At first I thought it was the combo of Kinder/Opto, but it wasn't. This was all being trouble shot during soundcheck just in my monitor (so the club didn't have to hear it) in about 5ish minutes.
I have no way of testing the Opto to see if it works correctly as I've tried three now and always get the volume drop going into amps (although not the weird smacking/tearing sound).
Everything seemed to be plugged in correctly. I even tried using the Opto with a battery instead of the power supply (then with the battery out using the power supply). The BBE was bought used, but essentially brand new with all the original pieces.
I know Jason uses a similar front end - 57 to Kinder to Opto - with no issues (much less volume drop, anyways).
I will try experimenting at home, but thought maybe there was an obvious issue here. The Lone Wolf pedal worked well for what I wanted, which was essentially an overdrive pedal I could stomp on and off). It didn't get as raunchy as I thought it might, but I don't think I would have used any more overdrive then I did. Very cool little pedal!
Here is Jason's rig. I have the HG50 1210 and will use that for my "blues" gig this weekend. I had planned on bringing my pedal board as I use the delays on it for these shows too and was just doing to leave the other stuff in-line but off.
Thanks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RODRLqh3uao
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Mike
Quicksilver Custom Harmonicas
Updated 2/1/11
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MrVerylongusername
1560 posts
Feb 14, 2011
8:18 AM
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I checked the OptoStomp manual online - the settings you describe are for "transparent limiting" ie it is limiting your signal without changing the audible characteristics of your sound. It is however still limiting the signal which is to say it is acting as a high ratio compressor with a fast attack time. That's why there is a considerable loss of gain.
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HarpNinja
1106 posts
Feb 14, 2011
8:25 AM
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That I can understand, thanks!!!! I also found that if the gain on the PA is set too high, the compressor will go into an ugly distortion - so that gives me something to trouble shoot. Does that mean it is ok to run the volume higher? What is the effect of that?
I tried adding the compressor mostly to limit the volume differences between the modulation and filter effects I use, but could live without it, really.
The more I read, the more I think the issue with the distortion had to do with how the board was set up. This is fantastic to know for both when I run sound and when someone else does it (although I would bring an amp 99% of the time I am not running sound).
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Mike
Quicksilver Custom Harmonicas
Updated 2/1/11
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