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RE: GAIN STRUCTURE



hard to work through without looking at it-
one thing i would suggest as this has helped me in the past...

find the manual on every piece of gear and determine whether the inputs/outputs are balanced or unbalanced (in your terms, stereo or mono)
im still learning, but what balanced cables do is reduce noise, especially over long cable runs
they do this by sending an additional signal that is 180 degrees out of phase-
so your tip and ring of a balanced connection are the same signal.... but they invert the waveform on the ring... thus canceling out any noise induced along the way-

i have learned.... if you are connecting an unbalanced output to an unbalanced input... use a mono cable.... rather if both input and output are balanced ...ie.. TRS.... use a stereo cable-

in theory and in research....it honestly should make no difference...  but my experience shows otherwise

the other big issue is the +4 -10 ... im not familiar with the gear you are using, so its hard for me to determine what each piece does ... but when the +4/-10 comes into play.... honestly just try both ways to see which one has less noise-

for example, the PADS on my crest mixer add a horrible amount of noise......so even though my output signal is at the same level, the signal/noise ratio is greater when i have the pads inserted...... simply because there is 1 more circuit to go through and apparently the ones on my console arent the greatest- and alot of the time, the +4/-10 switch is kind of a pad... or kinda the opposite.... it amplifies the signal-

blah- honesty im trashed out of my mind and probably am not helping you at all.... but il venture to guess that someone on here will correct me and clarify it a bit further

froshizzle


Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 08:56:03 +0100
Subject: GAIN STRUCTURE
From: mark@markfrancombe.com
To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com

OK,, technical people...

I have never been very good at technical stuff, despite having enough gear to launch a shuttle.
So now i want a technical 101 type course in getting a good gain structure in my gear.
I just took receipt of a new EDP and got it up and running synched with the old edp (Jeez.. easy peazy and OMG what potential... having 2 EDP's is way more useful than having 2 EDPS)

As planned I took out a 3 U mixer from my rack and put in its place a 1 U  (both behringer I'm afraid, cant afford anything else).

Now, for some reason,  the 2 EDP's are completely different sounding (old one is kinda muddy and bassy, loses top), and the thing is that I just cant get a good level without distortion on the loop (too high level going in) or too low and hissy.

Now some of the hissyness appears to be the effects that each EDP is going thru, (a red sound federation, on edp1 and a Roland EF303 on edp2) But each EDP only has ONE effect to go thru... surely that must be OK???

So now I have SO MANY input level controls on my system, something is causing distortion I dont know how to start... heres the signal chain.

  1. From guitar (first a few stomps) First level control VORTEX
  2. Second level control MIXER INPUT (two levels on switch +4 or -10) + track level. (up to here is ok, I can hear that my guitar is clean and undistorted, and has some headroom when I hit the thing (Vortex lights up red only on REALLY loud hits)
  3. Third level control, SEND level (both track sens and overall SENDS level control)
  4. Fourth level control EDP input level
  5. Fifth level control EFFECT input level control (altho there is really no input level control on the red sound federation, just a gain adjust in one of the menus)
  6. and SIXTH input level control MIXER INPUT (two levels on switch +4 or -10) + track level. (this is where EDPs + effects are returned to mixer)

So what is a good routine in figuring out a gain stucture, that is both loud and clean?... and what should I set the mixer level switches to... loud or quiet? (+4 or -10)

Now I dont want any... "Get better gear" answers... that just nonsense, Ive heard some of you guys recordings, and all have shitloads of effects and cables and SOUND GREAT!!! NO hiss..

Help me out... Im 35 years in music, and Ive NEVER realy got the hang of impedance or whatever... for instance, this beringer mixer has balanced IN's (if I use stereo cables) but EDP isnt that.. or any of my guys right????


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