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Some noob questions.

Started by QReuCk, June 21, 2012, 06:47:47 AM

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QReuCk

Actually I just tried to use the jack of my footswitch to present a stereo side to the headphone out of the avenger and a mono side to the intup of the Peavey. It does work, and the sound is pretty much what it is when just using the Avenger alone. I have to be very light on the master of the avenger to not overdrive the Peavey's preamp though. Usage of the volume of the Avenger gives me the typicall drive I was looking at.
Using this with the drive chanel of the Peavey is amazing, but requires serious tweaking of the avenger's EQ.
I think I will need some time to really appreciate the potential it has and decide what to do with the info.

Roly

If the Peavey is now being over-driven even on its deaf input you are now well ahead and have a couple of options.  If it has an Fx loop you can try injecting your signal at Fx Return, but his means that all the preamp controls will be inactive.

Another option is to knock up an attenuator box to go in the lead that interconnects the amps.  You could make this a fixed attenuator with a couple of resistors in about a 10:1 to 100:1 ratio, or you could make it a bit more flexible by simply mounting a pot in any small container.

The input side would have a stereo plug and most of the lead, wired across the outside pot contacts, and given that this is at headphone impedance (very low) the cable can be just about anything to hand such as fine twinflex - it doesn't need to be screened or shielded.

The pot can also be just about anything to hand that is more than about 1k and less than about 100k, log/audio is ideal but linear would work too.

The output lead should be shorter, say just enough to allow the box to to sit on top of the Peavey and be caught under the amp handle, and ideally should be screened lead, 'tho if the pot is of a lowish value you might get away with more twin; the screen going to the end of the pot connected to the source amp ground (stereo plug body) and carried through to the mono plug body output going to the Peavey, and the screened inner going from the pot wiper to the mono plug tip.

The container can be just about anything, such as a plastic soap container from the $2 shop or whatever you can scrounge, but a small tin such as are used for mints is near ideal since if you ground the tin to the common it will provide shielding. In this case I'd consider finding some screened cable for the input side which will make the gizmo useful for other applications were the source impedance isn't as low as a headphone output, for example the Fx Send of another amp.

I have a bag full of gizmos like this to adapt things together when required on-stage or as part of the PA/sound system, and I use plastic keyrings with paper labels on the cables to record how each is wired.

HTH
If you say theory and practice don't agree you haven't applied enough theory.

QReuCk

I'm actually in a process of thinking about what to do with my current gear and what would help me use it in an efficient way.
Next test will be to bring both my amps to our next rehearsal and actually try the avenger alone and/or the avenger chained with the Peavey at rehearsal volumes. Last time I did try the avenger with a drummer was with a too loud drummer (you know the typical metal-fan drummer who slams the stick as strong as humanly possible). My current drummers are a bit easier on the sticks I believe so it could work.
I'll have the opportunity to hear if it still retains the warm "on the verge of crunching" tone I like.
Then I can think of a couple of configuration:
1° a line selector with adjustable loop level (e.g. Boss LS2 stompbox unit) to insert the avenger in its loop. That could put some warmth in the Peavey clean chanel when needed and give a boost to the overdriven chanel, effectively turning the settup into a 4 chanel system with two foot switches (Peavey clean alone - Peavey clean turned warmer by the Avenger - Peavey Overdriven - Peavey overdriven with the Avenger pushing it). By the tests I made, all 4 tones are definitely usable. It should be noted that a unit such as a LS2 can mix dry signal to loop signal, so the possibilities do look insane.
2° only if the Avenger alone can be heard in the band mix, why not try to run both my amps in parallel (stereo). This could either be run with the help of a standard AB box I think, but in this case I might also try to insert an EQ with adjustable overall gain (or replace both with a Kerry King MXR 108 which is an EQ with 2 outputs). I think it might be interesting to run both amps as I believe a clean amp in parallel with a slightly crunching crunching one does have somme merit and the dynamic of the playing could also benefit runing a slightly crunching amp in parallel of a more overdriven one.

Anyway, to test things without spending too much money, I might consider your gismo idea, but would probably try to make it a "Y" gismo (one input, two outputs).

QReuCk

So I tested the Avenger at rehearsal volume. Although it can be heard, the tone is no longer there. That probably had to be expected from a combo with a shitty 6' HP.  :duh
Surprisingly enough, all this process of trying things with an open mind led me to a wonderfull tone with the Peavey alone on the clean chanel. Basic settup process is
- using both (humbucker) pickups of the Benett, all pots of the Peavey's EQ at 12 o'clock, tone of the neck PU at 9, tone of the bridge at 7, volume of each PU at around 6
- dial in the bass content and the high harmonic content only by fine tuning the volume of each PU
- then dial the Amp EQ to had or reduce mids
It does work wonders, but I still have to work on a saturated tone. Options are:
1° to EQ the drive chanel of the amp (separated EQ) to work with the same PU configuration. Nice once the chanel is EQed properly, but bth pickups sort of put out of phase certain mid frequencies, with can be good but produces mainly a nice slightly overdriven tone - not suited to highly overdriven/distorted tones
2° assume that I will switch to only one PU when saturated and EQ the drive chanel to a good compromise work with only the bridge and with only the neck PU with tones respectively on 9 and 7. Better suited to lead tones I guess, unfortunately, that's not the same EQ as the one which works with my "both PU" conf.
3° assume that I will boost either one of the PU when using drive chanel, but staying on both (i.e: turn the volume knob of one of the PU to reach 10). This would be nice as it sort of brings back all the controls on the guitar, but I still have to work on EQing this chanel first.

This setup is cool, but I could have use of something to either boost and fatten the clean chanel and/or adds just that bit of more punch to the drive one. I've found on the net some reference to a, affordable pedal and would like your opinion about it (or it's concept at least): Ibanez LF7. It's basically a passive low cut with cut frequency tunable from about 100Hz to 1000Hz, a Hich cut with cut frequency tunable from 1000hz to 10000hz, combine with a clean boost and a pre gain, that is supposed to crunch a bit when pushed.
Although some use that for dealing a "through telephone line" tone with extreme knob positions, Ibanez claims that this can also be used to add some warmth to a solid state amp with more moderate ones. I guess that put in the signal chain between the guitar and the preamp, it could be interesting to cut those unneeded lows and highs, and why not to add a bit of some dirty old pre gain to my clean chanel. At least on paper, this could also prove usable (although not as good as a real EQ with clean boost) with my nylon accoustic with a non-preamped piezzo. Any thoughts about this approach?

Roly

Quote from: QReuCk
all this process of trying things with an open mind led me to a wonderfull tone with the Peavey alone

:cheesy:  That's good.

I've had a look at the circuit of the Ibanez LF7 and I'm inclined to say that you may be better off with a graphic or parametric EQ.

Quote from: QReuCk
accoustic with a non-preamped piezzo

This is a whole other issue.  Piezo's must work into a high impedance or they sound thin and scratchy, and by "high" I mean around 2-3 megohms or more, which is a lot higher than most guitar amps.  To get anything like a full range from a piezo you really must have a Hi-Z FET buffer or something similar.  There are a number of designs of simple DIY FET buffers for piezo's on the web;

http://scotthelmke.com/Mint-box-buffer.html

http://www.diyguitarist.com/Guitars/PiezoBuffer.htm

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=92274.0

www.youtube.com/watch?v=O53h5mW8mBk

&c&c&c.

In all cases these buffers must go as near to the piezo pickup as possible, ideally inside the guitar, at worst in a belt pack - on the floor with a long leading cable won't help nearly as much and pick up a lot of electrical noise.

HTH
If you say theory and practice don't agree you haven't applied enough theory.

mexicanyella

Yep...try playing around with an EQ pedal; it's likely you could boost/cut/shape all you'd need with one of those.

And as a guy who likes to play through a small solid-state Peavey cranked hard with subdued EQ settings, I would encourage you to experiment with getting your more-saturated sound by introducing a signal boost between the guitar and amp, while leaving the amp in the clean-channel configuration you described. You won't get anything like a hard, preamp-centric Marshally crunch, with all the bright shiny "teeth" in the sound, but you will likely get some dirt, compression and sustain and maybe you'll like that sound, as I have grown to. If you do like it, it's easy as hell to use...the non-boosted clean channel can cover a lot of ground, and when you need to punch up a riff or take a solo, just step on that boost and let 'er rip. Works great, sounds different and cuts through the mix pretty well despite limited wattage...and in my case, another thing about this approach that appealed to me was that I didn't have to deal with needing separate EQ settings for clean and dirty. The two sounds were close enough that one setting worked for both, and I like being a set-it-and-forget-it kind of guy.

QReuCk

Roly: surprisingly enough, I had some compliments for the tone of this piezzo directly put into the clean chanel of the Peavey. It's certainly not "thin" and it is even a great deal better than the accoustic sound of the guitar captured with a chip mic such as the ones you can find in cameras or webcams.
Only thing is with same volume knob position on the same amp, it's something like 20dB less loud than an electric.

Mexy, do you mean clean boosting between the guitar and amp, or rather using a slight overdrive?

mexicanyella

Quote from: QReuCk on July 12, 2012, 09:31:26 AM

Mexy, do you mean clean boosting between the guitar and amp, or rather using a slight overdrive?

I use clean boost from a DOD FX-10 Bi-Fet Preamp pedal to push the amp's circuitry (set right at the edge of breaking up, on the clean channel) over the top.

QReuCk

OK, do you have an idea of how many db gain your clean boost has? Just to sort out what type of gain I would need to achieve this type of result.

Remark: If I want a preamp centric type of distortion, I'm pretty sure some work on the EQ of the drive chanel (which is a pretty decent one on the Envoy - just not that easy to set up for a "two humbuckers in parallel" guitar signal) will do the trick, but you know how it is: you can work at home at low volume, and you still have to rework your EQ once in the rehearsal room with the drummer (and bass player, and the other guitarist, and even a saxophone in my case) doing his thing. It's pretty hard to say to them all: "OK guys, sorry but I have to work on my EQ" when everyone just wants to work on songs... especially when they all think your tone is not that bad already  ::).

mexicanyella

#24
I think the FX-10 pedal can produce about 20dB of gain boost, and I run the boost level at least 75-80% of the way up. It stays clean up to 100%, but my amp gets a little sloppier than I like if I push that hard...these are pretty low-output single-coil pickups I'm using, so your needs will likely vary.

EDIT: I looked it up and found a site that quotes the manual as claiming up to +17dB of boost, not +20dB. Here's the link to the page on the FX-10:

http://www.americaspedal.net/fx10/

For an idea of what I'm talking about, here are two songs with me using a one-single-coil Gibson Melody Maker, the FX-10 for boost, a DOD compressor pedal set conservatively but on the whole time and the Peavey Audition 20.

http://alonetone.com/benniven/tracks/dont-expect-a-call

Here I was pretty much using the boost on the choruses, and there's an unaccompanied guitar break (not boosted) and then the whole band comes in before the last chorus. When the whole band comes in I am slashing at some chords with the boost on. As you can hear, it still sounds pretty much like the amp did with no boost, but it's louder and a little grindier and the feel is much different...it's more compressed and sustainy. Having it in front of the slight compression effect adds to this, but it does that without the compressor too, just by hitting the amp's input harder.

http://alonetone.com/benniven/tracks/bleach-bald-snow-tires

On this one I'm using the boost on the guitar solo, and I think it sounds like it. I switch it back off after the solo.

Now, you'll note the amp tone is fairly clean on both songs. Just slightly broken up. If you use the boost in front of a more distorted sound, it has a pretty dramatic effect. In a former band I used to run the boost, a ProCo Rat 2 (gain set pretty low but on all the time) and a BBE d.i. box (with its speaker emulation switched on) into a clean amp, and in that case, I had a medium-gain crunch tone with no boost, a cleanish tone if I played softly with my humbucker's coil tap engaged, and gain meltdown with the boost on, for solos. If that's more what you want to hear, I'll see if I can upload some of that stuff.

QReuCk

I finally bought a graphic EQ. Although the 10 band MXR looked nice, I settled with the Boss 7 bands for various reasons (one of them being the availability and a discount on this product, which was already cheaper at list price).
I made some quick tests yesterday, and I think I can confidently say that an EQ in front is probably one of the most versatile stompbox anyone can in front of a 2 chanel SS amp.
First thing: the Boss is not true bypass. As far as I can tell, this is actually a good thing: the buffer really adds some fullness to the sound, even if it is the only effect in the chain. Not sure about why it does so, but ihe amp already sound more dynamic with it.
Then the possibilities of the EQ itself + the level adjustment... wow!
I just fiddled with various positions of the slidders and so far I have been able to:
- slightly clean boost (which as Mexi pointed out adds some grit to the clean chanel of the Peavey). My personal sweet spot is somewhere around a +6/+7db boost, but I run humbuckers
- reduce the part I didn't like in the sound of the attack (in my case, just cutting 3 to 6db out of the 800Hz band is very helpfull with both my electrics, but I would guess it is player/strings/pick/guitar/amp dependant)
- dial a super soft overdrive from the drive chanel (just cut 200Hz and under a bit on the pedal, boost back lows/low mids on the amp tonestack and dial in the level of gain you like)
- dial a super high gain tone without parasitic noises (100Hz +/-0db, 200Hz +5db, 400Hz +2db, 800Hz -5db, 1600Hz 0db, 3200Hz -3db, 6400Hz 0 db + amp's tone stack not that far from flat)
- use the pedal as a dirty oldschool fuzz (drastically boost 100 and 200hz, and push the level a bit)
-...
I still have to gain experience using this, in particular at reheasal volumes (I only tried at home at low volume as of now), but I am pretty confident this EQ will be a key part of my rig in the future.

Mind you, some people say this particular unit produces some hiss, but what I found is that it's untrue unless you boost a lot in both the higher frequencies and the overall level. I would even say that it is a helpfull tool to reduce noises you don't want.

J M Fahey

Cool :tu:
Just what Dr Phatt recommended.

QReuCk

Yep, a lot of you guys obviously know what you are talking about. You all have been of a great help!