Tech21NYC

My main point is that IEM's do not have the ability to block all sound form the outside. On a very quiet stage maybe. When the outside sound (mainly low end frequencies) start to overwhelm your IEM mix you will automatically start to turn up your IEM's. IEM's seal off the ear canal and create pneumatic pressure on your ear drum. Turning up the IEM's can easily damage your hearing. Sensaphonic sells this tool so you can monitor the level of your IEM's to prevent you from unsafe levels. The problem is that if you can't hear with the IEM's at safe levels there is not much you can do. I purchased my old Sensaphonic IEM's because they are silicone and seal better than acrylic IEM's and because they also provide more isolation than other brands, at least on paper. Isolation: Up to 45.5 dB; broadband average 37 dB Noise Reduction Rating: NRR 29 dB I can tell you for a fact that on a loud stage they do not block enough outside sound. Look at where they put the sound system on one of our gigs. That big stack on the end of the stage was just a few feet from my vocal mic and guitar rig. My IEM's were useless. My gripe with playing in live venues in recent years is that the sound system is typically a bigger culprit when it comes to loud volumes. I always bring ear plugs to any venue whether I'm playing or not.

Perhaps I didn't make my point clearly. When you play with a band say drums, bass, guitars, keys etc in a room with live instruments you are (or should be) playing dynamically. If all you hear is "you" that means you are playing too loudly. A pro band should have a good stage mix among themselves before the PA system is even on. With an ampless/all instruments direct IEM mix you only know your instruments volume relationship that's in you IEM mix. You have no idea of knowing whether or not you are too loud or not loud enough in the mix. I've been to enough live shows to know when the person at the mixer is asleep at the mixer. Keyboards non existent one moment and piercingly loud the next. A guitarist that looks like he's soloing but you can barely hear it, and singers at completely different volume levels, kick drum, and bass heavy mixes with weak vocals etc. Mixing live music is probably the hardest skill to master and takes years of experience. On a local level your odds of working with a seasoned pro with hundreds to thousands of gigs under their belt are not good. The band I usually plays with is a 5 piece. Acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass, drums, keys and 4 of us sing. The acoustic and keys go direct, bass and electric guitars use amps and we use live drums. The two most inconsistent instruments are the keys and acoustic guitars. They both play direct and they both use IEM's. The tech we hire to run our PA and mix our shows works for a big sound company in NYC. He will be the first to tell you that most guys that "mix" basically set levels and don't do much else. It's pretty sad. Maybe things are better in the UK.

One thing to keep in mind with IEM's is that while they can "protect" your hearing to a certain degree if used properly they can also just as easily damage your hearing by monitoring too loudly. This happens quite easily if the stage volume overwhelms the isolation of the ear piece. Even with the custom plugs I've used over the years, 26dB and 37dB of isolation seems like more than enough isolation but the low end backwash from big PA systems will make it impossible to monitor at low levels. As you turn up the volume of your IEM's due to the sealed nature of the device you create pneumatic pressure in the ear canal that can damage your hearing. The other aspect is that while playing without an amp may be appealing for some, the band is now at the total mercy of the person mixing. The band no longer plays dynamically with one another because everyone is in their own universe.

This is not the best approach. The GED-2112 is a preamp and meant to take the place of your amp. It can be used directly into a mixer/interface, power amp and cab. If you want to use it with a bass amp it works best into the front input and your amp should be set flat. The Drive and Deep channels are fed by a single input. If you want to tie the channels together for single output use contact our support department. [email protected]

Do you have the GED-2112? Just run the pedal in front. There is not much benefit running in the loop. If you want to do that, send the 1/4" send on the back of the unit to the input of your chorus pedal and send the output of the pedal to the effects return jack.

The Blend control basically mixes between your un-effected signal and the SansAmp signal. This was implemented to emulate the type of signal chain that bass guitar was usually recorded with. In the studio or live, they would usually mic the bass amp and run a DI from the bass and the two sounds were mixed together at the console. The mic'd amp would be the main tonality and the DI'd signal would add punch and definition. If you put all the controls at 12 o'clock and engage the pedal with the Blend off or fully CCW, you will hear that your signal is the same as when bypassed. The Drive and Presence are the amp and speaker emulation. Ay you turn the Blend up to 12 o'clock your signal is 50/50 un-effected and SansAmp. The presence control is similar to the same control on a vintage tube amp. It adds high frequency content and also the attack envelope. Drive and Presence only work on the SansAmp portion of the circuit.

The sound tech that our band hires to setup the PA and mix works for a large sound company in NYC. He tells us that most sound techs don't even "mix", they set levels and that's about it. We've been on shows where the supplied sound tech is sitting by the mixer playing with his phone... This is not to say that all sound techs are clueless but just like many musicians on the aggregate they are mediocre at best. Our band brings our own monitor mixer so at least we don't have to depend on supplied sound for that.

Most people on this side of the pond. When you play without an amp you are totally at the mercy of the sound tech. Live sound mixing is a skill that takes years to master. I saw a 10 piece band over the weekend. Guitar, bass drums, percussion, horn section, 2 keys and vocals. The guitarist and keyboard player both went direct without stage amps, bass player had an amp. The guitarist had two sounds off and kind of sorta could hear him. The keys were anemic. The bass player sounded great. Just sayin'

Make sure that you are using the XLR or 1/4" SansAmp output. Make sure that you are not mistakenly using the 1/4" "uneffected" output. If the tone controls are still not working when the unit is active there must be an internal fault. You can sometimes get a ground hum when connecting the unit to another grounded device like an amplifier. The best and safest way to deal with that is with an isolation transformer. Please contact our customer support for additional help. [email protected]

We used to make the Landmark 300-600 heads which were the RBI/RPM in a single 300-600 watt head. You could alternate between the two channels or combine them. For some reason the bass community is all about feather weight class D heads now but to me a 23lb/10.4kg 300 watt head that is as loud as an Ampeg SVT was a no brainer.

The RBI is based on our Bass Driver DI. We recommend trying the sample settings to familiarize yourself with the unit. Because our SansAmps are emulating vintage tube amps the "Drive" control can be set for cleaner tones (8-11 o'clock) as well as more aggressive tones (12 o'clock and beyond). The Blend control allows you to pan between your unaffected signal(with tone controls) to full on amp emulation or mix of both. The Drive and Presence controls do not work when the Blend is at minimum.

The Para Driver was designed for the player that wanted more midrange control than the Bass Driver has to offer. Our soon to be released XB Driver is a culmination of the Bass Driver, Para Driver, Q\Strip and dUg Pinnick Ultra Bass 1000 amp. We try to offer a range of products that offer different tones. For many though, they just like the simplicity of the Bass Driver circuit.

No. The phantom or external DC turns off the battery. If phantom power goes out, the battery kicks in. If powered externally by DC power, the DC connector must be unplugged for the battery to work.

Which question?

We recommend having a battery installed when running the unit on phantom power. This way if the phantom power is lost there will be no signal interruption. In general, you should not leave batteries in any effects unit for extended periods. They tend to corrode and leak over time.