Signal loss

[bottomfeed]

In the past, I have had up to 6 pedals on a board at a time & not really had much signal loss... Now I have 8 pedals on a pedaltrain 1 & I have been having to use my Phathed PD7 on clean boost setting, to compensate for the drop in signal... I want to use it for it's varied distortion/overdrive sounds... even though it's a noisy pedal, I kinda like what it does....
I bought a EHX nano LPB-1 booster (cheapest option available to me at the time) to see if that could take over the job but it seems to distort, wherever it goes in the chain & is also a noisy pedal... more so than the Phathed!!

How can I get my through pedals sound matched to my comp only sound, without spending a fortune?

Any advice gratefully received


After much experimentation, I have ended up with this signal chain....
loop 1 - EBS multicomp to amp
loop 2 - EBS multicomp, Aphex bass xciter, EBS octabass, Dod envelope filter, Colorsound bass fuzz, Ibanez PD7, Boss chorus, Boss DD6 delay.

[phil.i.stein]

[quote name='bottomfeed' post='1199899' date='Apr 14 2011, 08:34 PM']In the past, I have had up to 6 pedals on a board at a time & not really had much signal loss... Now I have 8 pedals on a pedaltrain 1 & I have been having to use my Phathed PD7 on clean boost setting, to compensate for the drop in signal... I want to use it for it's varied distortion/overdrive sounds... even though it's a noisy pedal, I kinda like what it does....
I bought a EHX nano LPB-1 booster (cheapest option available to me at the time) to see if that could take over the job but it seems to distort, wherever it goes in the chain & is also a noisy pedal... more so than the Phathed!!

How can I get my through pedals sound matched to my comp only sound, without spending a fortune?

Any advice gratefully received

After much experimentation, I have ended up with this signal chain....
loop 1 - EBS multicomp to amp
loop 2 - EBS multicomp, Aphex bass xciter, EBS octabass, Dod envelope filter, Colorsound bass fuzz, Ibanez PD7, Boss chorus, Boss DD6 delay.[/quote]
a few ideas, some may or not work..

1) octaver>distortion/fuzz>filter>chorus/delay

2) after suggestion 1) try swapping compressor between start of chain and end of chain.

3) initially, try to experiment without the aphex x-citer (these pedals are great at making small amps sound big, but depending on your amp/pedalchain you may find you don't need it at all), then if signal is still weak, try it at the end as a boost.

4) ultimately you'd be better off with better pedal connectors, like george l's or planet waves, but they are expensive, so leave that option until you've tried all others.

worth a shot..

p.s. what are you using to achieve 2 loops, the amp or an ls-2 (or similar) ?

Edited April 14, 2011 by phil.i.stein

[cheddatom]

can't you set your pedal's volume controls so that you get no decrease in volume when you engage them? If not that's pretty crap. A boost at the end of loop 2, or using an LS-2 as your loop switcher (it has volume controls) would work.

Edited April 15, 2011 by cheddatom

[DanOwens]

First of all, can you clarify whether your volume drop occurs when the pedals are engaged or bypassed?

In either situation, is it a cumulative result or is it one or two pedals that are the culprits?

Worst case scenario is that it is cumulative (ie each pedals adds -0.4dB of gain, resulting in an overall drop of around 3dB) and occurs when the pedals are bypassed. If that's the case I would request either Umph (Mammoth Audio) or SilentFly (sfx) build you a custom true bypass strip like this one:

[ThomBassmonkey]

[quote name='phil.i.stein' post='1199946' date='Apr 14 2011, 09:07 PM']try swapping compressor between start of chain and end of chain.[/quote]

If your compression is subtle, I'd suggest this.

Have you tried taking out the pedals one at a time? It might be one or two pedals clashing that's causing the problem.

[bottomfeed]

Thanks for the suggestions...


"4) ultimately you'd be better off with better pedal connectors, like george l's or planet waves, but they are expensive, so leave that option until you've tried all others."

[i]Yes, I fear this is true...[/i]

"try swapping compressor between start of chain and end of chain"

[i]Hmmm.... I'll give this a go.... I'd still have the delay at the end of the chain though, yes? Even though it's set subtle, wouldn't want it interfering with the decay of the delay....[/i]


"p.s. what are you using to achieve 2 loops, the amp or an ls-2 (or similar) ?"

[i]a bright onion micro looper[/i]

"can't you set your pedal's volume controls so that you get no decrease in volume when you engage them? If not that's pretty crap. A boost at the end of loop 2, or using an LS-2 as your loop switcher (it has volume controls) would work."

[i]This is what effectively happens if I use the PhatHed on clean to match the signals...makes it a little complicated to use the distortion sounds from it live though.
Boost at the end.... before delay or after?
[/i]
"Have you tried taking out the pedals one at a time? It might be one or two pedals clashing that's causing the problem"

[i]Good idea, I have a feeling the culprits are the Colorsound & the Dod.. plus leads & some cheap daisychain power conectors [/i]

"First of all, can you clarify whether your volume drop occurs when the pedals are engaged or bypassed?"

[i]bypassed... If I switch through the effects loop, with none of them on... it drops significantly [/i]

"In either situation, is it a cumulative result or is it one or two pedals that are the culprits?"

[i]A bit of both... but I will experiment to clarify this... (board is packed for gig tonight, so will have to do tomorrow)[/i]

[cheddatom]

so you have all your pedals in a bypass loop, and even when they're all individually bypassed, there is a drop in signal when you switch in your loop?

Does it do this if you have your basses output turned down? Try about half way on the volume knob.

but yeh, you should probably solve the problem at the source, so go through each pedal and figure out which one(s) is cutting out your signal and maybe replace that with something better.

[DanOwens]

[quote name='cheddatom' post='1203246' date='Apr 18 2011, 09:26 AM']go through each pedal and figure out which one(s) is cutting out your signal and maybe replace that with something better.[/quote]

Tom's on the money here. It sounds to me like either a broken pedal or (at a stretch) a pedal with a preamp section that isn't bypassed when the pedal is disengaged. The Moogs do this which means that if you bypass the pedal the drive circuit still effects your signal (very bloody annoying!).

Dan

[bottomfeed]

Right!... It's the colorsound bass fuzz.... The battery adapter to connect it to my mains supply was dodgy... but it actually loses some signal & a bit of bottom end anyway.
The Dod filter loses some bottom end too, even with the blend knob hard left... all the others seem reasonable..

I used to have a Colorsound Tonebender many years ago (1979!) & a friend modded it so more bottom end came through.. it was ace... sadly, got rid of it.. & in a recent search for that sound again, bought the bass fuzz a little while back for todays price of £129 (my original purchase was £26, I do believe!) ... I reckon it's gunna need some tweaking to make it work on the board.. & maybe I could use a new envelope filter?...

I've ordered a George L kit through Digital Village (not too bad a price at £65!) I have a refund of £28.45 from them for the LPB-1 anyway, so wont be as painful as parting with the full wack...

Hopefully this will sort it...

Bit disappointed in the Colorsound though, it's a bit sh*t to spend all that money & still have to pay out to rebuild the thing so it's usable....

[cheddatom]

perhaps a small blender just for the two pedals you have issues with would solve your problems. I have seen blenders in a very small enclosure but I can't remember what brand they were.

[xgsjx]

If you have the pennies, get the Moog MF-101 filter & a exp pedal comes in handy too (tho not essential for finky wah stuff, as it tracks very well).
It actually increases bottom end so it might compensate the low end loss for your Colorsound thingy.

I tried a compressor at the end of my chain & all it did was increase the noise floor. Might have been me not spending a lot of time with it tho (it was the guitarist's Boss compressor).

[DanOwens]

[quote name='xgsjx' post='1204516' date='Apr 19 2011, 10:20 AM']If you have the pennies, get the Moog MF-101 filter.....[/quote]

My advice would be to find a solution, rather than trying to mask the problem. I would, however, recommend the MF101 just for kicks.

[xgsjx]

[quote name='DanOwens' post='1204679' date='Apr 19 2011, 12:53 PM']My advice would be to find a solution, rather than trying to mask the problem. I would, however, recommend the MF101 just for kicks.[/quote]
+1

I wouldn't suggest this to mask the problem. Now that you know what's causing the issue, fix it. But if you're wanting to replace the Dod & keep the Colorsound & losing bottom end, it's a great option (IMO of course).