Alesis rack compressor to have secondary use?

[MuddBass]

Right, chaps (and lasses).

What i'm trying to do is blend a wet (with effects) signal and a direct (no affects) signal to my amp.

Is there a way I can use my STEREO / Twin channel Alesis 3630 rack compressor to do this.

Ideally, I'd like to compress prior to one line going to the effects pedalas, but I guess this makes it harder. I am trying to avoid using a LS2 pedal for example.

There must be a way of rigging the compressor up to do this, and it would also serve the function of blending each channel on the fly mid gig for example, using the seperate channel volume controls.

Does any of this make sense to anyone?

Greg

[Stewart]

A stereo compressor isn't intrinsically going to help with your basic requirement - which is for a two (or more) channel mixer...

[Dood]

However, you can split the signal using the 3630, if you have a means to blend the signals back together.

Using the side chain, the 'send' output (which I can't remember if it is 'ring' or 'tip' on the socket pins) will allow you to send an UNCOMPRESSED direct signal out of that channel of the compressor. I used to use this, so I could blend a dry signal with a compressed signal at the mixed inputs of my effects unit.

you *could* take the send into channel 2 of the compressor, allowing you to have 2 compressors in parallel. One could then feed your effects, whilst the other could simply be used as a gain or balancing stage.. or even a limiter.

You would just need to be able to mix those signals back up later. A simple passive resistor network *could* suffice, if you were returning the signal to a high impedence 'return'.

If you are using this method, don't return an effected signal to the side chain, unless you specifically want the compressor to be controled by this signal. (you wont hear your effects by doing this, as it is a control signal only)