EBS Stanley Clarke Acoustic Preamp

[jrixn1]

9 hours ago, JPJ said:

I struggle with the peak signal flashing constantly with the gain set at about 11 o’clock with a passive P bass, whether there are effects engaged or not. I’d have expected the loop to only show on the post peak?

 

You originally wrote that the gain was "hardly on" but subsequently said that it's at 11 o'clock - which is it?  11 o'clock is about 40% way round on that pot, so it's not unreasonable.  My P bass peaks at 2 o'clock with the eq flat - but I do often slightly boost some low mids, so my gain is usually at 1 o'clock.

You also said "the gain is so low that I’m actually missing something from my tone".  The 'peak' light is pretty objective though for setting the correct level.  How is the tone of your basses through the EBS if you remove all other pedals from the chain (before, after, and in the effects loop)?

I agree that the peak light is independent of anything that comes after it, including the effects loop.  One thing to say though is that the effects loop has the option of series or parallel.  I think parallel mode will affect the gain structure (even if the pedals in the loop are bypassed), since it's summing two signals.  So in that case, the EBS input gain would need reducing.

 

[JPJ]

19 minutes ago, jrixn1 said:

I agree that the peak light is independent of anything that comes after it, including the effects loop.  One thing to say though is that the effects loop has the option of series or parallel.  I think parallel mode will affect the gain structure (even if the pedals in the loop are bypassed), since it's summing two signals.  So in that case, the EBS input gain would need reducing.

 

Boom! By Jove I think you’ve cracked it!

 

I was indeed running the effects loop in parallel. Just tried it now with my Lindy Fralin equipped Lakland P (a reasonably high output passive bass). In parallel mode, input gain was around 8 o’clock and still an occasional flash of the input peak light. In serial mode, I could crank the input gain to almost 12 o’clock before the input peak light flashed. The loop has the TC Plethora X3 and a Sansamp v2 (so EBS > TC Plethora > Sansamp > EBS) and all effects were off. I’ve a new toy arriving (hopefully) very soon that will require a rewire of my board, so I will do more extensive testing to work out the best signal path. 

[Ramirez]

On 28/05/2024 at 10:01, JPJ said:

I feel that the gain is so low that I’m actually missing something from my tone.

. 

 

The entire gain range is there to be used, so that’s no problem. In a well designed circuit the gain does not change your tone (obviously, circuits designed to deliberately overdrive/distort behave differently) It is simply clean gain, designed to optimise your signal level for the next stage.

 

Your gain has a wide range in order to cater for difference in output between different basses, as you’ve found. Just set it accordingly.

[JPJ]

1 hour ago, Ramirez said:

 

The entire gain range is there to be used, so that’s no problem. In a well designed circuit the gain does not change your tone (obviously, circuits designed to deliberately overdrive/distort behave differently) It is simply clean gain, designed to optimise your signal level for the next stage.

 

Your gain has a wide range in order to cater for difference in output between different basses, as you’ve found. Just set it accordingly.

I don’t disagree, but if you don’t gain stage correctly at each point in your signal chain you will eventually run into trouble (something I learned early on running PA for various bands). With the EBS, I feel/felt like I had too little gain at the start of my chain and that the peak light was almost permanently on even at moderate settings despite the output sounding ‘weak’. I also learned that, despite what EBS support told me, if you drive the preamp to the point where both the pre and post peak LED’s are flashing away, you suffer a signal drop similar to a hard compression (I could see this on the input VU of my Ashdown amp). I suppose this is better than a really awful square wave distortion but it’s still not very nice when you experience it for the first time.

 

As I said above, I will be re-wiring my pedal board soon so I will play around with the order of my pedals to see which gives the best results.

Edited May 30 by JPJ

[Ramirez]

14 minutes ago, JPJ said:

I don’t disagree, but if you don’t gain stage correctly at each point in your signal chain you will eventually run into trouble (something I learned early on running PA for various bands). With the EBS, I feel/felt like I had too little gain at the start of my chain and that the peak light was almost permanently on even at moderate settings despite the output sounding ‘weak’. .

Well yes, that’s exactly the point I’m making. Gain staging is crucial in order to get the best from each stage in the chain. If your peak light is permanently on, then you have too much gain - the light responds to the level going through, not to the actual physical position of the control.

 

You need to set your gain so that the peak light does not come on. If the output is sounding ‘weak’ (can you elaborate on this?) then turn up your monitor volume (or amp, however you use it), or you might need a little gain at the mixing desk to bring it up to operating level there. The gain level will not make your bass sound weak by itself- it’s just to set a healthy working level for your signal, loud enough to be noise-free, and quiet enough to avoid clipping/distortion. It’s not an ‘effect’.

If the lights are on, you simply have too much gain.

[JPJ]

And the calm is restored, along with my faith in the EBS Stanley Clarke. After watching a couple of videos on YouTube by recognised pro recording engineers, and conversing with you lovely people on here, I came to the conclusion that, alongside the aforementioned series/parallel loop issue, I was really running to much additive tone on both the SC and the Ashdown. So I went back to first principles, turned all the tone controls to their zero position, and started from scratch using subtractive rather than additive tone changes, just as I would when mixing FOH. The result, the best tone I’ve had across fretless P and EUB both ‘on stage’ and FOH in a long long time. Still got a rare flash of the post peak LED on the SC, but it was literally that, a rare flash. 
I’m sitting here typing this feeling slightly stupid. When running FOH sound this is my go to technique, and I seldom need more than a 3db cut to tame any wild frequency. But playing bass, It’s so easy to keep adding and adding more and more tone boosts across the frequency spectrum until all you’ve actually achieved is a very loud obnoxious mush. Going back to first principles has opened up my sound and by subtraction, rather than addition, I’ve retained all of the positives with none of the negatives. 

Edited June 2 by JPJ

[Paddy Morris]

Thanks for sharing that. It's good to know what the issue was.  Glad it's sorted.

[Ramirez]

Good to hear!