Genz Shuttle 3.0 + Barefaced Compact

[MoonBassAlpha]

Hi all
I did my first loud gig last weekend with this setup^, guit. bass drums lineup in a smallish pub room, good vocal pa.
There was no time for a sound check, so it was set and leave.
The EQ was left flat with no "shapes" set, passive (humbuckers) bass, input gain just about right up, master on just under half.
I found that as the gig went on, the input clipped a bit more than I would normally set it (getting excited? at MY age?), but also the output clip/limit light was coming on a lot in the louder bits - what a nice sound!
The way it transitions in to clipping gives the same sort of feel that a valve amp does, it seems to articulate in a very similar way.
The balance with the drums was just right, and we somewhat ruled the guitar between us!

It struck me that higher powered Shuttle users would miss out on this sound because it would simply be too loud to get to this nice clipping zone.
I felt at the time that if I wanted a really clean sound at this volume, then the Shuttle 3.0 doesn't quite do it, though backing off the input gain a tad and taking the master up might just do it. It's a shame there wasn't time to experiment, but there was a ton of bands to get on/off that day.
The cab sounded fine throughout, tilted back a touch (tight stage) and apparently reached the back of the pub just fine!

Jules

[alexclaber]

It's a good limiter isn't it - here's some stuff from Andy, Genz Benz design engineer, on it:

"The clip-limit LED turns on about 1.5-2dB before clip and this is also the threshold for the output tube emulation limiter which is a soft knee circuit that allows for a combination of soft clipping, compression and then harder limiting within the two dB before clip and ultimately compresses ~6dB of remaining input dynamic range into 1.5-2dB of output dynamic range before the power amplifier clips...

...Output limiting (and limiting in general) is an integral part of achieving some player's tone. This is one of the chief advantages of a tube power amp, where the inherent compression/limiting and graceful transition into clipping is a highly desireable feature. This mechanism has been emulated in our power amp's limiting algorithms (in the analog domain) and there is nothing wrong with driving the signal into the limiter just like with a tube power amp stage."

Also although GK (not GB) amps don't have any normal limiting (they have a longterm overcurrent IIRC but that's all) they are designed to be run into clipping and RAG's view is that you should choose the amp that 'hits the rails' at an appropriate SPL for you (obviously this is cab dependant, so for louder gigs take more speakers).

If you wanted that behaviour with a Shuttle 6.0 you'd have to use a quieter cab, like the Midget for instance (which isn't quieter in the mids but you'll need to boost the lows which will eat up a suitable amount of headroom). I guess you could also play some games with the acoustics, using them to your detriment to suck out lows and waste power.

I'm looking forward to gigging with my Shuttle - my rack rig is so far removed in that it has such massive headroom and almost zero distortion or compression in the signal chain that when you play louder it gets louder and louder and louder - much greater dynamic range than even the drums, which can lead to drowning out the rest of the band on fortissimo moments if you're not careful! Easy to forget how reliant even the live sound of rock and roll (and everything that it sired) is on compression.

Alex