wolper Posted October 8, 2007 Share Posted October 8, 2007 Hi again everyone, So I was wondering if anyone can help (again) hehe. I have been using a Boss Loopstation pedal with my guitars, basses, and a now a drum machine (and anything else with an output) and I wanted to be able to have all the instruments plugged in at the same time. So, I bought a cheap 2nd hand 4-track mixer and I tried putting it at the beginning of the fx chain, but it doesn't seem to work properly.. Am I doing anything wrong? I have it set up as follows... instruments in>mixer>mixer out>guitar/bassfx>loopstation>amp If anyone could help it would be fantastic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dood Posted October 8, 2007 Share Posted October 8, 2007 There's no reason why it shouldnt work, when hooked up correctly. Firstly, what is the mixer make and model? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dood Posted October 8, 2007 Share Posted October 8, 2007 oh and whilst I'm at it.. with the signal chain you have given, anything you plug into the mixer will be affected by the guitar and bass effects too, is this what you want from the set up? (so, if you plug in a drum machine, it will get any noises you have on your effects) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alun Posted October 8, 2007 Share Posted October 8, 2007 Hello. When you say it's not working properly, what's the problem you're having? Cheers, Alun Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolper Posted October 8, 2007 Author Share Posted October 8, 2007 Hi guys. Note to self: check all cables and connections etc. It turns out that a couple of cables have breaks in them. They were all working perfectly until I started to move them around! It does now work, though the signal is a bit distorted for some reason. It sounds ok though through my fx pedals. Sorry to trouble you all on such a simple mistake. Its a Soundmaster MM-2 if anyone is interested. It is pretty neat and only cost a tenner. [url="http://img514.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img3044largefq1.jpg"][/url] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolper Posted October 8, 2007 Author Share Posted October 8, 2007 [quote name='dood' post='71166' date='Oct 8 2007, 06:35 PM']oh and whilst I'm at it.. with the signal chain you have given, anything you plug into the mixer will be affected by the guitar and bass effects too, is this what you want from the set up? (so, if you plug in a drum machine, it will get any noises you have on your effects)[/quote] Yeah, its not ideal to have the drum machine running through the fx though I am still trying to find the best place for it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheddatom Posted October 9, 2007 Share Posted October 9, 2007 Why don't you put the mixer after the FX, but before the looper. It's a cool idea, i was doing something like this the other day, mixing my playing through my board, with weird noises on another FX unit. My little mixer is very crappy though, and destroys my tone :-( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joegarcia Posted October 9, 2007 Share Posted October 9, 2007 If you had a better mixer you could use an auxillary send. You could either use it to send whatever to the looper and have in return on another channel or use it to send to your fx which would return to another channel. I do this with my looper and board and it works really well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolper Posted October 9, 2007 Author Share Posted October 9, 2007 [quote name='cheddatom' post='71444' date='Oct 9 2007, 09:52 AM']Why don't you put the mixer after the FX, but before the looper. It's a cool idea, i was doing something like this the other day, mixing my playing through my board, with weird noises on another FX unit. My little mixer is very crappy though, and destroys my tone :-([/quote] I just tried putting the mixer before the Loop pedal and it does sound better. I can also have two separate chains for guitar and bass. My mixer does destroy my guitar tone, though it doesn't seem to affect the bass tone too much. I just need to buy a few more pedals I guess--noise reduction being a must! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolper Posted October 9, 2007 Author Share Posted October 9, 2007 [quote name='joegarcia' post='71544' date='Oct 9 2007, 01:22 PM']If you had a better mixer you could use an auxillary send. You could either use it to send whatever to the looper and have in return on another channel or use it to send to your fx which would return to another channel. I do this with my looper and board and it works really well.[/quote] Thanks for the advice. I think I remember that for any future plans! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheddatom Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 Does the bass sound good and the guitar crap because the bass has a good tone coming out of the board, and the guitar is going straight into the mixer? If you had a little pedal for a nice tone for the guitar, and put that before the mixer, it could solve it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silent Fly Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 Hi Wolper, Personally I wouldn't connect the mixer the way you did. There are a couple of reasons why is not good idea: - Guitar and basses need to "see" a high impedance input to work properly. From what you say I gather you have an active bass but a passive guitar. If the bass is active, it can be connected to a low impedance input but it is not ideal. This is why we use DI boxes. - The tone settings of you amp change the sound of your drums. Instead, I would connect it this way: bass-->amp and in the send/return of your amp: send-->[mixer input 4 ~~ mixer out]-->return then set the input gain 4 to gain 0 (aka no-gain and no-attenuation) and mixer output to gain 0. After you set it this way, do not touch it. The guitar tone is going to be bad anyway. You can resolve this using a pedal like an EQ o compressor before the mixer. You have to be careful as the mixer is connected to the power amp of you amp directly. In other words, your master volume has no effect on the mixer output. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolper Posted October 10, 2007 Author Share Posted October 10, 2007 [quote name='Silent Fly' post='72030' date='Oct 10 2007, 10:03 AM']Hi Wolper, Personally I wouldn't connect the mixer the way you did. There are a couple of reasons why is not good idea: - Guitar and basses need to "see" a high impedance input to work properly. From what you say I gather you have an active bass but a passive guitar. If the bass is active, it can be connected to a low impedance input but it is not ideal. This is why we use DI boxes. - The tone settings of you amp change the sound of your drums. Instead, I would connect it this way: bass-->amp and in the send/return of your amp: send-->[mixer input 4 ~~ mixer out]-->return then set the input gain 4 to gain 0 (aka no-gain and no-attenuation) and mixer output to gain 0. After you set it this way, do not touch it. The guitar tone is going to be bad anyway. You can resolve this using a pedal like an EQ o compressor before the mixer. You have to be careful as the mixer is connected to the power amp of you amp directly. In other words, your master volume has no effect on the mixer output.[/quote] Thanks for the advice. I shall try and have a play about with it all later on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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