BH12neil

Evening all. I hope somebody out there and put me out of my misery, I am having trouble setting up my mixer to do the following:- ~ To practice in silence with headphones ~ To be able to link to my pc so that I can use Songsterr and drum beats on the internet to jam too through headphones The attachment [attachment=114180:Soundcraft Notepad 102.JPG] shows the layout of my mixer so that all you good folks have an idea of the ports available. I have a balanced DI on my amp so have run an XLR cable from that to Mic 1 on the mixer. OBBM made me a cable to run from my PC to the mixer, the pc mini jack I have inserted into the blue output in the back of my computer and the 1/4 jacks into mixer with the white jack inserted into L and red jack inserted into R of the inputs marked 5-6 on the notepad. Headphones obviously into the phones socket. The result; sound comes out of the cabs, nothing through the headphones, sound comes through the PC speakers but not through the headphones. I must be missing something really simple here but for the life of me I can't see what it may be so all help from you technical types out there would be really appreciated. Please help me to understand your advice by offering it in the simplest possible terms because I will freely admit to to finding technicalities difficult to comprehend. Thanks in advance of some help. BH12neil

I have just bought a second hand Soundcraft Notepad 102 which I want to hook up to my PC. I am really confused over what cable I require, there seems so many types - balanced, unbalanced, stereo, mono etc - and I don't know what cable I need to go for. Can someone give me some advice and a pointer in the right direction, a link to a particular product would be good so that I can see exactly what I need. Of course I have done my own research but I am now more confused than when I started. All advice appreciated in advance. Cheers BH12neil

I am confident that there hasn't been a power surge as the power tower I use from the wall socket for adapters has surge protection on it and no surges have been detected. Thanks for the offer of the loan of the stuff but for the moment I think I have decided to run with a combination of the Gator Bus 8 and a newly purchased Harley Benton and in the fullness of time I'll review again. The daisy chain I bought was nearly as expensive as the Harley Benton so there seems little point in revisiting the daisy chain option in the circumstances. I think maybe in the future, when hopefully more funds are available, I will revisit this again and consider the Gig Rig or the Voodoo Lab but at the moment that's just not feasible. I really appreciate your comments, I've learnt a lot, thanks for your help. BH12neil

Thanks for your post Liam. Just had a look at the Harley Benton PowerPlant Junior, looks interesting - does yours run silently? For that price its almost worth getting two to accomodate the vast majority of my pedals; it's almost to good to be true, are there any drawbacks? BH12neil

At the moment I have a large pedal board which at present is run with a combination of a Gator Bus 8 and a cheap daisy chain. All of the pedals are relatively low draw in nature, and I've done the Ma maths to ensure that I'm not overloading which I'm not, there is headroom but an additional brick would improve that situation. My pedal board consists of:- MXR Bass Octave Deluxe > Coopersonic Dirtbox > Bass Big Muff > SFX Micro Black Dragon Distortion > Carl Martin Classic Opto Compressor > MXR Bass Auto Q > Aria Flanger >Analogman Mini Chorus > Earthquaker Grand Orbitor > A/B Box > El Nano The Mole. I also have an Akai Headrush and a Zoom B2.1u which are both powered independently by adapters and a Ghost Face Fuzz which is battery powered. I am finding that when using those pedals run by the daisy chain I am getting noise so I have moved pedals around to test whether its pedal noise or power supply noise (possibly ground loops), the result seemed to be that no matter what pedal was being powered by the daisy chain there was noise albeit to different extents. When powered by the Gator, what ever the pedal there was no noise. I am aware that the Gator isn't an isolated power block but it seems to work well without any negative issues to speak of. On a secondary point I hate the daisy chain from a visual point of view, its messy on the pedal board and seems to tangle everything up. Having decided to now replace the daisy chain with something better it seemed a good Idea to get something with isolated outputs to ensure that any power related issues would definately be dealt with, the plan was to invest in the Voodoo Lab brick but I can't afford it at the moment so I was looking for cheaper alternatives, hence the Artec which looked interesting. Of course I have no desire to spend any more money than is necessary to achieve my goal so if you are able to recommend any power supplies isolated or otherwise that come with solid recommendations that would be really appreciated. I realise from my own experience of the Gator block it's not absolutely essential to have isolation to achieve a quiet pedal board but I don't want to keep buying products that are not up to the task and then still ending paying for an expensive isolated unit. Thanks for taking an interest, I appreciate your comments. BH12neil

Ok, following still more research I have found the answer to my question. ARTEC POWER SUPPLIES DO NOT HAVE ISOLATED INPUTS. Thanks for your help pantherairsoft. BH12neil

Thanks pantherairsoft, the official site says that the units inputs are individually regulated and individually hum filtered, does that not mean they are isolated? Different terminology I appreciate, but does it mean the same thing? BH12neil

Can anyone advise whether these power supplies have isolated outputs or not, advise seems to be conflicting? Thanks BH12neil

Thanks for your replies. I have decided to go for the small mixer option and have chosen the Mackie 402VLZ3 however I am confused about how to connect my PC to the mixer or more precisely which cable is required. Can anyone direct me to an appropriate cable to get me started and advise which ports on my computer I would use to plug into. I appear to have headphone and microphone out ports on the front of the pc and all sorts of colour coded ports to the rear, it would be a lot easier to work out if I had the original blurb from Dell but I can't find it. UPDATE * Just had a fight with the computer and its wiring to see what ports are round the back and one of them is blue and marked line out; is the the correct one to use I wonder? UPDATE ** Another question springs to mind; would I need stereo or mono cables? BH12neil

I guess the title says it all, my amp doesn't include a dedicated headphone output so what I want to do is to be able to play with headphones but be able to hear sounds from my PC so that I can jam along to stuff or be able to use the likes of Songsterr in silence. I need to keep the neighbours on side at the moment. Is this even possible? My budget is about £80 and although I realise as with everything you get what you pay for, I don't want to compromise on sound quality just because its for practice. What cabling would be required, where would it plug into my amp or do these units operate on a stand alone basis. All the outputs/inputs on my amp are currently in use. Where would that leave me in terms of the effects that I have (I have both rackmount and pedals), would I still be able to access them in this scenario? Sorry if these questions are simple in nature but I am a bit confused as to how headphone amps work and after a little research I have now got to the point where I can't see the wood for the trees. Any advice always appreciated. BH12neil

Well after having a little problem with being able to get my diagram to appear I think I have sorted out that problem so it should now be attached and be able to be opened by you good people, also its been updated a little following some advice from a friend. On the basis of this signal chain will both amps be running at the same time, if so I guess I can EQ the pair of amps but I would prefer the EQ to run solely from the Gallien Krueger rig purely because I believe its the better one of the two, its my favourite and its therefore my primary rig. So notwithstanding the comments above from you good folk who have already posted, what do you technical gurus think of this plan, will it work and allow me to use two rigs simultaneously in the manner that i have explained in the diagram? All comments really appreciated, Regards, BH12neil

Right here we go, I have done a signal diagram as I understand the solution to be. The blue areas are already in place whilst the red areas are where proposed changes in cabling to and from need be made to achieve my goal. I hope this helps to clarifies what I am trying to achieve, they say that a diagram saves 100 words. All comments, advice or recommendations would be much appreciated. Regards, BH12neil

Thanks for your comments, still a little confused but then that is my usual state of mind. I am going to opt for using just the GK amp but both sets of cabs simultaneously when using the rack multi effects. Just for clarification of my understanding of this signal chain when I get home I am going to write out the full signal chain as I understand it to be. I would really appreciate someone checking it for me. Once again thanks for the help, its really appreciated. Regards, BH12neil

Hi there, Can one of you technical gurus out there help me with this conundrum? In addition to my main GK 1001 RB II and Neo Cab rig I have a second amp, an Ashdown MAG 300 II with an Ashdown cab. It would be nice to use this second rig simultaneously with the GK whilst using effects. The Ashdown has a FX send and return just as the GK has, which my best guess tells me that it could be possible to achieve this. I have a TC Electronics M300 Multi Effects rack unit that has two channels, two left hand and two right hand which I guess could be ordered with the GK signal running in one left/right and the Ashdown in the other left/right. Is this feasible, would I need a bypass loop box to make it work and what cables would be required to achieve this, if indeed its even possible? Where in the signal chain would any bypass box go, I've thought about all these questions long and hard and now my head hurts and I still don't understand or know the answer. I hope I've explained it simply enough for everyone to understand what it is that I am trying to achieve here. Any comments really appreciated. BH12neil

Hi, I have just bought a second hand TC Electronics M300 and want to control it independently with a pedal or switch to make things easier in a live situation. What I want to achieve is to be able to engage and bypass the unit as well as toggle between the effects and functions wherever possible. The instruction manual seems to suggest that the options are either MIDI or 1/4 jack approaches, I am new to this and don't really understand but wouldn't a MIDI pedal offer more flexibility, albeit with a more expensive price tag attached. I have been looking at the MIDI Mouse but don't know whether that would work or even whether its any good. Seems expensive, more money in fact than I paid for the M300 itself! I don't want to spend a fortune but want something that's simple to use and is going to do the job reliably. Options, suggestions, recommendations and general advice would be really appreciated as to how I go about this, especially from those who have experience of the M300. Cheers BH12neil

Thanks, I will use that advice and do some more investigation. Cheers,

I can't sleep, too wired from a hectic Saturday night, getting tired now though. Anyway my signal chain is:- [color=#800000]"ACTIVE" BASS (STINGRAY)[/color] > CARL MARTIN CLASSIC OPTO COMPRESSOR (DAISY CHAIN) > MXR BASS OCTAVE DELUXE (DAISY CHAIN) > BLACK DRAGON DISTORTION (DAISY CHAIN) > MXR BASS AUTO Q (GATOR BLOCK) > GHOST FACE FUZZ (9Volt BATTERY) > ELECTRO HARMONIX BASS BIG MUFF PI (DAISEY CHAIN) > ARIA FLANGER (GATOR BLOCK) > ANALOGMAN MINI CHORUS (GATOR BLOCK) > [color=#008000]LOOP BOX IN (GATOR BLOCK) > ZOOM B2.1u (WALL ADAPTER) > LOOP BOX OUT[/color] > EARTHQUAKER DEVICES GRAND ORBITER PHASER (GATOR BLOCK) > AKAI HEADRUSH (WALL ADAPTER) > EL NANO MOLE BASS BOOSTER (GATOR BLOCK) > [color=#800000]GALLIEN KRUEGER 1001 RBII AMP[/color] So there it is then, what do you think?

Hi, I have a couple of problems I need a little help with, hopefully you good BassChatters will be able to come to the rescue. I have a signal chain of a dozen or so pedals that includes a Aria Flanger and an Akai Headrush. I have a Gallien Krueger 1001 RB II head with GK cabs which is my primary rig, and a second rig which consists of an Ashdown MAG300 EVO II head and Ashdown cabs. I plug my instrument lead into the first effect and so through the chain until being routed back to the input of the GK head. I use the second rig, in conjunction with the GK rig, for the delay and echo functions on the Headrush, therefore I have a lead from the Akai to the input of the MAG300, however the flanger has a "stereo out" that I would like to use by getting sounds from both sets of cabs together. To achieve this where in the MAG300 do I plug my cable into? The output is already in use (from the Akai) and I've tried the "Effects Send" which doesn't solve the problem. I have a "Tuner/Line Output", though I've not tried plugging in here as I'm worried I might break something in the process. I thought a possible solution might be a splitter adaptor to allow dual access to the MAG300s output? That seems a little messy, there must be a cleaner way to do this, or am I approaching this from completely the wrong direction - can someone put me out of my misery? The second query is that I am getting a lot of noise and interference both before, to a lesser extent, but more so after I engage pedals. All the pedals are true bypass, if that info helps, and they are powered by four different power sources; two are powered directly into mains with adapters, six are powered from a Gator Bus 8 power block, one is powered by a battery and the remaining four are powered from a daisy chain arrangement powered via an adapter plugged into the mains. The noise is a swirly hum, hiss sort of sound and is very annoying. I have added all the mA ratings of the pedals together and the totals are well under the max load for each of the power sources and in both cases there is plenty of headroom so I am confident that its not that, I am also confident that its not the cabling as our very own OBBM supplied all of it, so can anyone offer any ideas as to what the problem might be and how I might go about solving it? Sorry its a bit long-winded but I've tried to give as much information as possible to allow people to offer some comment. For the technophobe who wants to learn, all help is really appreciated. Cheers, BH12neil

Hi there, I am very interested in buying one of these pedals but noticed that at the end of the accompanying notes on the Fuzzhugger website the following comments are made; "In Oscillation mode, Fuzz and Texture controls become additional oscillation tuners with the Trip knob being your main oscillation flavor control. For synth bass, roll back on your guitar's volume knob! [i][b]The oscillation mode requires passive pickups[/b][/i]". Forgive me I have only recently started playing and I would be the first to admit I don't understand even basic electronics but I want to learn; my Bass is a Musicman Stingray with double humbuckers and a battery in the bass, I believe that makes it an active bass (doesn't it?) - my question is would the AB Synth fully work in these circumstances? Are pickups different, are some active and some passive? Sorry to ask what may be a stupid question but obviously I need to know before I invest in buying a pedal that may not live up to expectations. Some of the demo's I've heard have been outstanding so I really hope I will be able to make full use of the pedal given the above circumstances. Has anyone else out there had any experience of one of these? Any thoughts, comments, advice, good, bad or indifferent reports to help me along the way would be really appreciated. All the Best BH12neil

Yes they really pull out the bottom end and can help you in the mix, I use mine to also add a little volume in the chorus of songs as I don't have a specific pedal for this at the moment. They are useful little pedals and fairly cheap at that so I would recommend one. BH12neil