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Pedalboard-friendly summing / mixing boxes


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phil please clarify what you are looking for. lots of us still don't quite understand :confused:

 

how does this imaginary ideal box you are looking for solve your problems of having say 2 mono in, stereo out pedals on your board. are you saying you want to combine teh signal from the first pedal's stereo out, so that one output goes into the input of your second pedal, while the other output from the first pedal gets summed with the 1st and 2nd outputs of the second pedal? :confused:

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Let's take a look at a fairly common scenario which will hopefully better illustrate the problem.

 

Suppose you have a Wah, Fuzz, TS9, TC Corona Chorus, DigiTech XTF Turbo Flange, Strymon Lex and a DMM. If everything had stereo inputs like the TC Corona Chorus does, there wouldn't be an issue. You could run the mono out pedals in series, then once you hit the first stereo pedal, you just run the stereo out from that pedal into the stereo in of the next one...

 

...oops. Looks like most of those "stereo" pedals only have mono inputs. :mad::( So how the heck do you plug in more than one without losing the stereo processing of any of them? You split the signal coming out of the last mono pedal and route it to each of the stereo pedals separately, then sum the outputs from all of the stereo boxes together, then send the L/R stereo outs to two separate amps.

 

Or, you get creative with some of the patching. If you want to retain some series processing of the stereo stuff, you get a bit more creative. Since the TC has stereo outs, moving it so it comes after the flanger would be a good idea from a patching standpoint - mono in to the Digitech Flanger, then stereo out from the flanger into the stereo inputs on the chorus. But the Lex and the DMM are both mono in / stereo out pedals... where do we go from here? We're back to the same issue - stereo outputs and mono inputs.

 

What I'd like to see - and I've seen a couple mentioned already in this thread - is a box that has the input and output level and impedance optimized for pedals. It should have at least four stereo inputs, and one stereo out. Two models could be made - a bare-bones unit with unity gain (all inputs just stereo summed), and a higher-end box with level or trim controls to allow you to adjust the relative levels of each input. Actually, most people would probably want / need the higher-end box, so forget about the non-trimmable version. :lol:

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phil please clarify what you are looking for. lots of us still don't quite understand
:confused:

 

Even so, the realization that you don't understand something is itself a sign of improvement!

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the mixer at the end of the chain would be one item needed, and then you'd need a splitter at the front end. Radial Engineering makes a good splitter, costs about $800.00. I use one of their Bigshot Mox pedals for blending, I'm sure they could make a class A discreet multi channel summing mixer (they do make a lunchbox line level unit) for guitar levels, wouldn't be cheap though. :lol:

to this day the most impressive lead tone (effects-wise) I've heard was from Muhammed Suicmez from Necrophagist. he had stereo panning delay effects that sounded unreal in a 1000 seat club/venue. his lead/rhythm tone and technique was so much more advanced than any of the other 6 bands on the bill.

personally my rig is more complicated as is than I'd like it to be, stereo will have to wait until I get my own roadies. :)

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so more or less something like this, powered, can set input/output gain, sum from stereo to mono and isn't a $3000+ rack unit...


sumbox.jpg

?

 

What part of the signal is in output A+B summed that wasn't already in output A?

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Why would you bother? Don't most of the effects that have a stereo out automatically just provide the sum sound to the Left/Mono output anyway? Why would you introduce something to sum a stereo signal when the pedal probably already does it. If you're using a Ping/Pong delay in mono you're an idiot, just set a regular delay to be the speed you want. If you're running a stereo rig, you're running a stereo rig.

 

The only thing I could see being at all useful is if you are running a stereo rig and have multiple pedals that run stereo out but only have mono in following them, and you'd want left and right signal chain all the way from the first stereo pedal. That's not possible from a linear sense because even if you ran Right out to the amp and both into the mono pedal, you're still not really getting your true stereo signal and should choose different pedals.

 

If you run multiple stereo pedals out to a stereo rig but the pedals have mono inputs, run all the right outputs to a mixer at the amp and you'll get a sort of odd combination of Left and Right signals to your Right amp, but there's no escaping that. Doesn't need to be pedal friendly in this situation. Again, you should choose different pedals that have stereo inputs.

 

The purpose of a summing pedal for stereo > mono escapes me. This is a very different issue from running parallel signal chains and summing them somewhere to go to a single amp.

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Coincidentally, Jon Chappell's review in this week's edition of the HC Confidential Newsletter (ask me how you can get it for FREE!) is this:


http://unitaudio.com/milli-unit.html


microunit.jpg

http://www.harmonycentral.com/docs/DOC-2582

 

Interesting that you could use this as a budget 8 channel passive DAW summer (like a Folcrom, but half the inputs and 1/4 the price). Honestly I am not a convert to the idea that you need external summing to "avoid a number-crunching burden on the computer

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You could restrict your purchases to only those pedals with stereo IN & OUT and remove the need for an extra box. The Hardwire series of pedals would make this an easy task.

 

HT2 -> TL2 -> SC2 -> CM2 -> CR7 => SP7 => DL8 => TR7 => RV7 => two different amps

 

But that would presume that you like the Hardwire pedals enough to invest in such a rig.

 

Heh...run the outputs of the above chain to a pair of EHX 44 Magnum power amps and a 1x12 speaker cab each, placed 10 feet apart.

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