The use of Equipment, putting the BS myths to rest

[murch33]

the time it took to start this thread could have been dedicated to writing a wanky hair-metal solo.

[jeverist]

Your gear is just fine. I'm just making the point that you are making a complete douche out of yourself when you try to position your gear as somehow better than everyone else's. Results are king my friend, and I'm afraid you simply don't have the goods in your clips to compare with the best of HCEF, let alone the wider world.

I don't see that as a contradiction at all. Go into any major studio and you'll find a TC 2290 not a Line6 delay, or DD20. That is not to say those devices are poorly made or can't get good results, sure they can. They are not of the same caliber though. Sorry... They're not

OK, have you made up your mind by now? First you say other delays are "lesser" than the 2290. I point out a famous guitarist, who you obviously revere highly, who prefers the sound of other(much cheaper) delays(specifically the Korg SDD-3000 and the DMM) to the 2290, which he only uses because of its programmable features, not its sound. Next, you make the claim(falsely) that you never said your gear sounded any better. Now you say other other products are indeed not of the same caliber. Does "lesser caliber" mean something other than "doesn't sound as good" in your world?

cough, cough **douche** cough

I have a hard time believing that you don't get that, and assume that you're just trying to continue a furthering of your agenda, which is apparently that: *gear is just gear and there is no place in the world for discerning quality, and personal preference. *racks are a stupid idea with no place for anyone, and that if someone uses them that it automatically means that they are over utilizing everything, making stuff sound overly processed *The idea that pedals can be used either in a rack, through a switching system, allowing for benefits that would otherwise not be available is also a useless concept, or that running pedals on the floor through a switching system is also a useless endeavor. FINE, your position is noted and anyone who wishes to adopt either philosophy re: use of equipment is free to decide for themselves, what works best for their applications. What irks me the most are the guys slamming the concept, who've NEVER tried it or experienced the difference that it DOES make, and dismiss the idea's merits outright, with ZERO point of reference, or experience on the matter. These are the types who cling to their ignorance, and tend to talk the most {censored}. Those with the total lack of experience in the matters that I've outlined, tend to shout the loudest, about how it is stupid.

Whereas I've only quoted back to you things you've said in this thread, you're putting quite a lot of words in my mouth. Why would I say rack gear sucks when I own plenty of it? Oh, must be because I never stated my opinion one way or another, ya douche.

[therhodeo]

Happy to see this is still going strong.

[sdresdre]

Happy to see this is still going strong.

{censored} meeeeee EH

[therhodeo]

Definitely worth of a repost.

 

[sdresdre]

Definitely worth of a repost.

thats zach? he looks like he is enjoying himself at least.

[therhodeo]

thats zach? he looks like he is enjoying himself at least.

Thats him.

[Zachman]

 

Next, you make the claim(falsely) that you never said your gear sounded any better. Now you say other other products are indeed not of the same caliber. Does "lesser caliber" mean something other than "doesn't sound as good" in your world?

 

 

OMG ok, I'll try to clarify (JUST for you, because you're special)

 

For pristine exacting replication of the original signal, when using delays as an example, the 2290 is an industry benchmark, that I happen to prefer for that application. When I compare MY other units for delay (Rocktron Intellifex, Lexicon PCM 80, Yamaha SPX 90, Yamaha SPX90II, Roland SDE3000, Rocktron Replifex, Rocktron Inteliverb, Eventide Eclipse, Eventide H8000FW, Electro Harmonix Memory man, Maestro Echo Plex, Boss DD2, Boss DD3, Boss DD20, TC Electronic Nova Delay, TC Electronic Vintage delay, and...) to the 2290 they just don't touch it in terms of exact replication of the input signal to repeats, no garbled delay trails, features such as delay ducking, sample rate, programmable ease of use, and zero coloration of the original signal.

 

My big rig as a whole, compared to when I plug directly into a vintage Marshall Plexi for example, with pedals hooked on the floor in series, as opposed to the same amp, plugged into my rig running W/D/W, is quieter, sounds way bigger (YES, even w/ the effects off), allows way more flexibility, and opens up the use of effects otherwise not possible running it straight with pedals in the front of the amp. Still not really comparing apples to apples, but as close as I can get right now to illustrate my point.

 

Hope that clears it up for you... Not talking about other people's stuff so much, as I am comparing my own experiences. Though, yes, as arrogant as it sounds I have also played with NAZI purists who had a similarly sized chip on their shoulders as you do, and at the end of the first few chords, had them questioning what I was doing, then when plugging THEIR amp into the big rig, had THEM commenting on how much better it sounded. SO...

 

 

 

 

And for the record- This thread was about using gear (pedals and rack processor, analog and digital) through a switching system as a means to provide ANOTHER way of doing things, so as to provide options that would otherwise not be possible.

 

Hope that clears it up for you.

[Zachman]

thats zach? he looks like he is enjoying himself at least.

Yup, that be me... about 5 years ago. hehehe

click on the link in my sig and go to the photo gallery page for a laugh

This is the most recent one: hehehehe

[olejason]

I don't see what the big deal is. I've never judged anyone by the equipment they bring on stage, I judge them by how they sound. It all comes down to the player and the context in which they've found themselves. I dunno why anyone would even want to "debate" over something like this.

[dysorexia]

deedle-dee

deedle-dee

deedle-dee

[Zachman]

I don't see what the big deal is. I've never judged anyone by the equipment they bring on stage, I judge them by how they sound. It all comes down to the player and the context in which they've found themselves. I dunno why anyone would even want to "debate" over something like this.

 

Agreed... If guys like to use a bunch of pedals, and obviously judging by the thread content here on the effects forum, there are lots of guys interested in getting great performance via their selection and wanting the best performance via mods of particular pedals, I don't see why guys wouldn't also consider an affordable loop switching system, with all of the benefits it'd provide.

 

Somewhere along the line the idea that I presented regarding mounting the pedals in a rack, got misconstrued into meaning that I said, rack stuff is better. It sort of spun sideways from there

[slight-return]

Enjoy the movie.

It wasn't too bad, one I've seen before

I look forward to you answering those questions I asked,
and hope that you don't make yourself look like an insincere blow-hard, by ignoring them.

While I think the asking itself was insincere (offered more as a challenge than any request for insight)


I hope that you do prove my initial impression of you wrong



by actually answering them and fulfilling your offer to help with the threads technical discussion.

already have been (we discussed that a little up top), but certaianly we can continue


I run the risk, but I can live with the result
there shouldn't be any risk, it's merely a forum


... I don't expect you will, as I suspect my initial assessment of you was/is correct.

Hope you prove me wrong, but I doubt it

Do you really hope that?


anyway

The rocktron unit I was used to (we wew a Rocktron dealer at the time) was the "patchmate" - it was a single rackspace unit, with oh - 6 or 7 or so switch loops (IIRC, they could be used as programmable "channel switches as well"
it followed pretty typical rocktron design as far as UI (Paramter and Data encoders with individual assignment buttons for the switches)


as far as the brews, I'm not sure how many have interest - but its something we can play with -- with microcontrollers like PICs (sorry, don't know a ton about AVR) that you can even program in BASIC, it's gotten a ton easier

I generally tended toward the classical guit in those days and didn't find a ton of call for treatments in trad performance but a digital delay for a "canon in a box" type thing could be nice as they were getting long and hi-fi enought to make it pleasing, but as classical players are wont to do - VERY processed sounds were of interest and played OK at more "progressive" (where young people drink! ) events


(I think there was...maybe still is a period of development where the modern guy can go through a sort of "Wendy Carlos of the guitar" phase)...the relatively controlled classical style, I found was particularly amenable to some things (I was able to actually get a GR-700 to actually sorta track! ) such as octave dividers (one nice thing here is that Alvarez made a treble/bass split pickup with reasonable separation so you could actually get some nice two part stuff going with units that were, essentially monophonic by processing parallel lines)

not to mention the in-srote antics and helping other guys with theri stuff
(So I woke up with blood on my ass and then we got high. Good times! - Jerri Blank)

when running two channel systems - during those times, I generally wouldnt run "stereo"...as a sound-stage imager, rather, I'd run the system "dual mono" (as two separate processing channels)
So that, for instance, I would put a slightly delayed, octave divided sound on one side and a relatively "dry" sound on the other - I liked that quite a bit

As far as amps -- I ws a big fan of the old (tan tolex) Dean Marley hybrids (I really liked hat you could rack or combo mount the heads...I thought tha was very nice. I also liked the full array of controls for each channel...this is where the channel switching could help to). One nice thing abt using those amps, is paired with a relatively "crisp" speaker, but still voiced for electric guitar could "scrub" some of the ping and quack out of that gen of piezos

I also really like(d) Polytones esp with the larger speaker configurations (and alone made really good "one rips" loadout)

You asked some insights I've gotten through some of those times :

with units that tend to fundamentally alter the timbre of the instrument (various forms of "distortion" , synthesizers, full-wet octave dividers, to a more limited extent...things that play massively with the spectal profile...heavier flanging, heavy resonant filtering, etc) it can really be an intergration issue and "preservation of original signal" in active mode wasnt really a concern (as the whole idea was to alter the sound) so it was really more about how well is was "voiced" in integration

In "byapss" mode, well here's a funny thing - being a nylon native, steel strings, both acoustic and electric are a bit bright for me, not to mention the "piezo quack attack", scrubbing off a little attack and brightness was actually to my liking (for a bit I experiemented with load boxes, never got the tuning right, not sure if I ever would) so some loading here and there could be OK.
Another place I found loadng could be kind of nice sounding was on vol pedals in some apps where the lower volume sound is going to be naturally "duller in tone"

Though for other systems (I was a wrench, so it wasnt always abt me) folks maybe would want less of that

for treaments that overlay "image" I tended to find that what I wanted was "this only with an echo, or a reverb...or a detuned chorus image"
and there having difference between bypass and engaged modes (in terms of loading, etc) can tend to be more problematic

abt the same time the patchmate was around, Rocktron was still making their "rack interface" - it had bunch of mixing functions, etc one nice thing it had was a "remote volume pedal" control (basically a VCA under expression control) and, like everyone else at the time, I was an Anderton head...so CLM6000s were pressed into all kinds of level control abuse

Well, what I found working with those sorts of remote volume apps that I tended to get more into (I think little bits of that stick with me) fades, levels and amts as opposed to On/Off switching where the volume was controlling a sidechain
(one thing I used to like to do was to control the INPUT to delay/verb enginers with a sidechain volume so that you could selectively effect passages and have them ring -- I've noticed this is starting to become popular even in relativley compact devices like the Boss tape simulator and the EHX reverb)

so there it really isnt so much a "switching" app as the chain's topology tends to be really consistent - there I find just getting a nice integrated system (where the gain, RLC loads, etc are all consistent and pleasing) is the deal


I suppose I could ramble on, but that's a start

hope (really) that it answers some questions for ya

[petejt]

Not sure what he used...

 

 

 

damn

 

 

 

anyone else know Waddy Watchel's rig from 1981?

[Fingermush]

So what's wrong with liking the "limitations" of having 20 peddlas in cereal?

[Zachman]

 

hope (really) that it answers some questions for ya

 

 

It does and it doesn

[Zachman]

So what's wrong with liking the "limitations" of having 20 peddlas in cereal?

[slight-return]

I am very familiar with the Patchmate (9 loops), released in the mid 90's around '94 I think, but found the thing limited with its routing capabilities, though found the built in programmable hush to be useful, at the time,

 

 

yup had some routing limitations (one hint : you could use the outputs as channel switches to control remote relays. The progap had a couple as well, so you could put together some somewhat more complex systems.)

 

??? In the mid 90

[slight-return]

So what's wrong with liking the "limitations" of having 20 peddlas in cereal?

well, first of all they are going to get soggy in milk

[NoirAbattoir]

So what's wrong with liking the "limitations" of having 20 peddlas in cereal?

 

 

They tend to get soggy.

[NoirAbattoir]

well, first of all they are going to get soggy in milk

[pbone]

Wait, what is a switching system?

[Uma Floresta]

Hi fi rack gear is really antithetical to guitar, in my view. Electric guitar is by nature low fi, distorted, narrow band. Zack's approach to gear seems rather sterile, IMO. Some of the greatest tones on record used low-tech, tone sucking gear. Maybe those old classic artists are using expensive rack stuff now, but they didn't when they were making history.

[Zachman]

I dont think in a forum system I'd need prmission to refrain or to continue with comments You do, however, have an "ignore" option

I wasn't suggesting you needed permission to make comments on the forum. Feel free, as you obviously are, within the TOS rules, to do so. It was merely a suggestion that you should feel free to refrain from making them to ME. As, if I utilized my ignore option, I'd not see them anyway.

[Zachman]

 

Wait, what is a switching system?

 

 

This is information from the guy who invented the stuff:

 

The first thing you need to decide is what type of system you are going to need, and the next is how big. We'll start with type. There are 2 basic types of systems with variations on each:

 

A. Pre-effects System

This is the typical "pedal" based system. Pedals are inserted in the signal path between the guitar output and the amp (or amps) input. Pedal effects are typically considered low (or instrument) level devices, although there are exceptions.

 

B. Post-effects System

This is the Preamp/Power amp type of system. This often utilizes line level "rack gear" between the Preamp out and Power amp input. Rack mount type effects are often considered Line (high) level devices capable of handling higher signal levels found between Preamps/Power amps and in amp effects loops. Of course, there are exceptions to this as well. Often, the rack effects have level matching switches or internal modes that change their operating level to maintain the lowest possible noise floor.

 

Of course, there are many variations to these setups. You may have pedals you want to use with your Preamp/Power Amp rig (before or after the Preamp). Or you may have some piece of "rack gear" you want to use between your guitar and amp input. Or, you may have a combination Preamp/Power amp along with amp heads/cabinets or combo amps along with pedals and "rack gear". Anything goes. Remember, a rack-mounted piece of gear doesn't mean it always has to run at line (high) level, just as all pedals don't mean you have to run them at instrument (low) level. See Level Shifting Circuits. Or you may have some pedals between your guitar and amp input (low level), and some rack stuff in the loop of the amp (high level). Anything goes here as long as you have enough loops and foot switches to control them. The next thing you need to decide is how big the system is to be. Exactly how many effects, amps (plus all amp channel switching functions) you want to be able to remote control. This is probably your most important decision because it ultimately determines the physical size of the rig as well as the overall cost. But don't skimp here either. Make sure you have room for the future because you never know what will come along. Its always good to have a few spare loops for future stuff. And don't forget to include the physical space for the future stuff as well. There's no use having extra loops if you don't have space to put the new thing.

 

Size in a CAE system (whether it be a custom switcher or a 4x4/2x4 system) is determined by how many direct access controller switches you have on the RS-10 Midi Foot Controller. There are 3 sizes available:

 

a) Standard RS-10 (10 Direct access switches)

b) RS-10 with Expander (16 Direct access switches)

c) RS-10 Double Expanded (22 Direct access switches)

 

You can also cheat a little if you don't use the RS-10's P1/P2 continuous controller ports for real time parameter changes of effects. A specially configured foot switch can be connected to either or both of these jacks giving you an additional 2 direct access controller switches (with LEDs). The difference here is these switches are global, meaning their status CANNOT be changed as part of any RS-10 preset. Otherwise, they function the same as the other programmable direct access switches. These are useful for functions that do not necessarily need to be in presets. You can always swap their controller numbers with any programmable switches' number if you change your mind and need that P1/P2 switch function to be programmable.

 

Once you have determined how big your RS-10 will be, you can decide what functions you will need in the custom switcher. As a rule, each function in the custom switcher is controlled by 1, and only 1 RS-10 direct access controller switch. If you run out of direct access switches and you are not quite ready for an RS-10 expander, you can still remote control some functions via Midi Program Change Commands. There are midi controlled devices on the market that accept program changes and call up pre-programmed combinations of control functions. This does, however, force you to utilize the RS-10 presets, since it is the presets that send the program change commands (as well as the combinations of the direct access controller switches). This of course, limits your "Direct Access" capability but is still useful nonetheless.

 

There are occasions where you may have more pedals or other functions you want to remote control than you have loops for. You can always put more than one effect in a loop. This way you would have to manually select which effect or effects you wanted on , which would then be controlled by the RS-10. We can also double up control functions such as amp channel switching functions. For example, say you have a multi amp system, and all the amps channel switch. We could configure the switchers channel switch function to have multiple isolated connections so that all amps channel switch at the same time from 1 RS-10 direct access switch! This certainly saves on RS-10 switches at the expense of less flexibility with amp combinations/channel switching. Of course, the most flexible way is to have individual switchable amp outputs as well as channel switch functions for each amp, but sometimes compromises can be made. Its up to you!

 

Each function in the custom switcher is midi controlled via controller numbers in omni mode. Since the custom switcher is a midi device, it is possible to control it by any midi controller that sends controller commands. But why would you? There is no better choice than the CAE RS-10 Midi Foot Controller! There is no other controller on the market that is as rugged, reliable or as easy to use as the RS-10.

 

The types of functions in the custom switcher will determine just how may you can get in a single rack space. See Types of Functions Available for details. Currently, our custom single space chassis can accommodate 38 rear panel 1/4" phone jacks, and on the front panel 13 plus the XLR connection for the RS-10. Other panels are available depending on system requirements.

 

Other items that make up a complete system are power supplies and what we call Pedalboard Power Supply/Interfaces. A pedalboard power supply/interface generally consists of an isolated power circuit that derives it's power from the RS-10 and provides isolated voltage to wah/tuner pedals. In addition, it may provide audio patching/buffering for any pedals or foot-operated effects that are often secured on the mounting board next to the RS-10. Footswitches may be included that could provide the RS-10 P1/P2 functions (as described above) as well as tap tempo functions, etc... If you use other types of foot-operated effects (such as whammy pedals) it may be necessary to provide isolated power connections (via additional conductors in the RS-10 control cable) or in some cases completely separate power cables that are bundled with the other control/audio cables.

 

To summarize what you need to design a custom switcher, determine the following:

 

What type of system you want to have.

How many remote controlled functions you need.

What size RS-10 Foot controller will do the job.

What types of functions you need the RS-10 to control, and how many.

 

Packaging a system is an art form unto itself. They can be all shapes and sizes as seen in our Photo Gallery. Of course, we provide assembly services as well. You can always purchase the switching system and assemble your rig yourself but you may be entering a world of pain if you are unfamiliar with system design. If you would prefer a true plug-in-and-play experience leave it to the experts, and have us do it. No one does it better.