Why I make such a big deal about gain structure

[soul-x]

I tried to get help to the BBE website, but it's not what you want please help me. Thank you very much. Apirugs

 

 

Like Andy says, try emailing their support.

 

I have a G&L instrument, and have found BBE's support to be among the most helpful and responsive.

[agedhorse]

I tried to get help to the BBE website, but it's not what you want please help me. Thank you very much. Apirugs

 

 

E-mail their support folks, or call them.

[fdew]

You can pick up a nice cheep tool for checking exactly when clipping occurs. A piezo tweeter. The technique was developed by Pat Brown from syn-Aud-Con.

It's handy for things like learning when those clip lights come on.

Here is how it works
http://www.rane.com/pdf/ranenotes/Piezo_Magic.PDF
If you want to get fancy, Rane has bundled a speaker with a tone generator and some plugs and turned it into a product.
http://www.rane.com/pdf/rgaindat.pdf

Frank

[agedhorse]

You can pick up a nice cheep tool for checking exactly when clipping occurs. A piezo tweeter. The technique was developed by Pat Brown from syn-Aud-Con. It's handy for things like learning when those clip lights come on. Here is how it works http://www.rane.com/pdf/ranenotes/Piezo_Magic.PDF If you want to get fancy, Rane has bundled a speaker with a tone generator and some plugs and turned it into a product. http://www.rane.com/pdf/rgaindat.pdf Frank

To be honest, this is a tool that CAN be useful but is so often misunderstood and misused (especially in the church market where is seems to have a lot of interest, probably because of some stupid article in a "how to screw church sound up" magazine. I just serviced a system that had significant damage and the tech guru (and I use this term very loosely) of course set the system up so that everything clipped at the same time but is sort of did and sort of didn't and there was inadeaquate thru gain so they ended up clipping drive electronics in places they didn't know and thought that distorted sound was the wireless mic!!! So much for diaphragms... they went to speaker heaven where all good speaker parts go to tell stories of their ascent to the pearly gates.

A tool in the hands of somebody who does not understand the real operation and how levels/gain and headroom all interact is nothing more than a hammer.

[fdew]

A tool in the hands of somebody who does not understand the real operation and how levels/gain and headroom all interact is nothing more than a hammer.

 

 

Al tools including hammers need to be used by a knowledgeable person in order to preform properly.

 

I've worked on Hammer design.

 

Frank

[dboomer]

John Murray is the recognized expert in the field. Here's links to a couple of ways to understanding the concept.

http://www.naterecording.com/gainstructure.pdf
http://www.proavmax.com/Audio-For-Sound-Reinforcement-DVD-II-p/em-afsr-dvdii.htm

Obviously this BBE piece is considerably off from what one would normally expect to find in common use. But my example in another thread shows that a Mixwiz mixer connected to a DBX 2231 GEQ will be off by 4 dB if you follow the magic "0 dB" settings on the inputs. It likely gets worse as you add other gear into the chain. Personally I'm a fan of the piezo method. It's cheap and gets you awfully close. If you just go by manufacturer's specs you can be off as well given there is some "latitude" in the data and you have to carefully keep all your "units" (dBu, dBv, dBm,etc) in order. You just need to have an understanding of what the goal is.