The Analog A&H Mixers had an PAD Option for signals that were too strong coming into the Mixer. I recently connected output of an Guitar Amp to the input of my QU-24 and felt that the Input Signal was too strong. The only option i had was to turn the Gain to -Negative. Is there a better solution.
You could use an inline pad…
I have splitters in my rack which also have pads.
Giga
So there is no in-built option?.
I personally prefer digital mixers without a dedicated PAD-switch. It should be easily to design a gain range which makes an extra PAD obsolete. The advantage of this extended gain range is that you can simply lower the gain if the signal becomes hotter during the performance because of the extra adrenaline of the musicians. If the gain is on the lower end of its range and you have to press the PAD you will lower the gain by a fixed value (e.g 20 dB) instead of just some dB.
Just my 2cents
If you use a dSnake stage box, the input screen on the board includes a pad switch.
Was this output on the guitar amp the XLR output? Those are typically mic level, but if it is not, then you can use an XLR to 1/4-inch adapter and go into the Line input of the channel rather than the Mic level input.
You can also look on the guitar amp and see if there is a switch on the output that switches the signal between Mic and Line.
If you used another output of the guitar amp, chances are that you might have used an amplified signal meant to drive a speaker cabinet and that certainly would have put out a very hot signal.
Thanks to all for your valuable responses.
@garyh - dSnake presently is the next to get dream due to the $$$. But thanks, it helps to know that.
@airickess - I will certainly check next time. On this occasion the entire setup was delayed so we had to rush everything. But i feel the MIC Switch makes sense. I initially used 1/4 on Amp to XLR on QU-24, this was too hot, i then changed it to 1/4 to 1/4 and it was better. But your input gives me something to look for in the next gigs.
Thanks.
Very unusual to find an output from a guitar amp, that sounds better, or as good, as putting a mic on the cab.
Very unusual to find an output from a guitar amp, that sounds better, or as good, as putting a mic on the cab.
Yup. And NOT unusual for instrument amp line outs to be noisy. My preferred method is a dry direct via DI before anything else and then a mic on the cab to get the FX/processed sound. A lot of patches have no “center” to the sound and turning up the solo just doesn’t work without a bit of clean signal mixed in for support. The intended sound is still there and predominant, but now there’s something more to let it come out in the mix as it should. Fuzz tones and distortion are the worst offenders.
I can’t remember the amp model but I had a guitar play who’s amp
had a direct XLR out from an internal cabinet emulator DI that actually
sounded good.
In the right hands the amp modelers and processors sound very good.
Not in todays world of modelers.
Not in todays world of modelers.
it depends on different things
but most of them work great for many situations but not all
Turning the gain negative is the digital equivalent of a pad. Works just as well.
Except for some golden eared stereofools who think that oxygen free gold plated blitz wire sounds better than other speaker cables.
As for guitar modelers and I’ll even expanded that to include electronic drums, they can sound really good these days.
In a situation where stage volume is an issue what ever if any slight difference there is the tone, sound, feel is far out weighted by having a controlled stage volume and being able to build a full mix and a reasonable volume not being dictated by the volume level coming off of the stage.
In most cases the audience wont care that the guitar sound is not coming from a 4x12 cabinet cranked up but will appreciate listing to a good mix without their fingers in their ears.
Us in the audience will be happy if we never have to use our ear plugs whether the mix is good or bad.
Louder is NOT better!