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Joined:
January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | With all the features available on today’s gear, there are options for hooking up amps, effects, and using the house sound. I’d like some recommendations from you OFC experts out there who do this for a living. I’ve been using an amp as a stage monitor with a balanced XLR out to the house sound. I am now adding an effects unit that also has a balanced XLR out. My question concerns equipment sequence routing. Which option is recommended?
A. Guitar to effects unit to amp with XLR out to the house board?
B. Guitar to amp, with effects looped in, then XLR out to the house board?
C. Guitar to effects unit with 1/4" out to the amp and XLR out to the house board (this is the arrangement used by our bass player)?
D. Some other option?
E. It doesn’t make any difference, so use whatever is simplest, most convenient or can be best accommodated with your patch cords? |
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Joined:
December 2003
Posts: 13997
Location: Upper Left USA | I prefer Options A and C but if Stage noise is an issue you may be required to eliminate the amp. Having an XLR output is a requirement if I go amp shopping again.
What I have been told for Effects is to put the Boss tuner in first position and have the line amp in last. |
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Joined:
December 2004
Posts: 4394
Location: East Tennessee | I would go with "A".
BTW; What is the effects unit you're using? |
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Joined:
April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | The less complicated (wires/connections)the setup the better. Some effects loops will color the sound, some won't.
Any of the above will work fine so I would try them out and see which one is the easiest to control and sounds the best. |
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Joined:
February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | There's several other options. One possibility is to use a DI box after the FX unit using the balanced output to the main mix and taking the parallel unbalanced out from the DI into your amp to get your monitor sound. Keeps both feeds completely independant of each other.
Another way to go is; If the mixing board has enough pre-fade auxilliary sends you can feed your amp from one of them. That way you can hear other band members through your amp if you need to. |
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Joined:
January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | Thanks, Paul. I'll go over your first option with our sound guy. There are plenty of DI outlets available and it should be possibile, although I'm not sure I totally understand the advantage. The second option is also possible, although I don't think necessary as I hear everybody else very well. I stand alongside the drums and the bass keeps his own amp monitor really loud. Thanks for the tips. |
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Joined:
February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | The advantage is that the gain stage and/or EQ stage of your amp will not affect the signal going to the main PA. Some amps have both pre and post EQ DI outs, others have a switchable option. If your DI out is post EQ any gain or EQ changes you make at the amp will affect the signal going to the board, which makes the engineer's job more of a pain than it already is and he will want to kill you. |
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Joined:
February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | Actually, going back to you original post, option C is pretty much what I'm talking about, I missed the bit about the FX unit having a balanced out. |
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Joined:
May 2003
Posts: 4389
Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | Guitar to a mixer like a small alesis 6fx then one cable to the monitor and another to the house pa. The alesis 6fx is great because it has a whole bunch of built in effects, has lots of outputs ... I treat it as nifty reverb unit with a lot of extras.
I just reread this, and I guess this is option c, too. |
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Joined:
March 2002
Posts: 14842
Location: NJ | It's like taking a multiple-choice Algebra test:
When in doubt, . . pick "C" . . . |
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Recommendation on equipment sequence/routing?