Signal chain

Exo-metal

Exo-metal

Well-known member
How can I take this rack to the next level???
Stereo sounds and you have the following tools...
3) Yamaha D1500 mono delays
Rocktron intellipitch
Digitech Ips33b
Lexicon mpx-1
Bradshaw stereo line mixer
Rockman midi octopus

I was going to use two of the d1500s for dedicated split signal 30ms L and 30ms R for chorus sounds. The third for 30ms shift R for a spacial effect to make my dry sound of my L cab bigger.

I really don't know how to route the beginning to include the mixer and midi octopus to split the signal properly and be able to expand the system to include boosts or other pedals.
 
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Well, as one of the resident rack users here I´m here to help =) First a round of questions...

- Are you familiar with the basic concept of wet and dry, parallel and series? That´s key for getting anything good out of the mixer.
- Is that the typical dual stereo line mixer?
- What are you using the Intellipitch, IPS and MPX-1 units for? Do you have conventional echo delays and reverb going on somewhere?
- Do you know the basics of MIDI, and what MIDI floor unit are you controlling this with?
- What are your plans for the Midi Octopus? The best/easiest way to bring a motley crew of vintage units with various bypass schemes in and out of the chain is by muting the inputs physically via MIDI controlled loops instead of trying to switch the status of the different units via jacks or MIDI, as described in the Rocktron Patchmate manual. I think you would find yourself a lot more in control of the rig if you exchanged or complemented the jack switching of the Octopus with something loopy like a Patchmate.
 
I'm curious why you want to use the delays for chorusing when you have the intellipitch? I am purely thinking about it from a real estate standpoint.
Are you planning on using the IPX,MPX-1 and the Intellipitch at the same time and not using delays from any of those 3? If its purely because the Yamaha's have a certain sound? Do you need those as an "always on" thing?

I have a PCM42 that I bring in and out of my rack because there is a color to it that I cant get with my other units. Also its been a million years since I've hooked up my Octopus and I used mine strictly for bringing things in and out in front of the amp. Do you plan on using that for your effects in the loop? Thats not a stereo unit so any effect you plan on hooking up thru that you will need to use 2 loops. If the effects you have all have an external bypass you can get away turning them on and off with one loop on the Octopus, But unless your going parallel with those units you are going to have issues with dropouts and delay trails being cut off.

Figure out what units you want doing what first. Ask yourself do you want or need to go series or parallel on everything or some series and then mix them into parallel. The more details you can bring the better it will be to figure out whats best for what you want. Unless your a wiz at programming and wiring try and stay on the Less is More side of things. Just food for thought.
 
Dave L said:
Well, as one of the resident rack users here I´m here to help =) First a round of questions...

- Are you familiar with the basic concept of wet and dry, parallel and series? That´s key for getting anything good out of the mixer.
- Is that the typical dual stereo line mixer?
- What are you using the Intellipitch, IPS and MPX-1 units for? Do you have conventional echo delays and reverb going on somewhere?
- Do you know the basics of MIDI, and what MIDI floor unit are you controlling this with?
- What are your plans for the Midi Octopus? The best/easiest way to bring a motley crew of vintage units with various bypass schemes in and out of the chain is by muting the inputs physically via MIDI controlled loops instead of trying to switch the status of the different units via jacks or MIDI, as described in the Rocktron Patchmate manual. I think you would find yourself a lot more in control of the rig if you exchanged or complemented the jack switching of the Octopus with something loopy like a Patchmate.
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1) yes
2) I have both mixers, the full space dual and the half space. I prefer to use the half space if possible.
3) The Intellipitch for the harmonizer and multi tap delays.
The Mpx-1 for always ON spillover delays.
The Yamaha delays for chorus and spacial shifts.
4) I have used midi, I don't have a floor controller. I planned to use a rjm midi mastermind.
5) the midi octopus has a relay in position one that allows you to use a TRS cable. Between the mixer and that I planned on using it as a mute to allow a series parallel split and the other patches for exterior pedals like a boost or vibe.
 
a few ideas....
the 2 Yamaha delays can be used in different ways:
-chorus a la PCM42. Yes... those old delays use sample rate modulation, not delay modulation. That gives modulation fx a particular and nice color you can't have with DSP processors. Just don't set them to the same delay value... offset them in the 25 to 24ms zone and use different mod rate and depth values. That will open up the spread. The 42s sound more dramatic but the Yamaha can do it too!
-if you want a really wide stereo spread, use ONE Yamaha only to split dry sound to a cab and a delayed copy of it, a few milliseconds, to the other cab. The Haas efx will trick human ear in perceiving a spread panorama. A slight modulation will also add psycho-acoustic panning. The other Yemaha? Let ot rest....

Other than these suggestions above, I don't really see much you may need... unless reverb is something you may use somewhere. The MPX-1 has it, anyway...
 
I just spent a lot of time removing the dry signal from my Yamaha D1500's by lifting a resistor and that mod is correct per Chris Poland. I was back and forth with him and he was nice enough to help but something just isn't right when I run these in my rig. The delay gets the signal and THEN it will echo late, totally out of sync with my playing!!!...what is wrong?
 
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Exo-metal said:
Italo...
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Not much I can say... just guessing....
It's not clear what the problem is. IF the dry sound has been removed, it's ok you only hear the delayed signal... and that's expected to come up after a certain amount of time as set in the delay time parameter. Is that what's happening? Have you tried to set delay time to 0ms.? What do you hear?
 
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So you will be running audio thru that first jack in the Octopus? Sort of a master mute for the entire mixer/wet stuff?

But I would probably split out (doing basic multi splits from the two EXP out jacks) to all three of the Yamaha units, the IPS and Intellipitch in mix 1 and have the MPX1 for your bread-and-butter delays in mix 2. I like to have all the wet stuff feeding the delays.

But then again, managing several mix stages in a WDW isn´t my thing unless you allow for some dry in the wet cabs like in the old days, which I guess you might be doing here?
 
Exo-metal said:
you wrote: I was going to use two of the d1500s for dedicated split signal 30ms L and 30ms R for chorus sounds. (that seems pretty straightforward although odd they are set to identical delay times-without mention of modulation), but then: ?The third for 30ms shift R for a spacial effect to make my dry sound of my L cab bigger.?
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what do you mean by that, and how are you planning to split the original mono signal to feed these 3 delays? and create additional splits for the other devices?

Because you then wrote: I just spent a lot of time removing the dry signal from my Yamaha D1500's by lifting a resistor and that mod is correct per Chris Poland. I was back and forth with him and he was nice enough to help but something just isn't right when I run these in my rig. The delay gets the signal and THEN it will echo late, totally out of sync with my playing!!!...what is wrong?

the *way* you explained your plan, and then your issue with the “late echo” was confusing. i believe italo meant to suggest zeroing out your delay (0 ms) to see if this “late echo” phenomenon is still occuring to rule out malfunction.

if you are running one DELAY into another DELAY in series, with no dry signal present, then indeed that primary 30ms delayed signal will only be heard after the second delay time (30ms?) has elapsed perhaps contributing to your perception of late echoes.

by physically removing the dry signal from your delays lime you did, it would suggest you are running a dry mono signal somewhere (mixer, dry cab) and splitting off that dry signal line level/aux send to at least two of the yamaha delays in mono to feed them signal, in a dedicated panned L/R dual mono delay config in parallel with the dry signal, ala dual sde 3000s or dual lexicon pcm 42 rigs.

the explanation of your third yamaha’s use is a bit of an enigma…are you running that one in parallel with the other two as well, and attempting to delay it 30ms out from the first R 30ms delay to equal a 60ms setting ( 30+30 ) or do you intend to use it in series with the first R delay?
 
The delay has not been installed into the system. After I lifted the resistor I ran it in series in the fx loop of my amp.
 
Yeah, if you have something that doesn´t pass dry signal wired in series you would only hear the delay, much like you´re describing there. Once properly in parallell in the mixer it´ll most likely be fine.
 
Exo-metal said:
The delay has not been installed into the system. After I lifted the resistor I ran it in series in the fx loop of my amp.
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Is the loop series or parallel ? If it's series and the mod removes all the dry signal you're left with only delay signal, which should explain your problem.
 
It is a series loop, so far this makes no sense. I know Bradshaw did the mods on these for Poland. I may have to call him.
 
Exo-metal said:
It is a series loop, so far this makes no sense. I know Bradshaw did the mods on these for Poland. I may have to call him.
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No. it does make sense, like everyone is saying. It would be an issue if your delays are at zero so start there. You put what is essentially a 100 percent wet unit into a series loop. There will be no dry present, and the longer your delay times the longer your delay "lag"
 
Exo-metal said:
It is a series loop, so far this makes no sense. I know Bradshaw did the mods on these for Poland. I may have to call him.
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You've made the delay wet (delay) ONLY with the mod, so you need a mixer to hear the dry (non-delay) signal now (in a series loop, if the loop were parallel you could adjust the mix separate of the delay unit).
 
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