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 General sound board question 
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Post General sound board question
It's been said in another thread on this forum that most sound boards have low impedance and therefore "suck" some of the sound out of an instrument. I won't argue with the person who said this because they seem to know what they're talking about however personally I think my little Mackie DFX-6 sounds awesome as a direct mixer for my Stick. THAT BEING SAID ... they call it a 6 channel board because two of the 4 available channels are stereo but mono it's really a 4 channel board. (Cheating if you ask me! :o ) ANYWHO here's my general sound board question. Has anyone ever tried running the two sides of their Stick into one channel of a stereo sound board? Will it SUCK even more fidelity from the instrument? Currently I'm running 3 or 4 channels live ... two for my Stick and one or two for bass guitars. When my NS Stick is made and delivered I plan to run it and my Stick live however that will suck up all 4 channels and I MIGHT want to still use a traditional bass guitar live. I HOPE to not need a bass guitar once i get the NS Stick but I'm not counting on that. Of course I'll try running both sides of my Stick onto one channel ASAP (haven't yet) however I'm looking for opinions of people who have tried this themselves. What is your impressions of it's usefullness? What if the melody strings of the Stick and the melody strings of the NS Stick were in the same stereo channel and the bass of the Stick and the bass of the NS Stick were in another channel for eqing and processing purposes? Would this work? I don't have the NS yet so I can't try it out for myself yet. I'm just trying to invision if I can pull this off with my little Mackie sound board or if I'll need more channels.

Suggestions ... opinions?

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Ray
Graphite Grand MR Tuning.
http://www.rayrlmusic.com
http://www.myspace.com/raylavigne


Mon Jan 28, 2008 1:44 am
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Joined: Sat Dec 22, 2007 3:07 pm
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Location: Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
Post Re: General sound board question
Hi Ray,

Your NS/Stick will have active pickups and built-in preamps, so the sound should not be affected by the board's input impedance.

The issue of an impedance mismatch comes when you plug a passive pickup into a load that is low enough that it "chokes" the sound. highs and lows seem to suffer the most.

As far as channels go, it's always best to have a separate channel for each instrument output so you can balance levels and eq them the way you want.

What does your mixer run into. what are you listening to your sound on?

88persuader wrote:
It's been said in another thread on this forum that most sound boards have low impedance and therefore "suck" some of the sound out of an instrument. I won't argue with the person who said this because they seem to know what they're talking about however personally I think my little Mackie DFX-6 sounds awesome as a direct mixer for my Stick. THAT BEING SAID ... they call it a 6 channel board because two of the 4 available channels are stereo but mono it's really a 4 channel board. (Cheating if you ask me! :o ) ANYWHO here's my general sound board question. Has anyone ever tried running the two sides of their Stick into one channel of a stereo sound board? Will it SUCK even more fidelity from the instrument? Currently I'm running 3 or 4 channels live ... two for my Stick and one or two for bass guitars. When my NS Stick is made and delivered I plan to run it and my Stick live however that will suck up all 4 channels and I MIGHT want to still use a traditional bass guitar live. I HOPE to not need a bass guitar once i get the NS Stick but I'm not counting on that. Of course I'll try running both sides of my Stick onto one channel ASAP (haven't yet) however I'm looking for opinions of people who have tried this themselves. What is your impressions of it's usefullness? What if the melody strings of the Stick and the melody strings of the NS Stick were in the same stereo channel and the bass of the Stick and the bass of the NS Stick were in another channel for eqing and processing purposes? Would this work? I don't have the NS yet so I can't try it out for myself yet. I'm just trying to invision if I can pull this off with my little Mackie sound board or if I'll need more channels.

Suggestions ... opinions?

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Happy tapping, greg
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Mon Jan 28, 2008 7:07 am
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Post Re: General sound board question
When the band runs with acoustic drums and amps I run the small mixer into an Ampeg SVTPRO-V head into a 4X10 with a horn cab. When we run with V-drums and no amps I go from the small Mackie board direct into two channels of my 16 channel Mackie "front end" board. Thinking about preamps I just realized I probably don't have an issue with my Stickup going into the small Mackie board because I run through Line6 processers ... those ARE preamps ... right? I like to run them through the effects loops so I can use them in any combo which is why I run with the smaller Mackie sound board even when I use the larger board. That way I have "personal" effects loops and can use the effects loops on the 16 channel Mackie for over all front end effects. .......... So ... Seems my problem running a Stick, an NS Stick AND a bass guitar or two will be lack of channels. Bummer! ............ I guess worse come to worse I'll simply have to unplug something when switching instruments. I was just hoping I could avoid that without spending more $$.

In any event thanks for the feedback Greg .... as always it's very much appreciated!!!

_________________
Tap on!!
Ray
Graphite Grand MR Tuning.
http://www.rayrlmusic.com
http://www.myspace.com/raylavigne


Mon Jan 28, 2008 7:28 am
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Joined: Sat Dec 22, 2007 3:07 pm
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Location: Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
Post Re: General sound board question
88persuader wrote:
When the band runs with acoustic drums and amps I run the small mixer into an Ampeg SVTPRO-V head into a 4X10 with a horn cab. When we run with V-drums and no amps I go from the small Mackie board direct into two channels of my 16 channel Mackie "front end" board. Thinking about preamps I just realized I probably don't have an issue with my Stickup going into the small Mackie board because I run through Line6 processers ... those ARE preamps ... right? I like to run them through the effects loops so I can use them in any combo which is why I run with the smaller Mackie sound board even when I use the larger board. That way I have "personal" effects loops and can use the effects loops on the 16 channel Mackie for over all front end effects. .......... So ... Seems my problem running a Stick, an NS Stick AND a bass guitar or two will be lack of channels. Bummer! ............ I guess worse come to worse I'll simply have to unplug something when switching instruments. I was just hoping I could avoid that without spending more $$.

In any event thanks for the feedback Greg .... as always it's very much appreciated!!!

Hi Ray,

If the first place you plug your instrument in is the channel's 1/4" jack, then that will be too low an impedance load for a passive instrument to sound it's best.

If you plugged into the processor first, it probably has a 1 Mohm load, which is better.

there was another thread where the loop-switching boxes that Boss makes were suggested. You could use two of those to bypass your units when not in use.

I think the best option is to have dedicated effects lines for each channel you want to process. That way you can alter the eq, compression etc for each effects patch, and most importantly, the mix of wet/dry signals, etc.

Using effects globally is not very flexible, and may lead to more problems, like how to switch an effect off of one sound when you don't want it (twiddling knobs for each song is no fun, believe me, I've been there).

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Happy tapping, greg
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Tue Jan 29, 2008 7:08 am
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