Amp Settings

[John Flynn]

I play at church, so fairly big venues. I've been running my Rigel A+ Deluxe into a Fishman Loudbox Mini, which has been great. Usually I also run into the board, but I just started at a new church, where all the fretted instruments are amp'ed and don't run into the board. So I needed a bit more power. I found a nearly-mint Fishman Loudbox 100 on Craigslist for a good price and I bought an amp stand that puts the amp about two feet off the floor. Volume-wise, that seems to do the trick. The 100 seems like a great amp with great features. If I need a little more power, I can always add my Mini back in as a slave amp.

But here's the issue I need help with: One tonal thing I am experiencing with the 100 that I did not notice with the Mini is that with the mandolin it has...and I hope I am using the right term here, a very sharp "attack." Each note really pops initially and fades out quickly. There is also a lot pick-on-string noise. Again, I did not have this problem with the Mini.

I have tried to EQ it out, but I can't seem to. I have the High all the way down (because the mandolin is so high) and the Mid down from center about half way. The bass is flat. I'm running the Gain and the Master Volume at about the 1:00 position. This amp also allows you to turn down the tweeter, which I have.

Any ideas on how to mellow out the "attack"/string noise? FYI, I have a Baggs Gigpro and a RedEye Twin in my inventory. I tried the RedEye without much success, but maybe I didn't have the right corrective settings. Would either of those help?

I'm not a sound reinforcement expert. Maybe I just need a procedure for working stuff like this out.

[pops1]

I believe the Fishman is designed to not have to use a preamp. I would first plug into the Fishman. Don't turn your highs down, it will mean you will need to turn your volume up. The lower you can keep your volume the better you will like your sound. Pick noise is most likely coming from lows and turning down your highs and mids makes you lows obnoxious and gives you more pick noise. Keep your EQ flat and start with the volume down, turn up the volume and see what you have. Playing lighter on the instrument helps with bright highs. I also find that being perfectly in tune with both strings and perfect intonation makes highs warmer. If I lower/raise my action even slightly to deal with environment then I usually need to bump the bridge to get the intonation back. If I tune a day or two it may pull the saddle slightly and I will bump it back. One of the ways I can tell if I am in tune is if my highs are warm and not bright and the sound of my lows. I don't need to play each string unless I am tuning, the harsher sound will tell me when I need to tune.

[John Flynn]

Pops:

Thanks, I will try that. A follow up question: Per your explanation, is there any difference in controlling volume through the Gain knob, vs. the Master Volume?

To your point, I have started playing lighter with this amp and I have switched from a rounded triangle picks with points (Wegen and Blue Chip) to one that is completely rounded (Golden Gate). That has helped.

[almeriastrings]

Thanks, I will try that. A follow up question: Per your explanation, is there any difference in controlling volume through the Gain knob, vs. the Master Volume?

Yes. There is.

Quite a bit. Hard to describe exactly the effect on tone, as it varies a lot according to the instrument/pickup combination, but you will get more pick/handling noise coming through with the gain high. Try keeping that lower, and the master volume higher.

[Astro]

I like a mellow tone. I use the dual piezo from JBB. I run to a pre amp with eq (Fishman Platinum Pro EQ-old version) into a PA.

On the preamps EQ, I cut the lows all the way down (off). And the highs all the way down (off). Then the highest mids are also cut out. This leaves the low mids, mid-mids and a smidge of upper mids--all of which I leave at neutral (no boost). It has a "brilliance" knob which I turn all the way off. It has a "smooth" knob which I do engage halfway. The tone is not harsh and plenty of cut. Maybe some of this can translate to your amp.

[pops1]

As almeriastrings says leave the gain low. If you have to, for volume, turn the volume all the way and use the gain slightly to get what you need. Sounds like you are playing totally out of the amp. I doubt with a 100 watts you will need the volume all the way up, but you get the drift of the relationship between the gain and volume. If you want to be grunge rock turn the gain up and volume down. Doubt that is what you are looking for, but again that is the relationship between the two. Turning everything down really doesn't help, as you need a lot more volume to compensate the fact everything is off, or low. Keep as many highs, mids, lows as high as you can, with volume lower, and it will work better IMHO.

I like the rounded picks a lot and especially for playing with a pickup, I think they also warm the sound. Good move.

[Dave Greenspoon]

Got your note. If you haven't seen the user guide, take a look at the Getting Started page, and zero in your axe for the amp. Beyond that, I wish I had some helpful suggestion. I haven't noticed this issue; I'm going through a Baggs Venue. I keep the gain between 9-11:00, and the volume at noon. On the amp, my gain is generally low, and the master volume doesn't go past 11:00 unless I am going crazy in a rock set.

[Dave Greenspoon]

John, I just spent a bit of time with my rig, first with the Rigel going straight into the amp. I started with dialing in, and was reminded that the piezo on this instrument is super high impedance. I really needed to crank that gain. Even with it nearly dimed I was not getting a clipping indicator. I did not really notice the pick noise as exceptional; I was using a Wegen M150. Then I played around running it thru the Venue. Again, my ears didn't find the pick noise an issue, most of my EQ settings were pretty much at noon. I did start with the bass cut out completely and the low-mid about 9:00. IMO the sound was better once I put everything around noon. Let me know how this works out for you!

[pops1]

Both 1/4" inputs on the 100 are 10 million ohms. That is high considering a lot of piezo's are 1 million. They are giving you the factor of 10 common to electronics. A preamp should not be needed, now if your Rigel or mandolin you are using has a battery in it, it already has a preamp and could be not matching impedance which would give you less power. Dave says his works best with a preamp, Dave are you using the XLR input with your preamp. You should be. If you are, you are matching impedance correctly.

[Jon Hall]

This is a very informative thread. Thanks to everyone for their comments.

[Dave Greenspoon]

Pops, I'm on a Whirlwind Leader Elite 1/4 inch cable from the Rigel going into the Baggs and a second Whirlwind Leader Elite 1/4 inch cable coming out of the Baggs into the amp.

[stevedenver]

I too play a rigel.
I have a roland cube 80x, and, a fender acoustasonic 160 sfx II. Others too, but these are what tend to use. The roland btw, while not acoustic voiced, is a sleeper and superb on the Jazz Chorus channel. Very natural when eqd well, using a di.

I use the baggs venue. It has taken off that boxy, shrillness that the piezo has.
At the time i thought it the best, but the fishman aura box is looking tempting, but i havent tried one.

I use gain about 70%!!! and master volume as needed. Gain adds brown or graininess to the sound. The pop and decay might be improved by more gain, ie a stronger signal, which should amplify the string as it loses energy. The pop will worsen , so reduce trebles, possibly mids too. And, then, you need someone out front to see how you sit in the mix and venue acoustics.

I can only say it is critical to experiment with tone. I tend to cut trebles a lot, after dialing in the notch. I keep bass also about 20%.

The di really helps making the sound more natural. Some acoustic amps have controls to filter string noise. My acoustasonic does, but i still use the baggs for the more extensive eq it has.

I have found, respectfully, that while keeping things at "5" seems neutral, it is more important to try even extreme settings and listen.

My roland has bass at 1, mids at 2 treble (upper mid) at 5-6, and presence (trebles) at 4 or so. It sounds very mandolin like, despite so little bottom end eq. The amp, is however, closed back, which makes speakers seem more thumpy/tubby.

The rigel can be dialed in to very neutral, natural sound. For me it required the di, and the difference was worth it, as was having a foot mute and boost. Imho the baggs venue tuner is poor, despite the cool lights. It is too slow and too sloppy for mandolin, and barely ok for guitar. I still use my tc ploytune on the headstock.

Another thought, besides a round pick, like a proplec, perhaps some flatwounds? Decay with flats will increase, a bit, but likely so will pop. I cant tell you for certain, as i havent yet put them on my rigel, but use them on my Fs. Micd there is, imho, no real difference from phosphor bronze!

Best of luck.
Btw, do you have tuning stability issues with your rigel, especially the longer a string?

[pops1]

I don't think on most amps bass control makes a difference if you need to turn it down. Most amps have the bass control shelved at 80 hertz, not very good for a mandolin. 250 would be much better. Taking a lot of bass out when it is that low won't hurt you much, but I feel it does make your mids and highs seem brighter without it.

Dave, the 1/4" output on your venue is a line level output (hot signal). If you have a line input on your amp that would be best. I would be interested how it sounds using the XLR out of the venue into a mic channel input.

[John Flynn]

Everyone's advice has been helpful. It has all given me starting points and things to try. I realized that no one prescription is going to be spot on, because this has to do with my instrument and pickup, my amp and my playing style. But here is what I've come up with so far:

• With direct input, it sounds good a moderate volumes. The problems come in once I pass a volume threshold. Using the Master Volume to control volume vs. the Gain is helpful.
• With direct input, high volume, I have to take the High down a little or the A course, first position, just sounds obnoxious. Everything else sounds about as good flat as anywhere else.
• Even though the 100 supposedly doesn't need a preamp, each of my preamps created improvements. I used the 10db pad when I used a preamp. I can keep the 100 pretty much flat and adjust via the preamp. The Baggs Gigpro actually sounded a bit better in this application than the RedEye. FYI. the RedEye went into the amp via XLR.
• The best sound I got, and this should be no surprise, is with my Shure Beta 57A plugged into the XLR input, but of course I got feedback at volume.
• I'm now playing around with using both the piezo and the mike in Channels 1 and 2 respectively. I get the mike as loud as I can until it starts to feed back. Then I use the feedback knob to adjust that out and keep going up until it still feeds back. Then I bring up the piezo gain just enough to get the volume I need. Next, I'll try this using the Baggs with the piezo on this setup.

I'm still experimenting. Whatever I come up with, I'm going to try it in the venue tomorrow afternoon and see how that goes. I will report back.

Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

[John Flynn]

Final result (for now): While I do think the preamp and microphone combo has promise, for this performance situation, it starts to get into the "overly complicated" realm. The marginal improvement would not be worth the effort, although it might be in some future situation.

What I wound up with was:

• Direct plug in from mandolin to amp
• MV all the way up, controlling volume with the gain, thus allowing the gain to be as low as possible for a given volume. I can get the gain to about 12:00 with good, clean sound, not beyond that.
• No cut on the tweeter
• EQ flat, except for the High being set down a little, to about 11:00, because otherwise the "A" course is just too harsh.
• Strangely, the "Plate 1" FX, which seems to be short duration reverb, with the level set to about 11:00. You can just barely tell there is any reverb at all, but it seems to mellow the sound out.
• If I really need more volume, I can add my Loudbox Mini as a slave amp by running an XLR from the DI out on the 100 to the XLR input on the Mini. With the MV all the way up on the Mini, I can get the Gain to about 10:00 until that sound falls apart, but the added volume is pretty good at that point. I also needed to turn the High knob down to 11:00 on the Mini.

This was a really useful exercise. I learned a lot about my amps and I got the sound I wanted, albeit with not quite as much clean volume as I thought I could get. What follows are two key takeaways for me that may be useful for anyone else in this situation. This is purely layman's language, based on my impressions. I'm sure the sound pros here may take issue, but this is how the exercise showed up to my novice perception:

1. Start with the EQ flat and the effects off. Have the MV at full and bring up the gain until the sound starts to get wonky. The way I started to think about it is that this point is your natural limit for clean sound for that amp. You can keep it at or below that limit and do fine with the EQ flat. End of exercise.
2. But...If you want to just get a little more volume, you can go a step beyond that gain limit and use the EQ to "salvage" good tone. Incrementally move an EQ knob and play scales and chords through the full range on the instrument to see if that move helps. If any move doesn't help, set it back where it was. Then go to the next EQ knob. Once you've got the EQ set, try the effects the same way.
3. It helps to do all this when you are in a normal playing position relative to the amp, versus facing it. Problems seem to be magnified if you are playing right into the amp.

Thanks to everyone who posted advice. Very helpful.

[pops1]

John, I don't know if you use one, but when playing louder I find a tone guard to feedback sooner than without. Keeping the back against your body helps. You describe what I would do to get the absolute loudest clean volume. Playing with your equipment is something everyone should do, set it up turn all the knobs and see what they do and how they affect sound. It is a great learning exercise.