cheap dream rack?

[Cleveland Metal]

Re: cheap dream rack?

That's an older US built one, and should be very cool...

When you get it, don't be dissapointed with the factory presets, some are ok, most are weak and bland. With tweaking, this preamp breathes fire somewhat, and is VERY cool.

For a really brutal heavy sound, use one of the basic high gain/hush/echo setting presets and then set the gain from say 50-78 depending on your taste and your pickups.

Then go into the EQ area. Pull all the bass out of the pre gain EQ, and go to post gain EQ and add full or close to full bass. It will tighten the chunk up amazingly well. Be mild in your adjustment other setting of treble, presence and mids. Adjust subtley...

Most of the sound in the preamp is in tweaking the EQ sections... And the EQ is one of the coolest in any preamp I've played with. It's deep, so be patient.

The Variac parameters are cool. But, I don't use the thing at all as I like tight edgey bass. it would help with getting an older 80s sound probably.

There is a lot to play with in the speaker emulator area, I usually use the full range speaker setting and tweak the other stuff to your taste. Usually very mild settings will be the most effective.

Remember, it is very powerful stuff between the EQ and the Speaker emulator. You can make the preamp boom, fart, squeal, flutter, and just generally sound nasty. This thing can sound awesome. But is VERY capable of making horrible sounds... They give you enough rope to hang yourself lets say.

If you hear some sort of white noise sounds when playing, alter ANY extreme EQ or emulator setting and it will go away.

Feel free to ask me anything you care to.

Good choice... [img]graemlins/headbang.gif[/img]

[redmanjj]

Re: cheap dream rack?

Rodrigo,

I'm from Vancouver as well, and I had Dave at avatarspeakers.com set me up with a 2x12 for my rack.

I run an MP-1 into a Rocktron Intellifex, then into a B200s, before going into the 2x12.

For the price, it works great for me, even after the US$, shipping, and GST/PST.

Drop me a line if you have any questions: guitartrade AT shaw.ca

[rodrigo_echeverri]

Re: cheap dream rack?

Hey guys, you have been awesome. Thanks for eveything I f*ck*ng love this forum!...

Cleveland: I will for sure have questions for you once I get the toy. Can you download presets from the internet?... any useful links?... how do you know this is a USA one?

[Newc]

Re: cheap dream rack?

What gets me is how the factory presets in those rack units suck, but that's what they use to sell the item i nthe first place!?!
Take the GSP-21 Legend - I'm sure the Artist Presets are very good - but what amp/cabinet or studio console AND external EQ settings did they use to set those presets and make them sound good?
Most of them vary so greatly in volume that they really just take up space in the unit, though some are good starting points to build your own.

I find it hard to believe Iommi could use any of the "Iommi" presets in the GSP-21 Legend to play Paranoid, War Pigs, or Iron Man. Hell, I doubt he could make em sound good for Planet Caravan [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

But the Legend can do something I haven't found in any other processor - I've got one patch I cannot run through a regular guitar cab or the speakers will die. I have to run it only through p.a. cabs, but it's just the sickest f*ckin crunch ever [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
The sound can't be duplicated with external/separate units (and believe me, I've tried), even with the same settings. Only the GSP-21 Legend can do it.
If anybody's got one (and a good p.a.) and wants to check it out, email me [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Newc

[Lev]

Re: cheap dream rack?

Yeah, the factory presets on my Rocktron Chameleon aren't too great either.. barely use any of 'em... I love the tones I'm getting out of some of my own presets though and some that Vince programmed in before I bought it off of him. Definetely a great sounding preamp, and the voodoo valves sound even better, so good luck with that [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Rodrigo, you can get the presets from the patchbay at www.rocktron.com .. if not i'm sure John can help you out, he knows good tone.

[ March 23, 2003, 03:39 AM: Message edited by: Lev ]

[StuTDavis]

Re: cheap dream rack?

Yeah that's one thing Rocktron's Chameleon and Voodu units have very well--LOTS of different patches on the Rocktron site that you can download onto your computer and then upload into the unit via MIDI. There are some pretty cool and interesting sounds for the Voodu to mess with.

[Cleveland Metal]

Re: cheap dream rack?

Hey Rodrigo,

I believe I saw in the ebay auction you posted that although the photo they used was an Online model, they said that this was actully a PRE-online model, so it would assuredly be a USA made piece (good) and not a Korean made (bad) piece.

Being that it is a non-online model, it would not have the software onboard to accept the downloads off of the internet. I would REALLY NOT be bummed about that AT ALL, as I've never got any presets off the net that I found useful, as tasty as they were described etc. I've heard the NON online models sounded better. Not sure, but I know that USA mpodels are better units, so you did great.

Make yer own presets, you will be happy happy!!

I own a CAE3+se preamp, and if it wasn't available, I'd break out my trusty Voodu Valve that's sitting here as the ONLY other pramp I've played that I like. And soon as I get a looper, it will be back in the rack for some sounds that I can't quite get from the CAE such as a really chuggin rhythm sound that is gated really well... I miss that a lot!

[petedz]

Re: cheap dream rack?

Just to expand briefly on CMs post, the Voodu Online doesn't have any software differences to support internet downloaded patches. The addition of the word Online was purely a marketing move. You can use the patches from the website with the original version just as you would with the "Online".

I read a rumor somewhere that the earlier Rocktron products have a better DSP chip. I have no idea whether that is accurate.

[rodrigo_echeverri]

Re: cheap dream rack?

cleveland_metal = John, is that right?... it feels awckward to use user names instead of real ones... [img]graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img]

So the guy who sold me the unit says he was using a Sonic Maximizer with it as well... at what point on the chain do you throw the maximizer?... does it really make a difference with this unit?

[Cleveland Metal]

Re: cheap dream rack?

I didn't like my BBE422a sonic maximizer with the Voodu. The Voodu has more than enough bass and edge and really doesn't need it. IMO...

I have a couple BBEs and really don't like them too much anymore for most guitar applications...

[rodrigo_echeverri]

Re: cheap dream rack?

This is got my head full of qustions now... I am ignorant.. [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img] (but I think the discussion is good for a lot of people here)...

1) What does exactly a maximizer do to your signal?

2) What does presence mean in terms of signal?

3) arent all these things just equalization?...

4) why do people equalize the signal twice (before and after the pre)?

5) If you equalize on your effects processor, does this mean you should set all the EQ knobs on your amp to zero?

6) What do you think about those EQ circuits EMG sells?... after all the signal processing on your rack, can you still get any benefit from having one of these on your guitar?

I guess the confussion is that at the speakers your signal has been EQd so many times that I dont know what is what anymore and where what should be done...

[Cleveland Metal]

Re: cheap dream rack?

1) What does exactly a maximizer do to your signal?

Wellll... From their site:

BBE Sound, Inc. has developed a circuit that has two primary functions. The first adjusts the phase relationships of the low, mid and high frequencies. Since a loudspeaker's natural tendency is to add progressively longer delay times to higher frequencies, the BBE sound processing system adds progressively longer delay times to lower frequencies. This creates a kind of "mirror" curve to the time delay curve created by the speaker, neutralizing its phase distortion.

The second major element in the BBE system is the augmentation of the higher and lower frequencies. Loudspeakers tend to be less efficient in their extreme treble and bass ranges. Most sound-reproducing systems include a circuit for boosting high and low frequencies, showing an accepted awareness of the loudspeaker's efficiency problem. The BBE system, however, provides a dynamic, program-driven augmentation which combines with the phase compensation feature to restore the brilliance and clarity of the original live sound.

the BBE process compensates for phase and amplitude distortions and, in effect, delivering the signal to the speaker in a form which allows it to reproduce the original live performance more fully and more faithfully.

Yeah yeah yeah... Sounds too processed for me... Works good on some amps though. The 5150s come to mind...

2) What does presence mean in terms of signal?

Presence generally is a control that modifies the treble and high frequency reproduction of an amp, most often around 10khz.

3) arent all these things just equalization?...

Umm... yep

4) why do people equalize the signal twice (before and after the pre)?

For some reason, altering pre and post gain EQ control can do some extremely cool tonal things to distorted guitar tones...

5) If you equalize on your effects processor, does this mean you should set all the EQ knobs on your amp to zero?

In theory, I'd say yeah. In my experience, I'd say, you can discover some very cool things by playing with any tone control you can... Weird where you find something tonally unique sometimes... Tweak and never just go by the most logical thing.

6) What do you think about those EQ circuits EMG sells?... after all the signal processing on your rack, can you still get any benefit from having one of these on your guitar?

I spose you might stumble on something by using one... And there are instances where they would come in handy (my cea would stay tighter getting a signal with less bass to the input, sorta like whatthe Voodu does with the pre and post gain EQs)...

I wouldn't go out of my way for one unless I felt I really needed to. I'd seek out tonal bliss within the better quality and quieter EQs in your rack equipment.

7) I guess the confussion is that at the speakers your signal has been EQd so many times that I dont know what is what anymore and where what should be done...

Don't worry about what the speakers think, haha... They'll reproduce what you give them (with their own flavorings of course) and they'll like it darnit.

[rstites]

Re: cheap dream rack?

Why does pre vs. post preamp EQ work differently? This is primarly an issue with distorted guitar. Distortion is a nonlinear process. What this means is that new frequencies are introduced to the clean guitar signal when it's distorted.

When you do anything to the guitar signal before distortion, all of the affects of what you did (EQ, delays, whatever) are also distorted. So, if you remove mids (for example) before distortion than those mids are never there to distort.

If you wait until after distortion to mess with the signal, you will affect all of the frequencies added through distortion that weren't there before it. So removing the mids, for example, after distortion mean that they were there for the initial distortion, but you remove what's there now.

This is why time based effects (delay, chorus, etc.) sound much better after distortion and tend to get very muddy if added before distortion. Something like a basic delay will have every repeat independently distorted and then you get the sum of them which will be mush. This is also why scooping the mids before the preamp will sound significantly different (usually very hollow) than doing it afterwords (tends to clean up a messing distorted signal). Typically, you bump the mids before distortion and scoop afterwords though I personally don't do all of this off board EQing.

Ross

[rodrigo_echeverri]

Re: cheap dream rack?

Ross, good one. Nice and clean. Stuart sent me a VERY thorough message as is always his style on this. I would like to post the following from that message, which I find very useful:

Here are some thoughts...I will use the terms "lows", "mids" and "highs" in a general sense...there is a wide spectrum to work with, and you can get huge differences from area to area within "lows", "mids" and "highs"...

EQing BEFORE the preamp...Pre-Preamp EQing:

- Boosting lows can make your sound "muddy"
Cutting lows can reduce muddiness and add clarity
- Boosting mids can add sensitivity to the preamp by overdriving it, and add OOMF
- Cutting mids can make your sound weak and thin
- Boosting highs can make your sound clearer, punchier, or harsh Cutting highs can reduce unwanted harshness

EQing AFTER the preamp...Post-Preamp EQing:
- Boosting lows can make your sound stronger, bassier, thicker
- Cutting lows can make your sound weaker, chimier, thinner
- Boosting mids can make your sound honky, bluesy
- Cutting mids can give "metal" sound, or weaken the sound
- Boosting highs can give you very razor-sharp clarity and/or harshness
- Cutting highs can make your sound boomy and muddy

[Cleveland Metal]

Re: cheap dream rack?

Umm, gee, sorry I bothered to write all that... As I look it over, I guess it wasn't too helpful.

Seeyas...

[ March 23, 2003, 10:44 PM: Message edited by: Cleveland Metal ]