Frustrated - throwing it out to the braintrust

jgamble · #1 01-02-2009, 11:06 AM

I have a bad habit of buying a lot of stuff at once because it seems good on paper and then getting frustrated because I'm trying to make too many changes at once. This is where I was before Christmas:

Spector -> BDDI -> LMB3 (limiter only) -> EBS Multicomp -> SVT4

I kept all three of those pedals on all the time (more or less), so I decided it would be a good idea to clear up some floor space and get some rack units. Hence, I purchased the RBI and a DBX 166xl with the idea of taking those three pedals out of my chain.

I've been experimenting with different ways of hooking it all up, but I haven't found what I wanted yet and I feel like I may have stupidly fixed something that isn't broken because I'm thusfar unhappy with the sound of the new stuff. I know that's a pretty vague description, but it just seems very uneven. It's much more dynamic, but that seems like a dual-edged sword.

This leads me to asking you all for some suggestions on starting points to try over with this new gear (again). Is there some sort of order in which I should be hooking this up that I haven't tried? All suggestions are welcome.

bongomania · #2 01-02-2009, 07:14 PM

In what order do you have the rack units hooked up? Also check the FAQ in my sig for an article talking about compression settings and preamp levels.

jgamble · #3 01-03-2009, 10:57 AM

Thanks for responding. I read your reviews regularly and bought the dbx based on it, so I was hoping you'd reply.

I haven't been entirely scientific about it, but I know I've tried the RBI -> SVT with the dbx either in the RBI's loop or the SVT's loop. I've also tried the RBI -> dbx -> SVT. Neither seem to do the trick. Basically, I've yanked the RBI back out and gone back to the BDDI -> SVT with the dbx in the SVT's loop. It seems cleaner, but - and I'm not sure if I'm insane here - the highs seem to get lost compared to when I was using the multicomp.

bongomania · #4 01-03-2009, 07:54 PM

As you'll note in my reviews of the various dbx models, they do lose highs with heavier compression. Retaining more of the highs is a benefit of the multi-band mode of the EBS.

RBI and SVT seem like a not-so-great match to me. After all, the RBI and many other Sansamp products are designed to emulate the sound of a dirty tube amp, like oh, an SVT for example.

It's unclear to me at this point- are you going for a cleaner or a dirtier tone? A more dynamic or more compressed level range? Do you run the SVT clean or dirty? What is "missing" for you- EQ control, brightness, a certain tone?