Solstice overloading issues...

[MarkH]

Hi,

Anyone had trouble with overloading or distortion with the Solstice blender.

I fancied blending a little bit of my AMT mic with the pickup (..normally a Realist) on small gigs where I’m not sending a signal to the house.

All of the pickups I connect to the Solstice seem to cause distortion in one way or another (..Realist, dyn-b and stat-B).
I've tried the input and output and levels 'every which way', plus pad in, pad out etc, with no success at clearing up the problem.
The pickups sound fine direct into the amp.

The Realist causes the most trouble of all, although the AMT sounds really clear.

Any thoughts/experience?

Thanks,

[MarkH]

Ok,

Following on from my previous post it turns out that if I put and old K&K 'Power Pack' pre amp between the Realist and the Solstice, with the internal gain switch really low the Realist sounds true and strong!!

I also noticed the 20db cut seems to make no difference to the volume of the pickups when I plug them into the Solstice, perhaps it’s only a mic cut?

I played through a hire GK combo last night and really noticed a big difference when I switched the cut on.

How do other people find the 20db cut on the Solstice?

I also noticed that my AMT has a rattle on C&B when the arm is straight.
I've already sent it back to the states for this very thing, although it was an open A string then!!
Recently, soundmen have mentioned extraneous noises (...from the bass that is!!) , so I guess I’ve at least I’ve solved that.
If I bend the arm at the mic end the noise goes, which is useful for the moment, but not very scientific or reliable.

Any ides or experience gratefully received.

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by MarkH

Ok,

Following on from my previous post it turns out that if I put and old K&K 'Power Pack' pre amp between the Realist and the Solstice, with the internal gain switch really low the Realist sounds true and strong!!

I also noticed the 20db cut seems to make no difference to the volume of the pickups when I plug them into the Solstice, perhaps it’s only a mic cut?

I don't know that this is true, but it makes perfect sense.

The Realist has been known to have a hot signal, and it's likely that by inserting the powerpack pre between it and the Solstice, you are attenuating the signal and making it usable. There ought to be an easier way to do this, however!

I also noticed that my AMT has a rattle on C&B when the arm is straight.
I've already sent it back to the states for this very thing, although it was an open A string then!!
Recently, soundmen have mentioned extraneous noises (...from the bass that is!!) , so I guess I’ve at least I’ve solved that.
If I bend the arm at the mic end the noise goes, which is useful for the moment, but not very scientific or reliable.

Welcome to the weird world of the AMT. It's a great mic, but it has lots of little annoying bugs, and this is one of them. My understanding is that the sound you are hearing is the wires rattling around inside the arm; I think I read somewhere that they've solved this problem on the newest model, but I'm not sure. Bending the arm in a funny way is about the only thing I know of to fix it short of sending it in again. It's a great mic if you can stand the weird little quirks it has.

[larry]

I've been using a Solstice for the last year or so. I've not had any problems, but I've been using different pickups. I've had the Full Circle and the Revolution Solo in that time.

Try playing with the volume knobs:

The input gain knob could be too high, or the master volume leaving the Solstice could be too high for the input of your amp. Try avoiding successive volume knobs being lower than the ones in front of it. In other words, set the input gain low, the master volume slightly higher, and your amp higher than that. Also, set the EQ in the Solstice flat for now- do not boost any frequencies while you are trying this. Boosting EQ is just turning up the volume in that frequency range.

One other thing - I've noticed that the Solstice seems to boost some of the really low frequencies (I think the issue is with the EQ not extending down low enough to cut them, if I remember correctly). Perhaps your speaker is farting out on you a little with the added sub-bass information?

Can you borrow another bass amp and see if it still distorts?

I'd find a way to make it work out. I could not go back to just a pickup or just a mic. I gotta have both!

Otherwise, I'd contact Dtar - you could possibly have a bad unit.

Good luck.

[jeffpau]

Hi,

I had similar experience with the Solstice.
It appears that I used the blended output (named "balanced output") to the house.
This output is line level and makes the sound engineer going crazy everytime because he believe this output works like a DI.

I suggest you to take both channel outputs, those are mic level (like) a DI --> the engineer will blend your pickups.

That's, to my mind, the main limitation with this nice box ...

--> I think what you describe not a problem with input gain but may be with output sensivity.

Groovin'
Jeff