Carvin R1000 bridge question.

[Floyd Eye]

Yes it probably is my compressor. I notice that when I increase the threshold it squashes it. Too much maybe. Probably should screw with it some more. I just hate screwing around too much by myself because I know it will be different in the mix.

 

[will33]

Yes it probably is my compressor. I notice that when I increase the threshold it squashes it. Too much maybe. Probably should screw with it some more. I just hate screwing around too much by myself because I know it will be different in the mix.

Try setting the ratio lower, then tweak the threshold. On mine, when you had the ratio set high (lot's of compression) but the threshold set low (doesn't kick in until you get a big transient coming through), depending on how fast you're playing, you could find yourself in a situation where it would squash the attack of the note a lot, but then quickly release and let the rest of the note bloom out noticably louder with no compression on it. Setting the ratio lower made it less of a volume difference between compression and no compression. I then set the threshold higher on slow songs so it would hang on to the effect for as long as the notes rang.


Something to try anyway. After a while I quit using compressors completely and just worked on right hand technique to control attack, dynamics, etc. but they still have their uses if you slap or have to run the rig close to it's limits to get loud. The compressor will tamp down peaks the clip it and let your overall volume be a little louder.

 

[will33]

A good outboard compressor will have more controls to manipulate. The built in one had ratio and threshold but nothing to control the decay or release of the effect. That was kinda tied into to the threshold knob and can be hard to find a sweet spot depending on what you're trying to do.

 

[Floyd Eye]

A good outboard compressor will have more controls to manipulate. The built in one had ratio and threshold but nothing to control the decay or release of the effect. That was kinda tied into to the threshold knob and can be hard to find a sweet spot depending on what you're trying to do.

I am using a TLC. So I should set the Slope lower, then tweak the Threshold?

 

[Tin Cadillac]

You can run it full range without bridging it. Which is what I may end up doing.

I get great tone out of it. Of course I don't use the preamp that's in it, I use an RBI

Bridging it at 2.6? ohms resulted in the head getting very hot, very quickly. This amp is happier at 4 ohms.

I ran "Single Channel" (not bridged) at 2.6 ohms. Each channel is rated at 500 W at 2 Ohms. If you are running bridged, minimum impedance is 4 ohms. The Amp will supposely go into "Self-Protect" mode if you use an impedance any lower.

 

[Floyd Eye]

I gave myself a long overdue crash course in what exactly the knobs on your compressor do, (Thanks Bongomania by the way) and that eliminated a couple of the issues I was having.

As far as the amp, I ran it bridged ( 4 ohm) for the first 1 1/2 hours last night and after some tweaking I was pretty happy with the sound I was getting. I had the volume pretty low because the thing is ridiculously loud. When we stopped for a break I checked the amp and it was a little hotter than I liked, so I switched it to dual mono. A little more tweaking on some gain levels and I had killer tone and plenty of headroom. Checked the amp at the end of the night and it wasn't too hot. The 18" sub thumps hard. We had a great practice, coming off a couple week hiatus for deer season and I am extremely happy and looking forward to the next slew of gigs. Thanks everyone for the advice. You guys are great.


As an aside, I freakin' love my band. During our little hiatus my guitarist/singer and I have been working independently on our own originals as well as 3 new cover songs. A week or so ago I let my drummer know what covers we were working on. Last night we didn't work too much on either my new tune or Jason's. Instead we worked exclusively on the 3 new covers, since we have a fairly important gig next weekend and I wanted to get the new stuff in there. We played about 3 hours and nailed all 3. They are all high energy, crowd pleasers and they are impossible to play without getting amped up. Champagne by Cavo, Bulls on Parade and the Limp Bizkit cover of Faith by George Michael.

 

[billfitzmaurice]

I gave myself a long overdue crash course in what exactly the knobs on your compressor do

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

 

[Floyd Eye]

Thanks Bill. There's a lot of great information on that page.

 

[Hopkins]

You can run it full range without bridging it. Which is what I may end up doing.

I get great tone out of it. Of course I don't use the preamp that's in it, I use an RBI

Bridging it at 2.6? ohms resulted in the head getting very hot, very quickly. This amp is happier at 4 ohms.

That is because it is 4 ohm minimum bridged. It will do 2 ohms but not bridged.

 

[Hopkins]

That would make it an odd duck, and if true I can see why it wouldn't work well unless bridged. Another explanation of course would be that it's over-spec'd, and can't actually deliver the voltage swing that it supposedly should. I have an old Stewart PA amp that I run bridged for just that reason. It's rated 50w/ch., but even bridged will barely deliver 10v before clipping.

This could very well be the case. Bridged at 4 ohms the R1000 I had had quite a bit less head room than the GK 700RB II that I replaced it with at less than half the advertised power.

Also the R1000 was very hard to get a decent sound out of, and it had way to many knobs. It was quite confusing. I usually bi passed the preamp and ran my BDDI straight into the power amp.

 

[Floyd Eye]

That is because it is 4 ohm minimum bridged. It will do 2 ohms but not bridged.

Yes I know. I should have clarified that A) this happened a long time ago and B) I hadn't realized that I had the bridge button depressed.

Funny, my old man has the GK 700RB, with a 4x10 and a 1x15 and my rig smokes his volume wise. I also bypass the Carvin pre in favor of my RBI.

That's not to imply that I am in love with this Carvin. At this point it is merely a power amp and when it blows I will not be replacing it with another Carvin.