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Cross-Over (Crossover or Splitter) pedals

#261
FugaziBomb said:
I started off doing this but found that I couldn't get a good balance between the two. If I had enough lows to make the clean side work, the drives sounded thin, but when my drives sounded good, the low side was just rumble. I ended up ditching a traditional crossover and opted to split the signal and give each side a dedicated high and low pass. I found both sides really need to get a good amount of 100hz for the whole thing to work. I suspect that's why a lot of people have a hard time cutting through a mix with a crossover rig. I know I did.
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Interesting, I recently watched an Amos Heller video about one of the microbes X pedals where he said he got the best results by overlapping the high and low bands.

Dude makes the best demo videos. I watch them repeatedly to listen to his playing, even if I'm not interested in the gear.
 
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#263
FugaziBomb said:
I started off doing this but found that I couldn't get a good balance between the two. If I had enough lows to make the clean side work, the drives sounded thin, but when my drives sounded good, the low side was just rumble.
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I am not sure what do you mean when you say "to make the clean side work".

When using crossover, neither side is supposed to work on its own. They are supposed to work in tandem.

I think it was Entwistle who said that neither side of his crossed-over tone sounds good...but it's the combination what matters...
 
#264
Zbysek said:
I am not sure what do you mean when you say "to make the clean side work".
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One side of my signal is clean lows, the other side is mids/highs, often with overdrive/wah/delay/octave up/ etc etc - akin to a guitar amp. If I run a traditional crossover, the crossover frequency was always a compromise. If the lows sounded audible and present, the overdrive on the highs was thin. If the overdriven highs were sounding good, the lows would be just rumble. Either one of those situations also left me struggling to sit in a mix without being too loud. I don't agree with Entwistle - both sides need to sound good on their own for me. I have a dedicated mute on each signal. Sometimes I will mute the highs if we're doing an EDM kind of thing, sometimes I'll mute the lows for some intro work - say if I want to sit with a guitar in the mix before punching the lows in when the drums kick off.

I understand why you don't get it. It's not traditional bass player stuff. When I was doing research on my set up, I talked to a few folks here about how they approached biamping and most of them told me they gave up on it because they had the same problem sitting in a mix that I was having. I solved the problem by doing what I said in the previous post. 100 hz seemed to be the trick. When both sides of my signal are represented there, it sounds good.
 
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#265
FugaziBomb said:
One side of my signal is clean lows, the other side is mids/highs, often with overdrive/wah/delay/octave up/ etc etc - akin to a guitar amp. If I run a traditional crossover, the crossover frequency was always a compromise. If the lows sounded audible and present, the overdrive on the highs was thin. If the overdriven highs were sounding good, the lows would be just rumble. Either one of those situations also left me struggling to sit in a mix without being too loud. I don't agree with Entwistle - both sides need to sound good on their own for me. I have a dedicated mute on each signal. Sometimes I will mute the highs if we're doing an EDM kind of thing, sometimes I'll mute the lows for some intro work - say if I want to sit with a guitar in the mix before punching the lows in when the drums kick off.

I understand why you don't get it. It's not traditional bass player stuff. When I was doing research on my set up, I talked to a few folks here about how they approached biamping and most of them told me they gave up on it because they had the same problem sitting in a mix that I was having. I solved the problem by doing what I said in the previous post. 100 hz seemed to be the trick. When both sides of my signal are represented there, it sounds good.
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Oh, I get what you are saying now. IMHO, it's not a practical setup, though. Let me explain why.

In my experience, one of the main advantages of using dirt (or other effects) in a cross-over is to provide consistent lows to FOH. With crossed-over setup, the lows sent to FOH will be consistent no matter what happens to mids and highs. For me presonally, it's the main reason (or one of them) to use a crossover.

With your setup (as you describe it), you sometimes send to FOH half the energy at 100Hz (when you mute one of the signals), sometimes you send twice the energy at 100Hz (when both signals are unmuted). That kind of inconsistency in this frequency range will cause a major headache for the sound engineer. He will need to employ radical compression/limiting/dynamic EQ on that channel to overcome this inconsistency...if he is not lazy. If he is lazy, he might simply turn down the fader on the bass channel. Either way, the tone of the bass will suffer.

Of course, IME and YMMV, as always...
 
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#268
After messing with the pedal for an hour or so, I was getting ready for bed when a completely new approach to using the pedal dawned on me, and I still need to try it at 18V, so I've only scratched the surface of what it can do.

I'd say it's my new favorite crossover, it doesn't add any weird EQing and there's a lot of flexibility. So far I've only tried a drive in the high loop, so add putting a pedal in the low loop to the list of things I need to tinker with this weekend.

Well worth the price, looking forward to spending more time with the pedal. Bonus points for not having an overly bright LED and the ridiculously fast shipping, the included stickers are cool too.

EDIT: not sure if I've mentioned which crossovers I've previously tried somewhere earlier in this thread but it's likely, for anyone interested.
 
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#269
Definitely run this pedal at 18V if you're using it with dirt. I was happy with 9V but after trying 18V, I'm very impressed with the added headroom.

Using dirt in the high loop, I've tried matching my clean low end with just the low loop and Return Balance knob, as well as turning off the low loop and using the Clean Blend to dial in low end. Honestly, they both sound great with this pedal and it's hard to pick a favorite. Even using the clean blend with the Return Balance at 50/50 seems to always yield pleasing results.

My next venture is trying it with distortion and some real high gain.
 
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#273
Zbysek said:
Yeah, that's what I like about using dirt in crossovers (loopers).

Do you plug anything in the low frequency loop?
Click to expand...


I've tried a dirty boost in the low loop with decent results, and the button that swaps the loops can sometimes make an OK tone sound even better. Lots of sonic territory covered with this pedal, it can be hard to find one to settle on
 
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#276
Which compressor/limiter pedal would you recommend for lows in a crossover setup?

I want to put the compressor/limiter in the lows band FX loop using Great Eastern XO as the crossover. I plan to set the crossover between 150-300Hz...so the compressor will be dealing only with frequencies below 300Hz. The highs band FX loop will have an overdrive or distortion pedal.

My considerations:
  • I want an analog pedal
  • I think I don't need HPF in the sidechain
  • I want a compressor which is capable of either limiting or high-ratio compression
  • I can live without a dry blend
I have Becos Twain on my other pedalboard so I am considering Becos One for this task.

Is there any other compressor/limiter you would recommend to me for this task? Thank you.
 
#280
Zbysek said:
Tyler Deluxe ordered. Should be here next week...
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It has arrived...

Tyler.jpeg
Tyler2.jpeg
 
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