Double Bass D-tar Solstice noise?

[Rick Turner]

This is indeed the problem with trying to make a "Swiss Army Knife" piece of gear. Most stage boxes are indeed set up for mic level inputs, and there's a whole lot of gain down at the other end at the mixer. Tony, perhaps you could give a "heads up" to the PA mixer and ask that the bass input be moved over to a line level input. Some (a few) mixers have a "MIC/LINE" switch at the input stage. Others require plugging into a line level input that's often in parallel to the mic level input. Yet others have separate channels dedicated to line level inputs. Solstice is indeed the preamp stage, designed to drive power amps or line level inputs that basically don't have to add gain, but rather just perform mixing, EQing, and effects blending functions.

You know, in the high end stereo world, "passive" preamps are all the rage. They don't have active gain stages, just volume controls and input source switching; at most you'll see a passive transformer voltage boost stage followed by a stepped attenuator. This is because the output from most CD players, tuners, and dedicated phono preamps can directly drive power amps.

There's a parallel in there somewhere!

 

[flatback]

So I'm doing a little touring this month and I had planned on (because it is as tony describes a plug and play kind or whirlwind) just bringing the solstice and going into the board (without bringing any amp)
Are you cats suggesting that I should (for example) strap my Demeter DI to the solstice and give the board an out from there?

 

[tony-moore]

I'm going to bring a passive Whirlwind IMP-2 DI just in case. So I'll take Rick's (or Billy's?) suggestion and send the 1/4" main out of the Solstice into the IMP's input and then send the IMP's XLR out to the FOH.

That is if I can't get a line level input from the FOH to send direct from the Solstice XLR output...

Tony

 

[tony-moore]

I gigged again with the Solstice tonight at the same venue I mentioned when I started this thread.

Unfortunately, the stage was already wired with labeled DI's for everyone and it would have been a huge hassle for the engineers to get me a line level. So I sent the main out of the Solstice to the venue's DI. This fixed the problem! Tho in a not very elegant way. I had a volume control on the signal being sent to the FOH, and we were able to set up and get a great sound quickly. Had I been using an amp to monitor, this would have been a problem since that output is usually sent to an amp. But I was using a wedge so it was no problem.

I can honestly say this was the best live sound I've gotten using a doublebass in a band setting. There was a drummer, guitarist, organ, violin and several vocalist in a large venue. I used the Fishman Full Circle alone as I didn't have enough time to dial in a good sound from the Schertler Dyn-B, but it didn't matter in this ensemble...

In short, I really do think having a level control on the DI is essential and I'm glad to hear they'll be doing this. The Solstice is a damn fine unit. My only wishes would be to have a battery powered option and sweepable eq. I know the other D-tar unit does this, but I don't want another box Just think, 4 band eq with gain and concentric frequency/q controls for each band. Now THAT would be the uber-box!

Tony

 

[JohnThomasson]

I gigged again with the Solstice tonight at the same venue I mentioned when I started this thread.

Unfortunately, the stage was already wired with labeled DI's for everyone and it would have been a huge hassle for the engineers to get me a line level. So I sent the main out of the Solstice to the venue's DI. This fixed the problem! Tho in a not very elegant way. I had a volume control on the signal being sent to the FOH, and we were able to set up and get a great sound quickly. Had I been using an amp to monitor, this would have been a problem since that output is usually sent to an amp. But I was using a wedge so it was no problem.

I can honestly say this was the best live sound I've gotten using a doublebass in a band setting. There was a drummer, guitarist, organ, violin and several vocalist in a large venue. I used the Fishman Full Circle alone as I didn't have enough time to dial in a good sound from the Schertler Dyn-B, but it didn't matter in this ensemble...

In short, I really do think having a level control on the DI is essential and I'm glad to hear they'll be doing this. The Solstice is a damn fine unit. My only wishes would be to have a battery powered option and sweepable eq. I know the other D-tar unit does this, but I don't want another box Just think, 4 band eq with gain and concentric frequency/q controls for each band. Now THAT would be the uber-box!

Tony

I would take that in a one channel option if that would make it easier. Otherwise people would probably want the EQ for both channels and that would get big and expensive.

You can always run the individual channel out to your amp and the master to the house DI. But, you won't be able to mute it to the amp. The mute only works on the master. At least on mine.

 

[Rick Turner]

Tony, have you tried an Equinox as a preamp?

Also, the reason we didn't go battery powered is because the quality of electronics we favor requires too much current and voltage. You'd have very short battery life. We also have heard that the other units out there such as the Raven and Highlander preamps have very short battery life.

 

[JohnThomasson]

A phantom powered unit would be nice. My power supply went out last night. I have tried to take good care of it. Most of its life it has either been in my pedal board (touring) or studio up until recently.

I had a gig where I knew I could go direct and I didn't bring my amp. Well wouldn't you know the power supply started to fail. I had to jiggle it and prop it up in a certain way and I got through the gig. The Soltstice sounded great. Hopefully Bob G will have an extra when I call him tomorrow.

 

[tony moore]

Hey Rick!

No, I haven't but I would love too I see your point with the power. The solstice does have a LOT more gain than the Raven. But I never had a problem with batteries in the Raven and I used that unit regularly for several years. BUT, there's no denying that the Solstice sounds better and also has more versatile routing...

Except now that I know what the Solstice sounds like thru a nice PA, it's forcing me to upgrade my little rig so I can enjoy it all the time

Tony

 

[Rick Turner]

Officially: Hiya Tony!

Phantom power really only supplies voltage and a very little current for condenser microphones; there's just not enough juice there to do much else. We go through this issue all the time with guitarists wondering if they can phantom power on-board piezo preamps. Yes, it can be done, but it gets complicated if you want to do true phantom where the DC power is running up the same wire that the audio signal is coming back down from. You have to use de-coupling capacitors in the signal path, you have to lose some of the voltage to resistors for further isolation of the power from the preamp output...(the output of an onboard tends to look like a dead short to upcoming voltage...), etc. Then it gets all non-standard in an industry that actually has few standards other than 1/4" phone plugs. So it's all weird. As a product designer, I see this as an area where we're just damned if we do and damned if we don't.

 

[tony moore]

LOL!

Yeah, everyone wants something different and it really is human nature to want more and believe you can always improve on somehing. Damn Adam and his apple...

If I could get my Solstice with the new DI level mod, I will be more than satisfied.

I gigged all day today at a local mega-Church with an absolutely killer pa and some the best musicians in our area. The Fishman Full Circle and Solstice combo sounded fantastic. I could hear really well and this is the first time I've been able to hear all the transients and inflections in a full ensemble. I'm just not smart enough to know why it does it, but the Solstice brought out nuances that the Fishman Pro EQ never came close to. I have a live recording gig in 2 weeks where I'll be using the Solstice to control my URB, EBG, mandolin and octave mandolin. I can't wait to put it through those paces!

Tony

 

[Rick Turner]

Here's the deal, Tony. Kevin Beller is our chief electronics engineer, and he's one of the partners in D-TAR. Kevin cares first about performance, and then second about cost. He's an expert at putting the high priced, tight tolerance parts exactly where they need to be in a circuit, and then saving money on parts that don't matter so much. He's also a musician, a bassist, in fact, and he listens to what he designs not only with an engineer's point of view, but also with a musician's set of ears.

Then there's the fact that our parent companies are Seymour Duncan and my own Rick Turner/Renaissance Guitars. Seymour and I simply will not put our names on products we can't be truly proud of. I've never worked with folks who do their homework as well as the Duncan folks. Before starting on a product, we really research the market, we look at future needs, and we keep up on the latest in technology. We don't put out products unless we think we can beat our competition in features, quality, and price. That doesn't necessarily result in the least expensive products, but everything in the line offers exceptional value.

We also listen to our musician clients. Hence the addition of the XLR direct out on Equinox and the change to putting the volume control on the direct out on Solstice. Also the last minute addition of an analog low cut filter on the input of Mama Bear (per Laurence Juber's suggestion) which resulted in delaying Mama's release by several months.

We are very likely to keep adding preamps, EQs, and other front end products to the lineup over the coming years. And I hope we do a digital amp/speaker combo!

 

[Adrian Cho]

The next production lot of Solstice preamps will have the main XLR output, as well as the main 1/4" output, adjustable in level with the Master Volume control. We have occasionally modified old units (e.g. Glen Phillips) to have this feature, but we can't modify more than a couple units in engineering without delaying new products.

How can I tell if I have one of these units? Serial number? I just purchased a used unit.