Source Audio Sorcerers Society (S.A.S.S) Part 3

[Discount Bassy]

Have you verified the integrity of the TRRS cables (continuity and circuit isolation) with a DVOM and insured complete seating of the connectors? Have you verified 9VDC to all involved components? Is the amperage draw of the involved components in excess of the supply circuit's stated operating range? Good luck with you troubles in any case and let us know what is going on when the source of trouble is discovered.

 

[odarellmc]

Have you verified the integrity of the TRRS cables (continuity and circuit isolation) with a DVOM and insured complete seating of the connectors? Have you verified 9VDC to all involved components? Is the amperage draw of the involved components in excess of the supply circuit's stated operating range? Good luck with you troubles in any case and let us know what is going on when the source of trouble is discovered.

I use a coiks dc7 yes swapped cables and the same ones are being recognized. The cables seat fine again I think the hub is bad. Should I be setting the pedals on different midi channels maybe?

 

[Discount Bassy]

The hub should recognize the pedals whether they are set to different channels or not. That choice is more of a usage configuration scheme than a pedal recognition parameter. Did you measure the voltage out from your Cioks power supply on the affected channels or are you relying on the brand and model to verify output? I would verify the voltage at the power supply port and also the business end of the power cable just to rule out the basics required for operation. I would also be patient for a response from the SA support team. These guys are good at what they do and have gone out of their way to assist me with questions in the past. The folks here that represent SA are legit and I have ended up talking to the same folks via their factory tech support.

 

[odarellmc]

The hub should recognize the pedals whether they are set to different channels or not. That choice is more of a usage configuration scheme than a pedal recognition parameter. Did you measure the voltage out from your Cioks power supply on the affected channels or are you relying on the brand and model to verify output? I would verify the voltage at the power supply port and also the business end of the power cable just to rule out the basics required for operation. I would also be patient for a response from the SA support team. These guys are good at what they do and have gone out of their way to assist me with questions in the past. The folks here that represent SA are legit and I have ended up talking to the same folks via their factory tech support.

Well if the cioks can't deliver the right voltage then I might as well throw the whole board into the garbage. it's working like it should. Everybody is asking questions about everything but the hub. What is it? Why is it more likely something else and not the hub? Does anyone have info on possibly fixing the hub? Or is it something about the older series one pedals?

 

[Gibs210]

I don’t think it’s a power issue, it’s either the TRRS cables/ hub ports, or it needs a reboot in bootloader for a fresh firmware install.

 

[odarellmc]

I don’t think it’s a power issue, it’s either the TRRS cables/ hub ports, or it needs a reboot in bootloader for a fresh firmware install.

Ive swapped the cables and they work it just the hub is not reading those two pedals. Must be a difference in how the lunar and aftershock communicate to the hub...

 

[Luke the Fluke]

Well if the cioks can't deliver the right voltage then I might as well throw the whole board into the garbage. it's working like it should. Everybody is asking questions about everything but the hub. What is it? Why is it more likely something else and not the hub? Does anyone have info on possibly fixing the hub? Or is it something about the older series one pedals?

Best problem solving is a process of elimination. We’ve all heard the apocryphal story of the man who spent two hours on the phone with IT support for his new computer where the call ended with “oh should i have plugged it in?”

 

[GMC]

Ive swapped the cables and they work it just the hub is not reading those two pedals. Must be a difference in how the lunar and aftershock communicate to the hub...

Source Audio make some really nice kit that works amazingly well. BUT sourcing a set of 3rd party 3.5mm TRRS cables that fully match their specifications can be a problem.
Another common issue is undervolting, SA gear is very sensitive to PSU / Power mismatches. I bought a very expensive and prestigious Stymon PSU system only to find that it has a slow power ramp up on boot. This really messes with SA pedals. That's on Strymon, not SA because I'm using an unvalidated PSU and I'm assuming that it will work. Strymon had effectively sold a PSU that natively doesn't work as well as it does powering it's own brand of pedals. Lessons learned...next time, I go and get Cioks branded PSU's.
Another issue I've recently had is that I was getting Midi chatter over the audio. If I turned off my Neuro Hub, the audio chatter dissapeared. So one would think that it was an issue with the Neuro hub, it actually was an issue with my Boss ES-5. If I don't use the input and output buffers...then it get Midi chatter down the audio. There's obviously some kind of filter going on in the buffers. Was it the Neuro hub? No, that was where the fault was seen, not where the fault originated. A bit like back pain...that's where the pain is registered, not necessarily where the underlying cause is centred.
if some one was to ask me the three most common symptoms / issues with the Neuro Hub (or any Source Audio gear) I would label them
1) Undervolting - try the supplied PSU and see if it still occurrs.
2) 3rd party cabling issues - try SA supplied cables.
3) take away all the other components from the power, signal chain, midi chain and see if they are the root cause of the problem.

I'm glad you have a working Source Audio eco-system, when these teething prolems are ironed out and working...it works REALLY well. With one scene, you can set up 5 pedals via midi. That is fast, efficient and reliable.

 

[odarellmc]

Source Audio make some really nice kit that works amazingly well. BUT sourcing a set of 3rd party 3.5mm TRRS cables that fully match their specifications can be a problem.
Another common issue is undervolting, SA gear is very sensitive to PSU / Power mismatches. I bought a very expensive and prestigious Stymon PSU system only to find that it has a slow power ramp up on boot. This really messes with SA pedals. That's on Strymon, not SA because I'm using an unvalidated PSU and I'm assuming that it will work. Strymon had effectively sold a PSU that natively doesn't work as well as it does powering it's own brand of pedals. Lessons learned...next time, I go and get Cioks branded PSU's.
Another issue I've recently had is that I was getting Midi chatter over the audio. If I turned off my Neuro Hub, the audio chatter dissapeared. So one would think that it was an issue with the Neuro hub, it actually was an issue with my Boss ES-5. If I don't use the input and output buffers...then it get Midi chatter down the audio. There's obviously some kind of filter going on in the buffers. Was it the Neuro hub? No, that was where the fault was seen, not where the fault originated. A bit like back pain...that's where the pain is registered, not necessarily where the underlying cause is centred.
if some one was to ask me the three most common symptoms / issues with the Neuro Hub (or any Source Audio gear) I would label them
1) Undervolting - try the supplied PSU and see if it still occurrs.
2) 3rd party cabling issues - try SA supplied cables.
3) take away all the other components from the power, signal chain, midi chain and see if they are the root cause of the problem.

I'm glad you have a working Source Audio eco-system, when these teething prolems are ironed out and working...it works REALLY well. With one scene, you can set up 5 pedals via midi. That is fast, efficient and reliable.

Thanks for replying. Very different from my situation. As everything pretty much on the board is from SA and I am using cioks and the cables are from SA.

 

[Adamixoye]

Source Audio make some really nice kit that works amazingly well. BUT sourcing a set of 3rd party 3.5mm TRRS cables that fully match their specifications can be a problem.
Another common issue is undervolting, SA gear is very sensitive to PSU / Power mismatches. I bought a very expensive and prestigious Stymon PSU system only to find that it has a slow power ramp up on boot. This really messes with SA pedals. That's on Strymon, not SA because I'm using an unvalidated PSU and I'm assuming that it will work. Strymon had effectively sold a PSU that natively doesn't work as well as it does powering it's own brand of pedals. Lessons learned...next time, I go and get Cioks branded PSU's.
Another issue I've recently had is that I was getting Midi chatter over the audio. If I turned off my Neuro Hub, the audio chatter dissapeared. So one would think that it was an issue with the Neuro hub, it actually was an issue with my Boss ES-5. If I don't use the input and output buffers...then it get Midi chatter down the audio. There's obviously some kind of filter going on in the buffers. Was it the Neuro hub? No, that was where the fault was seen, not where the fault originated. A bit like back pain...that's where the pain is registered, not necessarily where the underlying cause is centred.
if some one was to ask me the three most common symptoms / issues with the Neuro Hub (or any Source Audio gear) I would label them
1) Undervolting - try the supplied PSU and see if it still occurrs.
2) 3rd party cabling issues - try SA supplied cables.
3) take away all the other components from the power, signal chain, midi chain and see if they are the root cause of the problem.

I'm glad you have a working Source Audio eco-system, when these teething prolems are ironed out and working...it works REALLY well. With one scene, you can set up 5 pedals via midi. That is fast, efficient and reliable.

Yeah...I like SA but my takeaway from experiences as well as some of the experiences of others I've read about on Talkbass is that sometimes SA only plays well within its own ecosystem and not with others'. I don't interpret "SA gear is really picky about its environment" to mean that SA is doing things the most sensible way and it's always at the fault of other companies...

 

[Gibs210]

Derek, how do you power the usb hub? I notice that it has a wall wart. Do you use that or the cioks?

https://www.amazon.com/Rosonway-Alu...13-5/dp/B0B8GR8KK6?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1&psc=1

I know Derek is powering his with the dc7, but it looks like the two usb hubs are the same design, just different company label on the face. Wonder if the 13 port could get away with being powering by the dc7 as well. That provided supply for the 13 port is huge, and I don’t have any IEC outlets on my board. So would rather power via dc7 if I go that route. Otherwise, I found a $25 2.0 hub that will power off of the 5v USB port on the powermax that I have. I don’t foresee needing high speed usb as the 2.0 hub I’ve been using for the hubs has been sufficient unpowered.

 

[Derek Williams]

I know Derek is powering his with the dc7, but it looks like the two usb hubs are the same design, just different company label on the face. Wonder if the 13 port could get away with being powering by the dc7 as well. That provided supply for the 13 port is huge, and I don’t have any IEC outlets on my board. So would rather power via dc7 if I go that route. Otherwise, I found a $25 2.0 hub that will power off of the 5v USB port on the powermax that I have. I don’t foresee needing high speed usb as the 2.0 hub I’ve been using for the hubs has been sufficient unpowered.

I think the Cioks will do fine, as long as you don’t try powering anything with the hub. USB power goes way above what pedal supplies will put out, but everything I plug into the hub is data only.

 

[odarellmc]

Source Audio make some really nice kit that works amazingly well. BUT sourcing a set of 3rd party 3.5mm TRRS cables that fully match their specifications can be a problem.
Another common issue is undervolting, SA gear is very sensitive to PSU / Power mismatches. I bought a very expensive and prestigious Stymon PSU system only to find that it has a slow power ramp up on boot. This really messes with SA pedals. That's on Strymon, not SA because I'm using an unvalidated PSU and I'm assuming that it will work. Strymon had effectively sold a PSU that natively doesn't work as well as it does powering it's own brand of pedals. Lessons learned...next time, I go and get Cioks branded PSU's.
Another issue I've recently had is that I was getting Midi chatter over the audio. If I turned off my Neuro Hub, the audio chatter dissapeared. So one would think that it was an issue with the Neuro hub, it actually was an issue with my Boss ES-5. If I don't use the input and output buffers...then it get Midi chatter down the audio. There's obviously some kind of filter going on in the buffers. Was it the Neuro hub? No, that was where the fault was seen, not where the fault originated. A bit like back pain...that's where the pain is registered, not necessarily where the underlying cause is centred.
if some one was to ask me the three most common symptoms / issues with the Neuro Hub (or any Source Audio gear) I would label them
1) Undervolting - try the supplied PSU and see if it still occurrs.
2) 3rd party cabling issues - try SA supplied cables.
3) take away all the other components from the power, signal chain, midi chain and see if they are the root cause of the problem.

I'm glad you have a working Source Audio eco-system, when these teething prolems are ironed out and working...it works REALLY well. With one scene, you can set up 5 pedals via midi. That is fast, efficient and reliable.

..I took your advice so I'm looking at the cables again and yep there were some that weren't trrs. I'm now going through each cable to the hub individually and checking. I'll report back. Thanks for the help guys...

 

[odarellmc]

I think

Yeah...I like SA but my takeaway from experiences as well as some of the experiences of others I've read about on Talkbass is that sometimes SA only plays well within its own ecosystem and not with others'. I don't interpret "SA gear is really picky about its environment" to mean that SA is doing things the most sensible way and it's always at the fault of other companies...

I think part of the problem are these images. It says trrs but it doesn't look like it. Is there any standards for the types of cables?

 

[Adamixoye]

I think

I think part of the problem are these images. It says trrs but it doesn't look like it. Is there any standards for the types of cables?View attachment 4883782 View attachment 4883784

Well those are two different things. The newer stuff off of the control ports uses TRS, the Hub uses TRRS. One can pretty easily see the difference in the pictures if one knows what to look for. One could also look for "3 pole" vs. "4 pole."

 

[Discount Bassy]

 

[Derek Williams]

I know Derek is powering his with the dc7, but it looks like the two usb hubs are the same design, just different company label on the face. Wonder if the 13 port could get away with being powering by the dc7 as well. That provided supply for the 13 port is huge, and I don’t have any IEC outlets on my board. So would rather power via dc7 if I go that route. Otherwise, I found a $25 2.0 hub that will power off of the 5v USB port on the powermax that I have. I don’t foresee needing high speed usb as the 2.0 hub I’ve been using for the hubs has been sufficient unpowered.

I lied, I am powering stuff with my hub, and it’s working great. I currently have 5 SA pedals, Neuro Hub, Quad Cortex (as audio interface), CME WIDI Thru6, and a CME WIDI Bud Pro plugged in. Both of the CME WIDI boxes are powered by the hub. Great part is, I have all this plugged into a Thunderbolt docking station (which is plugged into my laptop), and I am getting no noticeable ground noise.

 

[odarellmc]

So I confirmed this one cable here is not trrs it's trs also my port number 3 for whatever reason is dead so I may have to buy another..

 

[odarellmc]

Ok so now 3 of 4:are showing on ports 1,2 and 4 I have 5 pedals but only four cables one of which wasn't trrs, plus port two is dead. Now I need another hub and two new trrs cables...

 

[Quatschmacher]

Ok so now 3 of 4:are showing on ports 1,2 and 4 I have 5 pedals but only four cables one of which wasn't trrs, plus port two is dead. Now I need another hub and two new trrs cables...

Did you rescan each time you swapped ports? Just trying to make sure you didn’t overlook anything before you declare it defunct.