Electric and acoustic on a gig

Kelleys Heroes

Kelleys Heroes

Experienced
So I have a gig coming up, a show with lots of guitar switches between acoustic and electric. I will use one preset for each instrument, I have the presets basically worked out, but my acoustic levels are much lower than my electric. I solved this by jacking up the levels in the input AND the output, also increasing the level in the amp block preamp. This works OK, but it makes me wonder if there is a best practice for upping the level in this kind of setup. It occured to me that I could have my electric use output 1 (at -10db) and acoustic use out 2 (+4 db). Looking for suggestions or user experiences with such a setup
 
I’d adjust more level for the acoustic at its input block. That sets the level for everything else in the chain so you get “normal” settings there.

Unless you’re using an amp block for acoustic, it would basically accomplish the same thing if there are no blocks before it.
 
chris said:
I’d adjust more level for the acoustic at its input block. That sets the level for everything else in the chain so you get “normal” settings there.

Unless you’re using an amp block for acoustic, it would basically accomplish the same thing if there are no blocks before it.
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Hmm, so I thought I was solving this with an amp block in my preset, but there are blocks before it. Why does that make a difference?
 
Kelleys Heroes said:
Hmm, so I thought I was solving this with an amp block in my preset, but there are blocks before it. Why does that make a difference?
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sometimes not a big deal, but if you have a very low input going to a compressor, your settings may run out of range to compress that level normally, or say a drive block may not do what you want it to with too low of an input.

it really depends, and may be totally fine currently. but having the correct input at the very first stage sets things up better for later.
 
Are you running your own sound?

A problem I ran into regularly when running acoustic and electric through my FM3 was that the venue would apply certain “fixes” on autopilot as soon as they saw an acoustic, and from that point, both my acoustic and electric were messed up in the house. In the end, I surrendered and ran separate rigs.

Of course everything was fine when we did our own sound.
 
Are you using Input1 for both and unplugging cables or using two inputs? If you are using Input2 for the acoustic did you set it for "left only"?
 
scarbodave said:
Are you using Input1 for both and unplugging cables or using two inputs? If you are using Input2 for the acoustic did you set it for "left only"?
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I have been using input 1 for both and unplugging cables, but now I am considering redoing my presets so that electric is input1 and acoustic input2. This will make it a little more complicated, but having levels set at the input stage might help equalize things more.

If I use inout 2 for acoustic, are you suggesting I set it to "left only"?. I'm pretty sure I have everything set to Copy L>R for my inputs.
 
ElectricPhase said:
Are you running your own sound?

A problem I ran into regularly when running acoustic and electric through my FM3 was that the venue would apply certain “fixes” on autopilot as soon as they saw an acoustic, and from that point, both my acoustic and electric were messed up in the house. In the end, I surrendered and ran separate rigs.

Of course everything was fine when we did our own sound.
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The gig is in a "concert club" type venue with good sound and sound person I have used all the time, the only thing different is that I will do acoustic to electric switched several times, and I want to make this as straightforward as possible. Eliminating variables.
 
I am now wondering what makes the most sense if I use the separate inputs for acoustic and electric, does it make more sense to use separate outputs also? On stage I'll have a single Atomic CLR. I was thinking that I would set my electric preset output to copy L>R and then use one XLR for the house and one to my Atomic.

For the acoustic, I was thinking I would set it to use both Out1 and Out 2 so that for my Atomic it would still come out of Out 1 (L) and then send Out 2 (L) to the house. It seems like the simplest and most flexible way. Am I missing a better way to do this?
 
Kelleys Heroes said:
I have been using input 1 for both and unplugging cables, but now I am considering redoing my presets so that electric is input1 and acoustic input2. This will make it a little more complicated, but having levels set at the input stage might help equalize things more.

If I use inout 2 for acoustic, are you suggesting I set it to "left only"?. I'm pretty sure I have everything set to Copy L>R for my inputs.
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Setting to left only is the recommendation in the manual.
 
scarbodave said:
Setting to left only is the recommendation in the manual.
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Right, for the case if you use a single output to a speaker. In my case I will also send to the house sound, so I am exploring beyond that setup in the manual (p38). Though, come to think of it I could merely copy output 1>2 and then use the L output. Amazing how flexible the IO is on these things!
 
I created a preset for my guitars with piezo pickups in them. I run the magnetic pickups into input 1 and the piezo into input 2. I run them in separate signal chains then merge them into one output. It works great. I use a cab block with two acoustic IRs in it for he piezo side. I also have a compressor block in that signal chain. This scenario is the exact reason I bought an FM9. At first I had to limit the blocks I used in this scenario. That caused changes in my preset over time. The gained some efficiencies with CPU usage with the updates and that allowed me to put more of what I really wanted into the preset. I uploaded one of my earlier presets for public use. You can probably find it under my username.
 


Setup for input 2 routed to output 1. I am trying to use input 1 and 2 simultaneously. And then merge to a single output. For some reason I only get input 1 to work. See image for setup. anything obviously wrong here?
 
bootstrap said:


Setup for input 2 routed to output 1. I am trying to use input 1 and 2 simultaneously. And then merge to a single output. For some reason I only get input 1 to work. See image for setup. anything obviously wrong here?
Click to expand...

That should work, so check your Input setups.
 
Fractal support gave my quick response after providing them the sysx file. I needed to set the Reverb block bypass mode to "Thru". This way when Reverb is disabled signal still flows. 1699629934385.png
 
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