My CLR NEOs for busking

P

peterjakes

Member
So, one of the reasons I got a CLR NEO is to take it out for an occasional busking gig. Its light, 500 watts of digital power and a built in amplifier.

My question is this - I use both my NEOs with an Axe FX XL and connected via a small 4 channel Mackie mixer. I would like to take just one NEO and my guitar with a small pedal board (4 pedals - compressor, delay, overdrive and tuner) to a small busking gig in the town square. I hooked it up last night in my music room as follows.

Guitar to input on pedal board, out from pedal board to input 1 of NEO.
iPhone with backing tracks (mini stereo jack) to input 2 of NEO.
I WAS UNDERWHELMED ! The output levels very low. I had to turn up both inputs to way above 2 O'clock and still couldn't get the red inout clipping lights to just light up. Very low volume playing in clean etc.

Does this mean that the CLRs as FRFR are suitable to receive the line level outputs from an Axe FX / Mixer and cannot be used direct as you would to hook up instrument & pedal board as you would to a tube amp ?

Any help / thoughts greatly appreciated.

:numbness:
 
Yes you are correct. Pedals normally have a very low output designed for instrument level inputs of a guitar amp. The CLR's have line level inputs which expects more voltage than what the pedals put out. You probably could use DI Box but I don't think distortion from a drive alone will sound very good.
 
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luke said:
Unbalanced -10db
Balanced +4db
Click to expand...

Hi Luke, a little more detail please. Are you referring to or suggesting I get balanced cables i.e. how do I go from an unbalanced 1/4" instrument cable to a balanced XLR into the CLRs ?

In anticipation of your response I shall go google to see if these exist.

Thanks
 
You'd probably need to keep the mixer in the setup to keep your outputs hot enough for the power amp in the CLR - but I can't believe the guitar tone would be that great if you're going straight from those stomp pedals to a power amp/FRFR speaker without a good guitar style preamp in between...... and no cab emulation.

With a bit of careful routing - you could use your AxeFX to handle both guitar and iPhone on separate ins/outs and use 1 CLR ..... but I guess the bonus of losing the mixer and pedalboard is negated somewhat by needing to bring a midi pedal to control the presets/FX blocks on the AxeFX.
 
Thanks all for your help. I went out and got two TRS to XLR cables to go from the Balanced Mixer Outputs L and R.

Last question - which brand or device would you recommend as a guitar preamp between the pedal board and mixer. I am mainly a clean tone player. Thanks again.
 
Tech21 'Character' products - TECH 21 - CHARACTER SERIES - Blonde (Fender Tweed) maybe?

They do other sansamp models like the Classic and GT2 if you wanted to cover more amp types in one pedal.

Good pedals these by all accounts - they handle the problem of cab emulation for you too - you could also possibly bypass the mixer as the Sansamp pedal should be capable to be turned up hot enough output to go direct to the power amp stage in the CLR ...... but the iPhone backing track might still need the mixer's help?
 
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