Splitting guitar signal AB/Y advice needed.

Rexgtr

Rexgtr

Experienced
I've recently purchased a TC Helicon Voicelive 3 Extreme floor effects for vocals. It requires your guitar to be plugged into it to assist the vocal harmony detection by following your chords (Vocoder, Harmonizer, Talkbox)

My issue is splitting my guitar to feed both units VL3E and Axe FX II while not losing any guitar signal or adding hum. So far tried a passive DI Box (choked my guitar signal to the point of useless)
Tried a cheap passive AB/Y box (added hum noise)

Could really use some advice of what to use to split my guitar signal to both devices cleanly and preferably with AB/Y switching.

Btw - using the VL3E guitar thru turns off the units guitar processing.
 
B_TCHELICON_voicelive3extreme.jpg
 
Have you tried the thru on the unit? can you run an out from the axe fx with the fx loop or are you using it already?

sorry over looked the bottom of your post!
 
I use the thru on the unit as well. I have a VL3 but same thing. Don't forget there is a ground lift on the VL3 (a very small button). Works fine that way for me
 
OK, I just tried using the Thru out again and have now discovered the ground lift switch BUT I have a bad ground loop! Story of my life (Fractal has solved most of my ground loop nightmares just by placing most I need in a black box.)
I'll definitely need to use some sort of splitter with isolation transformers or something to keep the to units from growling when hooked up to the same guitar signal.
 
Hey Rexx, I commented on Facebook as well - I just remembered I have a Boss splitter pedal you could try as well.
 
I use the TC Voice Live 3 with the Fractal. It's been in my rig for a long time no hum or ground loops.

Are you trying to use the guitar layer in the TC to process guitar or just to drive the harmonies?

By the way, I use the TC as my foot controller for for the Fractal. I use it to change presets and turn blocks on and off in the Fractal
 
This is weird, many are saying they're experiencing no ground loop. I have my Axe and TC plugged into the same Furman power strip? Each unit runs clean on their own but combined inputs are causing me hum.
I'm trying to also check out the VL3E's guitar processing effects and looper capabilities, so yes I'm not just trying to drive harmonies right now.
barhrecords, that's interesting you are controlling the Fractal with the TC,. For now I prefer it to just control my vocal effects.
 
I haven't arrived there yet but one thing that attracted me to this vocal effect unit is the ability to store backing tracks to 100 presets and also to store up to 50 loops to presets.
 
Last edited:
I only use it for vocals too. No ground loop for me. And I rack the unit and use the MFC to control the VL3 though most of my patches are step 1 and step 2 which works quite well. Check and see if you have any dimmers in your house. That's a common culprit too.
 
Just dug up my old Behringer Ultra-DI and it is allowing me to connect to both without much hum (livable),
perhaps my USB connected to my computer could be causing the ground loop? I had it disconnected and it seems better.

Witelite, that's a cool way to use the VL3E.
 
Do all audio systems get power from the same wall outlet? If not, give it a try.

Otherwise any booster or buffer with an Y cable will split the signal for you, but they always have an influence on the sound of passive guitars.
 
666was999, Thanks for sharing your wisdom, I appreciate being educated about ground loops as understanding it has eluded me.
My PC Computer is powered on the same AC line as my Rack and AxeFX/VL3E but the computer isn't plugged into the same Furman power strip. I tend to turn off my Furman's when I'm not playing and the computer just plugs into the wall. Definitely I have a ground loop between my PC and my gear so I should figure that out moving forward.
 
Rexx said:
666was999, Thanks for sharing your wisdom, I appreciate being educated about ground loops as understanding it has eluded me.
My PC Computer is powered on the same AC line as my Rack and AxeFX/VL3E but the computer isn't plugged into the same Furman power strip. I tend to turn off my Furman's when I'm not playing and the computer just plugs into the wall. Definitely I have a ground loop between my PC and my gear so I should figure that out moving forward.
Click to expand...

Probably the computer has no ground connection to the axe-fx, but who knows. Do you have any tester unit there to check if two points are connected? You could check if the PC's housing and the ground of you axe-FX have a connection.
 
Are you using Output 2 of the Axe for anything? If not you could set Output 2 Echo to Input 1 in the I/O menu Audio page and send the input signal from your guitar to Output 2 and feed that to the TC. You could then use a humbuster cable from Output 2 if you run into any ground loops.
 
I want to leave output 2 alone for now. in the future I want to use Output 2 to feed my 2x12 Marshall power amp in. Output 1 feeds into my Mixer/Soundcard/Studio Monitors
 
Last edited:
My signal flow is:

Guitar -> Front input Fractal

Fractal Out 1 L XLR -> FOH
Fractal Out 2 L TS -> Monitor mixer
Fractal Out 2 R TS -> TC Electronic Voice Live 3 Guitar In (use regular guitar cable for this)

TC Voice Live 3 Midi Out -> Fractal Midi In
TC Voice Live 3 XLR Out L -> FOH
TC Voice Live 3 XLR Out R -> Monitor mixer
(dummy plug in TC guitar out to shunt the guitar signal in the XLR outs)

This configuration has worked flawlessly for me for going on 2 years.

I have it setup where with one button on the TC I can, on the Fractal, mute Out 1 L and Out 2 L but keep Out 2 R to drive the vocal harmonies. I can sing "acapella" and play silent guitar chords that drive the harmony vocals.

Also on the TC I can, via midi, control the Fractal:

- preset up and down
- drive block on / off
- geq block on / off
- rev block on / off
- dly block on / off
- gonzo on / off (this is usually some far out effect like multi-delay)
- wah on / off
 
Last edited:
barhrecords said:
By the way, I use the TC as my foot controller for for the Fractal. I use it to change presets and turn blocks on and off in the Fractal
Click to expand...

Really?! I've got a Voicelive
barhrecords said:
My signal flow is:

Guitar -> Front input Fractal

Fractal Out 1 L XLR -> FOH
Fractal Out 2 L TS -> Monitor mixer
Fractal Out 2 R TS -> TC Electronic Voice Live 3 Guitar In (use regular guitar cable for this)

TC Voice Live 3 Midi Out -> Fractal Midi In
TC Voice Live 3 XLR Out L -> FOH
TC Voice Live 3 XLR Out R -> Monitor mixer
(dummy plug in TC guitar out to shunt the guitar signal in the XLR outs)

This configuration has worked flawlessly for me for going on 2 years.

I have it setup where with one button on the TC I can mute Out 1 L and Out 2 L but keep Out 2 R to drive the vocal harmonies. I can sing "acapella" and play silent guitar chords that drive the harmony vocals.

Also on the TC I can, via midi, control the Fractal:

- preset up and down
- drive block on / off
- geq block on / off
- rev block on / off
- dly block on / off
- gonzo on / off (this is usually some far out effect like multi-delay)
- wah on / off
Click to expand...

Wow. This is a revelation for me, can't wait to try it out with my Voicelive 3! Thanks!!
 
Try this preset, not at my studio right now, but I believe this is setup for the routing I described.

What is really cool is the midi learn function of the Fractal.

Decide what external controllers you want to use in the Fractal, then get into midi learn mode, press the footswitch on the TC, and the Fractal will assign that footswitch automatically to the controller.
 

Attachments

  • bandmaster barh.syx
    12.6 KB · Views: 1
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom