Tonight: first gig with Atomic FRFR

what type of music, size room, type of PA, monitoring system, FOH mixer or not, etc? Interested to hear about your experience.
 
Atomic was a success. The gig was with my U2 tribute. Amp was plenty loud. Ran into the atomic mono. Then came off of the xlr out on the atomic to the board. Noticed my sound in the PA was VERY distorted at first, but sound guy figured it out eventually. I am not real knowledgeable about the terms, but my experience is that the signal that comes off of the axe and the atomic is very hot. I think this freaks some sound guys out if they aren't prepared to deal with that.

The room was decent size. High ceilings. Maybe 40 feet wide and 80 feet long with some tables and a dance floor. Stage about 4 feet elevated from floor. FOH speakers mounted high, coming off the ceiling over the stage. Subs on the floor. A few monitors on stage.

I ran my stage volume sorta low and had a little guitar coming through the venue's wedge. There were several people doing personal video. Probably will track down a clip.

I absolutely love the sounds I am getting. I am really glad that I moved to FRFR and ditched my guitar cab. A song like Beautiful Day is awesome now- using the brit 2x12 cab for the "classic edge sound" sections of the tune and then swap to the hi-watt + 4x12 for the big distortion chorus parts. It is very cool.

ONLY issue- there are some feed back issues that I don't get with the guitar cab. Not happy guitar cab feedback, but ultra high pitch "mic pointed at a stage monitor" type feedback. Typically occurs when I would let a note ring out...digging the sustain....signal getting lower...and at some point, the natural feed back sustain sound would just get swallowed and the amp would squeltch.

-Phil
 
Philip said:
Noticed my sound in the PA was VERY distorted at first, but sound guy figured it out eventually. I am not real knowledgeable about the terms, but my experience is that the signal that comes off of the axe and the atomic is very hot. I think this freaks some sound guys out if they aren't prepared to deal with that.
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The output of the Axe-FX is not "very hot" it is merely line level. A lot of PA boards are set up to receive mic level, not line level, on their XLR inputs. Line level signals will distort when fed to a mic level input. That's what pads (and trim pots) are for, and that's presumably what the sound guy "figured out eventually". To avoid this situation in the future, either tell the sound guy right up front that you are giving him a line level signal rather than a mic level signal, or use a DI box that attenuates that line level signal down to mic level for you so that you never have to surprise the sound guy again (also handy if you ever feed into a snake where all the lines are assumed to be mic level at the board).
 
zslane said:
The output of the Axe-FX is not "very hot" it is merely line level. A lot of PA boards are set up to receive mic level, not line level, on their XLR inputs. Line level signals will distort when fed to a mic level input. That's what pads (and trim pots) are for, and that's presumably what the sound guy "figured out eventually". To avoid this situation in the future, either tell the sound guy right up front that you are giving him a line level signal rather than a mic level signal, or use a DI box that attenuates that line level signal down to mic level for you so that you never have to surprise the sound guy again (also handy if you ever feed into a snake where all the lines are assumed to be mic level at the board).
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Ah, thanks. Always helps to know the vocabulary. I actually have a DI that I take to gigs, as a backup for our drummer who runs the back tracks, I will start using it for the line off of my atomic.

Oh, and in response to GBM, I am using the Cab.

-Phil
 
According to a post from Cliff, the AxeFx outputs run as high as +18dBu, which is on the hot side of line level.
 
Philip said:
ONLY issue- there are some feed back issues that I don't get with the guitar cab. Not happy guitar cab feedback, but ultra high pitch "mic pointed at a stage monitor" type feedback. Typically occurs when I would let a note ring out...digging the sustain....signal getting lower...and at some point, the natural feed back sustain sound would just get swallowed and the amp would squeltch.
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Almost sounds like a compressor getting too agressive at low input levels, or an ambitious combination of compression and high gain. Did this happen on your clean patches, your gain patches, or both?
 
LMO said:
According to a post from Cliff, the AxeFx outputs run as high as +18dBu, which is on the hot side of line level.
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True. But my guess is that "too hot" in Philip's case wasn't the extra 8dBu (past standard "line level") the Axe-FX is capable of at full output. It was the extra 40-50dBu past mic level that was the culprit.
 
zslane said:
True. But my guess is that "too hot" in Philip's case wasn't the extra 8dBu (past standard "line level") the Axe-FX is capable of at full output. It was the extra 40-50dBu past mic level that was the culprit.
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I agree that seems to be the most likely culprit. "Oh yeah, I've got this 'Pad' button! I think I remember someone telling me he used it to cut input levels. Let's see what happens when I push it."
 
...the extra 8dBu (past standard "line level") the Axe-FX is capable of at full output. It was the extra 40-50dBu past mic level that was the culprit.
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I know about the standard nominal levels (+4dBu or -10dBV), but where does the +10dBu number come from?
 
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Philip said:
Ah, thanks. Always helps to know the vocabulary. I actually have a DI that I take to gigs, as a backup for our drummer who runs the back tracks, I will start using it for the line off of my atomic.

Oh, and in response to GBM, I am using the Cab.

-Phil
Click to expand...

Hey Phil,

Glad to hear again and thanks for the info!

GBM
 
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