Digital-Larry
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All I really meant by suggesting scope view is that (for me anyway) I relate more directly to the waveform than its spectrum. And even that isn't particularly true as I relate pretty well to the spectrum. If I were doing this I'd check it at different frequencies as well. Nothing wrong with your approach. I don't know if it's possible to bypass the A/D/A conversion on this device - more of a hypothetical concern. Simply meant to say: run it through A/D/A processing with nothing else going on so that you know that any problems are being introduced by the I/O rather than the headroom setting of the flanger, for example.
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Hoo boy! I had a hard time with all that as well. To toot my own horn, I do have a EE degree and have done a fair amount of audio and DSP design work. Few comments. a) You show about 350 dB range in your response graphs. This is about 3 times the dynamic range of human hearing. Probably more! I'd make the full range more like 60 dB. b) I have a Mesa Boogie Express + 5/25 and the Master volumes are BEFORE the effects send. There's a "Solo" knob after the FX loop which adds level but it doesn't work unless you use a footswitch. c) I wouldn't worry too much about phase, unless as you say you're trying to send the same signal to two amps at the same time in which case there may be cancellations. But understand that every time a signal goes through a capacitor, there is going to be phase shift. My opinion is that phase is the least of your worries. d) Distortion measurements I am not quite sure how to interpret as they seem to mostly be tracking the noise measurement. e) I'd be more likely to use the real-time (oscilloscope) display and look at actual signals going in and out of the effects loop to the HX box. It's much easier to see what's going on when you have a constant, smooth sine wave as your test signal. The challenge there is to pick a sine wave that more or less is at the same peak level as your guitar signal, which is easy enough to measure. Just pick 1 or two volts peak to peak as a starting point. Then look for clipping on the tops of the waveforms coming out of the HX Effects box, which you can probably hear as well. Having your gain levels set too low will reduce the likelihood of clipping but since you might wind up boosting the levels afterwards, any noise will come up as well. So again, speaking generally, you want to try to have the signals as hot as possible without clipping anything. This way you can reduce the final gain as much as is possible, which pushes noise down with it. I would take noise over unintentional clipping any day. You'll want to do this with all effects blocks turned off, but not "bypassed" (whatever that means) as you want to make sure the signal is actually going through the A/D and D/A stages. Now add to that the fact that some of the effects blocks distort the signal on purpose, and some do it in more subtle ways, like all the flanger blocks with "headroom" settings to emulate the (I always thought undesirable) distortion you'd get sending too hot of a signal through a BBD type device.
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OK, since I'm trying to be helpful here, I did actually twiddle the knobs and came up with this: Speed = 0.4 (I don't think speed does anything in envelope mode) Ctl Sel = envelope (that's what I'm trying to do) Depth = 2.8 (not clear what this is) Manual = 2.5 (not clear) Mix = 50% (fairly obvious) Phasing = 10. This corresponds to the delay phase setting so when mixed in with the dry, you either get peaks or notches. Note that if phasing = 0, you get nothing because + and - cancel each other out. I'd vote for this to just have a few settings, e.g. -10. -5, 5, 10 because "0" is equivalent to turning the effect off Recycle - this appears to be a feedback control. It's either In or Out. When it's "In" it's usually way too much. This control by comparison, would do better to have a continuous setting rather than just "In" or "Out". And why not just call it Feedback? CV Dyn - I set it to 7.2 but I don't grasp what it is doing Max Dly = 25 ms. The minimum setting of this is "10 ms". If you set it too high, then you get wild pitch bending effects as it's sweeping from flanger into chorus range. CV Track - normal or inverted - fairly straightforward, both seem usable Env Lag - 19 msec. Really don't know what this is doing. Env In - +7.9 dB - I presume this is the envelope sensitivity CV Dcay - x4 - OK I'm guessing this is the "release" setting for the envelope generator I think there are various settings, e.g. Ctl Sel, which affect whether some of the other controls do anything at all. E.g. If you're not in LFO mode, you wouldn't expect "Speed" to do anything. If that's true, maybe it's possible to "grey" or dim that control to let you know it's not doing anything at the moment. This being a signal dependent effect, twiddling the master volume on the "burn" channel of my Mesa/Boogie head interacts with the effect as well. That I can handle.
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Here's a link to an old blog post, second article has a drawing of the Micmix Dynaflanger block diagram. It seems like some of the parameters map onto this. https://dynaflanger.com/forum/php/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=612 This spells out the parameters in more detail but still does not explain what they do. https://helixhelp.com/models?categoryId=4&subCategoryId=5
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Similarly frustrated by the lack of info. "Just start turning knobs" is a losing proposition. Yes I am going for a Frank Zappa "Shut Up n Play Yer Guitar" tone. I'll check the links above.
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I'm trying to figure out a way to dial in something using the Dynamix Flanger. It would help if I had any idea what these parameters are supposed to do. I'm actually really familiar with the way most effects work but I find this incomprehensible. I won't go on. Where are the details hidden? Somebody must have written them down at some point.
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Yeah it's probably worse with the guitar plugged in, but this test was done with the input jack unplugged (rather than the guitar not plugged into the cable which would leave the input open rather than shorted to ground). I'm looking at USB isolators, they are a bit pricey ($35 to $300!) but what the heck, I'll get a cheaper one and see what happens. I have an Arturia Beatstep which came with a wacky dual headed USB input to deal with ground loops as well. Thanks!
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I'm using HX Effects in 4CM with my Mesa/Boogie Express+ 5:25. a) I noticed a fair amount of noise that is coming into the front end of the amp when using its highest gain "burn" channel. I unplugged my guitar - it did not go away. I unplugged the HX FX from the amp 's input - it did go away. Another post I read here suggested that disconnecting USB might help, which it does - quite a bit. I guess that's some sort of ground loop issue? My computer is plugged in "over here" through a UPS and the Mesa is plugged in "over there" not on a UPS. Think it would make any difference to plug them into the same place? I'm OK unplugging USB to record, and I don't much use that channel anyway, but just curious. b) When you put the unit into bypass mode, you are essentially plugging your guitar into the amp's effects return. I just based my patch off off 14D, the stock 4CM patch. Is there any way to get "bypass" to work properly in this arrangement? Thx! DL
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Thanks, I'm using an 8-conductor 1/4" snake that I have not used in the 10 years since I bought it... UNTIL NOW! I just color coded my own diagram to match the cables. I managed to get a few 4CM patches going on. Using HX Edit was the key. I generally try to get whatever I'm after from the front panel, but in this case yes the application made it way more obvious what I was doing wrong. I'll probably find or start a different thread to deal with whatever concerns come out of this 4CM on the Boogie.
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Thanks for the response. Due to the way my brain works I am going to have to transcribe this into a diagram for further study.
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Just going to add my voice to this discussion. I have the same issue. Odd that line6 mentions 7CM in their quick start but then drops you off at the side of the road where nobody goes. That is to say, the 4CM patches don't work for 7CM and there is no additional official help available beyond suggestions in this forum. I did start messing with HX Edit yesterday and it seems fairly easy to use compared to doing everything on the box itself. Here's my setup: Mesa/Boogie Express Plus 5/25 (speaker out to Torpedo Captor-X to XLR out) Laney L5 Studio (built in analog cab sim to XLR out) The Two XLRs (actually 3, since the Captor-X has 2 outputs) come to my Behringer XR-18 mixer. The idea being that in general, I could choose one, the other, or both preamps (but probably just one most of the time), and have stereo effects. Now of course, to the extent that the cab sim from the Laney is different than what is dialed up in the Captor-X, there would be a tonal difference between the two sides. I haven't gotten far enough to tell you if that is a problem. Fearing that I might never solve this, I went ahead and got a stereo DI box so I can just take the stereo line out of the HX Effects back to a couple channels on the mixer. At that point of course it would be bypassing those other cab sims. I could either use IRs in the HX Effects, or since the Captor-X includes a VST plugin, I could do the cab sim business in my DAW. However because of latency I am probably not going to do that. I've also disconnected from the Laney as I figured I'd just get a 4CM setup with the Boogie first. The reality is that I use effects more when noodling around and tend to go back to basic guitar tones when recording, then add things like delays and whatnot in the DAW because it's possible to do a lot of cool stuff with automation that would be more difficult with the HX FX.
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There is a looper pre/post setting, Think you should set it for "post" so that the looper is "post" the effects chain.