Vetta II HD not playing nice with different gear

[Stormtrooper12]

So I spend ages dialing in the Vetta to sound great at home direct into my board via XLR. Figured that would be a great way to have the Vetta set up so it would sound good anywhere. WRONG!

 

 

Okay, so at home I'm running into an Allen&Heath GL2200 with a Mackie SWA1801z high passed to two Mackie HD 1532's. EQ on the board defeated figuring that would be a good neutral way to dial in the tones on the Vetta.

 

I made a great patch for my electrified acoustics, sound great. I equalized (evened out) all the volume differences for my electric guitar patches, sound great, nice and even sounding when switching.

 

I'm pretty sure what I'm going to tell you will just be a "Line Level" issue but maybe someone might have a clue why there is such a demonstrable difference between gear.

 

*Every time I take the Vetta to my bandmates and plug into his P.A. it turns to utter krap!

 

It's a cheaper Yorkville mixer with built in effects and no line level pad switch like on my A&H. Even the volume differences between my clean and dirt patches are unreal and they sound brittle and tinny as heck. Horrid!

 

Sound is great at home on my gear and horrible on his stuff. I've pretty much given up on lugging the thing there because it's so frustrating but I'm trying to have one "good" piece of gear that does it all, AC gtr and Elec gtr and I have the FBV shortboard and the mkii version as well so it's awesome when at home.

 

And I was hoping "awesome" when eventually playing out. Now I'm not so sure.

 

Is there some setting I'm missing? The signal seems non existant on his mixer and super hot on my board. My last resort basically is to just try the 1/4" outs from the Vetta to his Yorkville and hope that feeds his system the more appropriate "hotter" signal.

 

So frustrating, the volume differences between patches and terrible sound of the Vetta at his place is the real mind boggling thing haha.

[DickFoster]

Whether you use the balanced outs or the unbalanced, the direct outs use the same circuits so it would be the same maybe worse using the unbalanced outputs. My guess is that his mixer is at the heart of your problem anyway.  Also make absolutely sure that he doesn't have the balanced inputs on his mixer set to supply phantom power. Many XLR inputs do but that can typically be switched off. This could cause your problem and even worse damage your amp as the direct outs on the Vetta are DC coupled. You could also try switching the (ground lift) switch to see if that has any effect.   

 

So I spend ages dialing in the Vetta to sound great at home direct into my board via XLR. Figured that would be a great way to have the Vetta set up so it would sound good anywhere. WRONG!

 

 

Okay, so at home I'm running into an Allen&Heath GL2200 with a Mackie SWA1801z high passed to two Mackie HD 1532's. EQ on the board defeated figuring that would be a good neutral way to dial in the tones on the Vetta.

 

I made a great patch for my electrified acoustics, sound great. I equalized (evened out) all the volume differences for my electric guitar patches, sound great, nice and even sounding when switching.

 

I'm pretty sure what I'm going to tell you will just be a "Line Level" issue but maybe someone might have a clue why there is such a demonstrable difference between gear.

 

*Every time I take the Vetta to my bandmates and plug into his P.A. it turns to utter krap!

 

It's a cheaper Yorkville mixer with built in effects and no line level pad switch like on my A&H. Even the volume differences between my clean and dirt patches are unreal and they sound brittle and tinny as heck. Horrid!

 

 

Sound is great at home on my gear and horrible on his stuff. I've pretty much given up on lugging the thing there because it's so frustrating but I'm trying to have one "good" piece of gear that does it all, AC gtr and Elec gtr and I have the FBV shortboard and the mkii version as well so it's awesome when at home.

 

And I was hoping "awesome" when eventually playing out. Now I'm not so sure.

 

Is there some setting I'm missing? The signal seems non existant on his mixer and super hot on my board. My last resort basically is to just try the 1/4" outs from the Vetta to his Yorkville and hope that feeds his system the more appropriate "hotter" signal.

 

So frustrating, the volume differences between patches and terrible sound of the Vetta at his place is the real mind boggling thing haha.

[Stormtrooper12]

Okay thanks a lot DF, I should have snapped a picture of his mixer or got the model number off of him so I could study it online. It all looks like a blur when it's someone else's stuff and you're just trying to focus on the music instead.

 

It definitely didn't have dedicated phantom for each channel unless it was hidden on the back.

 

One last weird thing, my 12 string acoustic/electric was barely audible with the Vetta into his mixer with the gain on the mixer channel strips basically maxed.

 

He said try just going straight in....Gtr>Mixer with just one simple patch cord. No Vetta. Result, sounded awesome and tons of signal/gain from the guitar.

[DickFoster]

Double check the phantom power thing. Phantom power is only on balanced inputs so if you plugged the guitar into an unbalanced input, which is likely the case,  there would be no DC voltage on the input. Or you could switch over to the unbalanced direct out of the Vetta and an unbalanced input on his mixer to be sure that isn't the problem.

. 

 

 

Okay thanks a lot DF, I should have snapped a picture of his mixer or got the model number off of him so I could study it online. It all looks like a blur when it's someone else's stuff and you're just trying to focus on the music instead.

 

It definitely didn't have dedicated phantom for each channel unless it was hidden on the back.

 

One last weird thing, my 12 string acoustic/electric was barely audible with the Vetta into his mixer with the gain on the mixer channel strips basically maxed.

 

He said try just going straight in....Gtr>Mixer with just one simple patch cord. No Vetta. Result, sounded awesome and tons of signal/gain from the guitar.

[Stormtrooper12]

Double check the phantom power thing. Phantom power is only on balanced inputs so if you plugged the guitar into an unbalanced input, which is likely the case,  there would be no DC voltage on the input. Or you could switch over to the unbalanced direct out of the Vetta and an unbalanced input on his mixer to be sure that isn't the problem.

. 

Aha! I think you might be onto something dude!

 

I checked the Yorkville website and I'm almost positive it is the VGM14 model. Upon examining it and looking at the zoomed pictures it has a global phantom power switch on the back. My A&H 32 ch has a +48 switch on each channel which of course are always off unless plugging in my Rode NT1-A condenser mic or other such apparatus.

 

Everyone at his place plugs into the 1/4" jacks for everything and his kit has its own little dedicated summing mixer for his drums.

 

Soooooo, I'm almost positive he will have the phantom power switch set to on by mistake. I'm just glad it didn't frazzle my Audix OM-3 or Sennheiser MD409 I plugged in there a few days ago.

 

I can't wait to check that friggin thing now but it will probably be close to Xmas until I'm over there. Thanks for all your help DF. I'm pretty much convinced that will be the issue. Just for fun I'll take some nice Mogami male XLR to 1/4" leads I bought for my Lexicon MPX-G2 a while back.and use those to connect the Vetta to his mixer :) Cheers

 

 

PS: I'll report back with the findings after my next visit there haha.

[DickFoster]

Good to know, let us know. 

Aha! I think you might be onto something dude!

 

I checked the Yorkville website and I'm almost positive it is the VGM14 model. Upon examining it and looking at the zoomed pictures it has a global phantom power switch on the back. My A&H 32 ch has a +48 switch on each channel which of course are always off unless plugging in my Rode NT1-A condenser mic or other such apparatus.

 

Everyone at his place plugs into the 1/4" jacks for everything and his kit has its own little dedicated summing mixer for his drums.

 

Soooooo, I'm almost positive he will have the phantom power switch set to on by mistake. I'm just glad it didn't frazzle my Audix OM-3 or Sennheiser MD409 I plugged in there a few days ago.

 

I can't wait to check that friggin thing now but it will probably be close to Xmas until I'm over there. Thanks for all your help DF. I'm pretty much convinced that will be the issue. Just for fun I'll take some nice Mogami male XLR to 1/4" leads I bought for my Lexicon MPX-G2 a while back.and use those to connect the Vetta to his mixer :) Cheers

 

 

PS: I'll report back with the findings after my next visit there haha.

[Stormtrooper12]

Finally went to his place and the first thing I checked was the phantom power switch on the back of his mixer. Who's to say whether or not it got switched to off for the big "party" as he and his Dad were there beforehand tuning guitars and tweaking stuff. His Dad is an older gent who is an awesome all around musician.

 

ANyways I decided to go with the XLR to 1/4" cables just to be on the safe side. The gain with the 12 string acoustic/electric seemed much better but when it came to the sound and patches on the electric it still seemed lousy.

 

Went from a nice clean and then stomped on the FBV shortboard for crunch and almost blew the heads off of 20 ppl sitting there lol.

 

After further review I decided it is my error as when I went home I tried it and it was the same. I'll blame ear fatigue as when I was dialling stuff in previous to this issue I had been playing at a loud level for hours and probably wanted a little more "punch" with the dirt channels compared to the clean.

 

Well it was wayyyyy over the top, so I guess it's back to the drawing board I go :blink:

[BucF16]

Back when I had a Vetta I think the Fletcher Munson curve killed a lot of my patches.

 

Vetta was tough to tweak in a low volume, no band situation.  Can't say how many times my patches sounded crappy once turned up and in a band setting.

 

Been years since I sold my Vetta but I almost want to get a used one just to have fun with.

[DickFoster]

Back when I had a Vetta I think the Fletcher Munson curve killed a lot of my patches.

 

Vetta was tough to tweak in a low volume, no band situation.  Can't say how many times my patches sounded crappy once turned up and in a band setting.

 

Been years since I sold my Vetta but I almost want to get a used one just to have fun with.

Well they are out there if you want one. Only thing is to know a good tech to fix it if it ever breaks down. I see them for sale in the Vetta group on facebook from time to time. https://www.facebook.com/groups/647483512018911/

I'd get one that has latest firmware upgrades so you don't have to mess with all of that stuff. Other than the VDI the Vetta I and Vetta II is the same with the 2.5 firmware. Some also have the Armin mod others not. If you can find one with the FBV floorboard, that would be nice too.   

[Stormtrooper12]

Yup you got it right BucF16.

 

I set up a bunch of patches a while back at low volume and was sipping on a brewski and a friend was there as well having a few. Every patch I tweaked/made sounded great. What I thought anyways....

 

So then I've been having this problem for ages as mentioned in the posts above with DF. Now I know the problem as of yesterday.

 

When I tweaked all those user presets I turned the channel volumes way down on the Vetta itself, for both amp channels and adjusted the pan for them as well. So when cranking up with the band they were horrible, dead, lifeless sounding. Was miserable.

 

I even had the line level pad on my mixer "out" on one Vetta channel and then "in" on the other channel. Meaning two mixer channels used to run the Vetta in a LR stereo type rig.

 

The distortion patches sounded cheesy and lame and the crunch didn't fair much better. Also because of the screwed up settings the P.A. sounded like a jet engine was about to take off even when everything was idle.

 

So I figured after that band practice I would do the whole "User" reset and get everything back to scratch. A clean slate if you will.

 

But because the factory and user patches are identical I thought I would just flip the amp to "Factory" patches first to see how they sounded/reacted. Voila!!!! everything I tried in the first few banks sounded like they should. BTW when I switched backed to factory everything (The peak meters) was screaming on the mixer so I PFL'd the two channels properly adjusting all the mixer channel gains perfectly.

 

The patch Smokin' 45's sounded great for all sorts of medium gain crunch type songs. Chemistry 101 sounded excellent for WHite Wedding although seemed a touch loud lol. Identical Twins sounded pretty danged good and Surfs Up etc etc.

 

So now what I'll do is do the User bank reset and then leave the patches alone pretty much except  for maybe minor patch leveling and sound contouring without ruining them all again haha.

 

Glad to have it all basically solved now, fingers crossed.

[DickFoster]

Yup you got it right BucF16.

 

I set up a bunch of patches a while back at low volume and was sipping on a brewski and a friend was there as well having a few. Every patch I tweaked/made sounded great. What I thought anyways....

 

So then I've been having this problem for ages as mentioned in the posts above with DF. Now I know the problem as of yesterday.

 

When I tweaked all those user presets I turned the channel volumes way down on the Vetta itself, for both amp channels and adjusted the pan for them as well. So when cranking up with the band they were horrible, dead, lifeless sounding. Was miserable.

 

I even had the line level pad on my mixer "out" on one Vetta channel and then "in" on the other channel. Meaning two mixer channels used to run the Vetta in a LR stereo type rig.

 

The distortion patches sounded cheesy and lame and the crunch didn't fair much better. Also because of the screwed up settings the P.A. sounded like a jet engine was about to take off even when everything was idle.

 

So I figured after that band practice I would do the whole "User" reset and get everything back to scratch. A clean slate if you will.

 

But because the factory and user patches are identical I thought I would just flip the amp to "Factory" patches first to see how they sounded/reacted. Voila!!!! everything I tried in the first few banks sounded like they should. BTW when I switched backed to factory everything (The peak meters) was screaming on the mixer so I PFL'd the two channels properly adjusting all the mixer channel gains perfectly.

 

The patch Smokin' 45's sounded great for all sorts of medium gain crunch type songs. Chemistry 101 sounded excellent for WHite Wedding although seemed a touch loud lol. Identical Twins sounded pretty danged good and Surfs Up etc etc.

 

So now what I'll do is do the User bank reset and then leave the patches alone pretty much except  for maybe minor patch leveling and sound contouring without ruining them all again haha.

 

Glad to have it all basically solved now, fingers crossed.

I'm glad you got it worked out. It's usually something simple that tends to throw you the most isn't it.