hx stomp not much headroom

[varmonter]

Im in an acoustic band. im running stomp

into a touchmix then into a bose l1.

  Seems i have no headroom. Trying to get

more vol just makes it squeel. i have all

blocks at 0db. what am i doing wrong.

I had tons if headroom with my prior setup

which was a oedalboard and grace design 

felix preamp. Im pretty much a newb with this but i would think this thing would put out more volume with an acoustic guitar.

 I play 3 inst in this band and like the mando and bass tones im getting but 

the guitar just is lacking said headroom.

comp..ir 3sigma martin 45...jazz rivet...

chorus ... delay...verb. 

[phil_m]

Seems like the gain staging is messed up somewhere. I wouldn't consider squealing to be a matter of headroom. It sounds like you're getting feedback. That usually means the volume for your pickups/preamp is too high and is picking up ambient noise from the PA system. Do you have the Stomp's ins and outs set to line level?

[DunedinDragon]

First thing I'd do is run the Feedback Wizard on your touchmix.  That's the easiest and fastest way to gain headroom.  The other thing that's worthy of attention may be to use a sound hole cover on your guitar which is what I do when I use an acoustic guitar in our band.  Also I'm not sure the Jazz Rivet is doing you any favors in your signal chain with an acoustic guitar.  Generally with acoustics I simply run a simple gain block along with the 3Sigma acoustic IR to maintain the natural sound of the acoustic.  The Jazz Rivet may be causing some of your gain staging problems with it's tone stack and pre amp.

[cruisinon2]

2 hours ago, DunedinDragon said:

Also I'm not sure the Jazz Rivet is doing you any favors in your signal chain with an acoustic guitar.  Generally with acoustics I simply run a simple gain block along with the 3Sigma acoustic IR to maintain the natural sound of the acoustic.  The Jazz Rivet may be causing some of your gain staging problems with it's tone stack and pre amp.

 

This.

[varmonter]

ok i can certainly rid the rivet from the chain. It does give a nice sound, I have the input set to inst and the output set to line the output goes direct to the board.

  Wondering if i should insert a di box

between helix and the board. 

  I use a soundhole baggs m80 mag pup

passive so a soundhole cover is not an option. To be clear im not getting the volume before feedback that i was getting with my prior rig, perhaps headroom is not the right term. 

The signal meter on the touchmix is not

very high. I cant even get it to go yellow without feedback. the felix sent out a great clean signal. 

 

thanks for the replies

[DunedinDragon]

To be clear here, feedback is a factor of certain frequencies that a pickup is sensitive to and causes feedback.  If you slice out that frequency, you can achieve more volume.  That is what the Feedback Wizard is for on your Touchmix mixer.  The feedback wizard is an automated process that can be run at the board during sound check.  It will increase the volume until it detects feedback, then reduce that frequency to cancel the feedback, then repeats the process over and over through the 12 allocated cancellation filters as it increases the volume so that you can maximize your volume without encountering feedback.  It's a built-in feature of your touchmix mixer.  In other words, it's doing the same thing as your Felix preamp blender was doing but in a more automated and extensive fashion.  What I would probably do in your case if I wanted to do this is to mute all other channels other than the acoustic guitar and then run the Feedback Wizard and let it find and slice out the appropriate frequencies that would cause feedback.

However that might be overkill since there's nothing you can accomplish with the Felix preamp blender that you can't do with a parametric EQ on the Helix.  If you know what frequencies you were cutting on the Felix, you can do the same with the Helix's parametric EQ block.

[varmonter]

Thanks yes i can use the eq. theres also

the 3band comp, I like the comp because it can be used to calm the strumimg while

opening up the soft parts really nicely. 

this six block limit is hard. I tried rid the rivet 120 and added a gain block. I think

the rivet may have been the issue. 

 but i lost the nice tone i had so i need

something to add back in. im saving the 

global eq for venue corrections. 

now i have gain block. tube comp..3sig IR martin d45 electric ....chor..delay., verb.

thats six..The gain block doesnt seem to 

add much. How about the mic pre??

  I dont own the touchmix and getting

it between gigs may not happen.

besides the gain wizard should only

work at the gig your running it at right?

im a bit leary of it as an autotone reducer??

 

 

[DunedinDragon]

I think what I might try first would be to place a Parametric EQ at the end of my signal chain that way you can use it both to add volume to the signal as well as tailor your frequencies to dial in the tone.  Alternatively you could also use the output block on the signal chain to increase the volume output of the signal chain without adding a block.

The gain wizard is different from the feedback wizard as it's used to help in gain staging all the signals to the appropriate levels whereas the feedback wizard is used to help dial out frequencies that are prone to feedback.  I'm not sure what you're referring to as the autotone reducer though.  I've never heard of it.  You're correct that all of these tools should be used at the gig as they're general sound performance related tools applied for gigs.

[varmonter]

Sorry i should have been clearer. 

 I just meant the feedback reducer tailors

the frequency to reduce feedback thereby

gaining more volume before feeding back again where it then tailors the offending

freq ad ifinitum. To me it seems like it could certainly affect ones tone in a negative way. Thus my autotone reducer 

comment. 

  Ill try the para eq at the end of the chain.