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Old 03-14-2017, 12:56 PM
martingitdave martingitdave is offline
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Great post Cuki!

You're right about PA versus monitors for studio and home use. There is a big difference in sound at different decibel levels. The way we hear it, and the way it travels. You seem to be reading my mind lately! Did you have Obama "tapp" my phones too? :-)

I actually have a pair of inexpensive studio monitors I purchased for recording, that I intend to use with the XR mixer. I want to record my original songs using the USB two track onto flash media, or the ipad.

I had an iPad interface from Focus Rite that allows you to slip an iPad 2 into it. Well, doesn't work with the new iPads! Both the lighting connector and the size of the iPad Pro I use for work makes that thing as useless as a paper weight.

As far as processing with the new XR goes, your argument is solid. Less is usually more. If I decide to go with the digital mixer, I'll be dumping the pedals. I don't want the extra D/A stage.

In reality, I don't need the TC pedal either. My new pickups (K&K Active and Trance Amulet M) sound great with a little EQ and reverb. Same with my voice. If you have a crappy "quacky" pickup, the Bodyrez functions can do wonders.

I do like the other fancy features, but they aren't necessary. And, if you're not careful, all the dang footswitches can distract you from your performance. I could never be a looper. I'm not coordinated enough. With all that footswitch tapping, I'd probably trip and hit myself in the face with the mic.

In case you're curious, I did my homework on the TC Helicon products last night. I think you can get close to their process with the XR mixer DSP. If so, I could sell the Play Acoustic pedal. Smart sound engineers (even some live sound guys) have been doing this stuff forever. It just required huge racks of gear. Now it all fits in half of a shoebox programmed for dummies.

For instance:

The mic mechanic "tone" processing consists of:


1. Adaptive parametric EQ. They seem to use an IR to adapt your vocal EQ to a "ideal" model. The MM2 pedal offer two "ideals", the PA product offers 5 or so. You can't duplicate this with the mixer as far as I know. But, I think I'm consistent enough to use a para EQ on the mixer. I'm finding that a boost in the mid/high (I'm a tenor) really makes my voice project against the rosewood/spruce guitars I play. "Ideal" depends on what guitar you play. In some cases you might need to make a "hole" for your vocals. The pedal can't do that easily.

2. De-ess. This is a built in effect in the XR mixer. No difference except the XR can filter both high and low sibilance. Nifty. Yeah - something easy!

3. Gating. This is a default built into every XR channel. And, they have presets for vocals and acoustic guitar built in. Yeah - something else easy!

4. Compression. This is also a default built into every XR channel. And, they have presets for vocals and acoustic guitar built in. Yeah - something else "else" easy!

I don't use the harmony or pitch correction features. The mixer has all the other effects you could ever want, or not want, including doubler. So, that seems like a pretty easy way to apply mic mechanic 2 for the price of a mixer.

Next up... Bodyrez. This is not overly complicated but, but seems to be a bit tricky. The XR has a 4 band para EQ for each channel. Conveniently, the Play Acoustic uses a 4 band para EQ too.

1. High and low shelf EQ. I can read the parameters right from the unit and apply the shelves in the XR interface on the high and low.

2. Parametric EQ for the middle. The XR still has 2 more mid bands to apply para EQ, as does the Play Acoustic. Just pick your favorite sounding preset and go to advanced mode to copy the frequency, width, and gain settings. Done.

3. Basic Compressor. I mentioned that each XR channel has a compressor with an acoustic preset. If you want to dig deeper, you can copy these settings from your Play Acoustic over to the XR by using the advanced setting for the channel compressor. You need: threshold, attach, makeup gain, ratio, and release.

4. Ambiance. Ah ha! Now, it gets interesting and tricky. This is the special sauce - a timing filter. It's the "rez" in the BodyRez. I don't have an answer because I don't have the XR unit yet to try. My suspicion is that I can use something in one of the 4 effects blocks. Why? No good reason. Kidding aside, this is where a nice pickup comes in. You tame the quack with the stuff above. Picking up body resonance can be done with a dual source mic, or a "spatially" aware pickup like the Trance. I'm not sure that the ambiance feature is needed with those pickups. I will let you know what I discover.

5. Anti-feedback. All of this is available in the XR mixer. Phase invert, low cut filter, manual notch filter,

The rest is just guitar effects which are generally the same in the Play Acoustic as the XR mixer. I know audiophile types get hung up on the magic in some of these effects. I'm not quite as picky. Good reverb is good reverb. Bad reverb is easy to hear and avoid.

Note: I am NOT going to publicly share the specific parameters you need to replicate the Play Acoustic on the forum. Please don't ask me to send them. (Except you Cuki - you're my man.)

TC Helicon deserves to make a buck for figuring all this stuff out and packaging it into a small box for idiots like us. It's their intellectual property, not mine. But, since I already own a Play Acoustic, I feel entitled to copy my favorite settings over to the XR mixer.
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Last edited by martingitdave; 03-14-2017 at 01:27 PM.
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