Electric through a Mixer/PA?
 

I'd like to get some input on how to properly run an electric guitar through a mixer. Where research is leading me right is to use an amp modeling pedal and a DI that's designed for running pedals. On one end is something like Line 6 Firehawk FX multi effect pedal -> Palmer PDI 09 Passive DI -> Mixer. On the other end is something like Zoom G1Xon -> BEHRINGER ULTRA-DI DI100 -> Mixer.

My mixer is an Allen and Heath 10FX and an Allen and Heath 60-14FX. Guitar is an Epiphone Les Paul Traditional Pro.

I don't need pro gear, this is for home use and for use at an open mic I host. I primarily use my electric guitar to play melodies over looped acoustic guitar phrases.

Electric through a Mixer/PA?
 

Although I usually play through an amp and then mic it up through the PA there have been occasions where a stage amp is not really ideal (church gigs for example). I bought the Radial JDX Direct Drive DI which has excellent amp-speaker simulations and a balanced DI for going direct to a live mixer or a recording interface (plus tuner and regular tele-line outputs). I have used it both live and for recording - we did a version of Show Must Go On where I played all the bass and guitar parts and it sounded great. Although I have a good dedicated DI as well, the JDX is much better suited to guitar and provides the right load on your pickup and pedal combinations. A live mixer’s inputs aren’t normally designed to load down the guitar’s signal in the same way as an amp’s input so pedals and a regular DI will give a decent signal but not necessarily the right sound.

(Edited for clarity)

So I bought a Zoom G1Xon pedal and a Behringer Ultra-DI. They came in this morning. I'm not too pleased with the DI, I took it off the pedal board and replaced it with a Para Acoustic DI. First impressions of the Zoom is that I like it. It's doing just what I wanted it to do and more. I put together a pedal board with the Zoom -> Tube screamer -> Ditto Looper -> PADI-> to the mixer. I've never played to drum backing tracks, the Zoom pedal has some really cool and good ones. It has one patch which is a bass guitar. Right now I have a song playing on my looper that consist of a rock drum backing track, a clean rhythm, a bass line and a lead with the tube screamer engaged. This is fun.

I just ordered a Radial JDX Direct-Drive - Active Guitar Amp Direct Box. When it comes in I'll replace the PADI with it.

If I understood your needs properly I think you will be very pleased with the JDX. I wouldn’t be without mine - I don’t use it very often but when the conditions demand then it is great to have it to hand! Let us know what you think.

+1 Great alternative to heavy amps and excess stage noise.

Wouldn’t be without mine either.

I plug my electric straight in . Sounds great.

Your electric guitar straight into the board sounds “great”? A direct connect to a PA is not an ideal option for an electric guitar without some sort of amp modeler, a DI, or running an amps line out to the board. At least in my experience.

I've done this when I played in a large party band and it worked fine. Back then I used a Line 6 POD, but a G1xon would work just as well. I took the guitar back in the monitors and didn't carry an amp. I loved it.

I have plugged my Roland Micro Cube direct into a PA mixer using it as the modeler. It worked great! :up:

Call me weird, but my Brondel Strat straight into the pa sounds great. Just a Planet Waves chord connects them.

[QUOTE=Irish Pennant;5680774]So I bought a Zoom G1Xon pedal and a Behringer Ultra-DI. They came in this morning. I'm not too pleased with the DI, I took it off the pedal board and replaced it with a Para Acoustic DI. First impressions of the Zoom is that I like it. It's doing just what I wanted it to do and more.

Hi Irish, I wonder have you tried the looper built-in to the Zoom? I know it's not a Ditto, but is it usable at all? Thanks for any suggestions.

[QUOTE=Dr. Martin;5683447]I gave the looper a try, it works but for me it's too short of a record time. I also don't care for the way this board is set up for accessing the loop and rhythm functions. They should have added another plug-in for an auxiliary pedal. There are youtube vids that show how to modify this unit for that purpose.

I received my Radial JDX Direct Drive, it's hot, as in clipping hot. I'll see if I can tame it, otherwise I'll send it back.

[QUOTE=Irish Pennant;5685388]Can you expand on this? The Radial Direct drive shouldn’t be the issue. Maybe the board gain on that channel is set to hot?

This model JDX doesn't need an output knob because it's designed to have the volume set from your interface/ mixing board.

[QUOTE=PTony;5685410]I'm still trying to trace down where the hot is coming from. Here's where I'm at. I plug the guitar directly into the mixer and set the gain to where the meter is hardly registering the signal. I then run the guitar through the Radial Direct into the same channel on the mixer, with no adjustments, the gain is clipping. I unplug the channel and then connect a vocal mic to the channel, the signal has no clipping. For powering the RD I'm using a Voodoo Labs Pedal Power ISO 5, 9v-100mA socket, I've tried two other sources for powering the RD. I think I've done all I can do to eliminate all potential areas for signal contamination. All that's left is the RD is sending a hot signal. I'm open to try something else before sending it back.

If you are plugging the guitar direct into one of the instrument channel Tele-inputs (3 & 4?) then you will be setting the gain for a line level instrument.

You should be connecting the JDX to a mic input and setting the level accordingly. It is after all a sophisticated line box. If you are using the line out from the JDX instead of the xlr out you aren’t using it properly! Apologies if you know this already but it wasn’t clear from your last post.

I use my JDX with a recording interface (Focusrite Pro40) and live sound mixers (Mackie DL1608, Allen Heath digital etc) and don’t get clipping. Use the xlr out and adjust gain structure at the receiving end accordingly.

Test it with a powered speaker or amp too, this time using the Tele out - if you still get clipping I’d say it was a faulty unit (unlikely but I guess it happens). If you don’t get clipping then it is a gain structure issue.

Are you using the effects of the multieffect?

There's lots of preamps - and amps - where all you need between the amp and the mixer is a cable. Either instrument cable or XLR

[QUOTE=Irish Pennant;5685499]You really should call Radial and talk to them about this.

[QUOTE=Paleolith54;5685885]I've been emailing them. They are close now for Good Friday.

Does the Radial JDX reactor direct drive have 2 channels ? One for clean and another for distortion ? or do you have to put a distortion box in line with it ? thanks, I am interested in this ....

Does the Radial JDX reactor direct drive have 2 channels ? One for clean and another for distortion ? or do you have to put a distortion box in line with it ? thanks, I am interested in this ....


Has anyone tried the ATOMIC AMPLI-FIREBOX ? You tube videos sound promising, and it has clean + distortion + effects

Electric through a Mixer/PA?
 

No it doesn’t. Just to clarify: the JDX Reactor is a 48v powered line box that sits between the power amp section of a guitar amp and its speaker thus using both the Reactor’s circuitry and the speaker’s own back impulses to produce an authentic direct signal. It is intended to replace the need for a microphone in front of the speaker. It needs the speaker connected in order for it (and the amp) to work properly.

The JDX Direct Drive doesn’t have channels either. It actually replaces an amp entirely and goes at the very end of the chain before connecting to a mixer or other balanced input (say on a powered monitor/speaker). The only controls on it are voicing options to simulate Marshall-like stack or Fender-like combo (my personal preference) as well as a presence boost (as well as the normal features you would find on any decent DI box, ie ground lift and polarity reverse).

Resurrecting this thread.


I've kept the Radial JDX Direct Drive, taken the Zoom and the looper off the board. I added a Blackstar HT Modulation pedal. My signal path as of now is Tube Screamer>Blackstar>MXR 10 Band EQ>Radial JDX. There seems to be one missing element, a noise gate or a compressor? something to tame some of the spiked harshness that occurs when using the Tube Screamer. Maybe both pedals? I'm open to suggestions. Also, where in the chain should a compressor be added?

The Blackstar HT Modulation pedal has been a very positive add on, it's a keeper.


This has been a work of discovery and a work in progress.

Compressors can be added at the front or end of the chain, the results will be of course different. Others can chip in with their experience and preferences with comp near the end of the chain. Mine comes after the tuner and before the overdrive. By squashing the peaks you get increased sustain as well as that great country sound. By raising the volume/gain level on the compressor it can also be used as a booster - by putting it before the overdrive it of course changes the level going in, and so the volume boost also gives the overdrive more, well, overdrive! Post-overdrive placement would still give some of the sustain and peak levelling results but without the change of character on the overdrive!

Compressor pedals will often have tone controls as well as the usual threshold, ratio, attack and gain controls etc and become an additional way of increasing the available tones at your command as well as the actual compression. I only got my first compression pedal a few years ago, a Wampler Ego. It’s a very versatile pedal which colours the tone a bit - not a bad thing in itself but something for me to be aware of. A friend of mine had two Carl Martin pedals so I tried one of them and it now sits on my board: low noise and fairly neutral in how it handles the original guitar tone. I’m not saying one is better than the other but the CM is remaining on the board for now...

Compression works best up front imho. It'd hard to tell exactly what your question is. If you are having hiss and hum then the gate is what you want, if you want to even off your dynamics then a compressor is. Two very different things. Compressors even off everything which includes low level hiss so it will essentially amplify any hiss you have, that's why it's best before and if you do get a gate put the gate after all your noisy pedals including the compressor, or put it in the gates loop if it has one.

+1

Also, FWIW...I sold my JDX Drive and replaced it with a Vox MV Clean head. FANTASTIC. Fits on my board. Is an ACTUAL amp head, not a simulator. Built in attenuator, line out to board and line to cab simultaneously if desired.

I'm running it at the end of my board, right where my JDX was, and straight out to the Allen and Heath. UNBELIEVABLY good tones. FAR better than I ever got with the JDX Direct Drive.

And, I almost recouped enough from the Direct Drive to fund the VOX.

IMO, this is the way to go if running out to a PA. Portable, consistent. EASY.

I mostly plug my electrics "direct" into pa mixer AFTER the following: octaver, comp, dist, LR Baggs Para DI, tube pre, volume pedal, tuner, chorus, delay, verb, gate, loop. The tube pre- with the right tube in it gives me terrific tube sound. And the comp at the beginning is my preference.

I know you’ve got the gear already, but I bought a Tech 21 Cali Fly Rig, and it’s great. It’s portable, sounds terrific and I can connect it to a small monitor speaker, if I want, as well as to the PA. Might be worth looking at.

+1 on the Fly Rigs. I used one into a powered speaker a while back and was quite impressed. I'm strictly an amp only guy too.

Electric guitar direct through P.A.
 

Way back, must have been in the late 80's or early 90's, I used a Rockman X100 and a Boss Analog Delay pedal and went direct. Our P.A. system was real good with Bose speakers, so I didn't sound too bad. I wouldn't recommended it though! Worked for a while for quick setups. I haven't checked any of the new stuff.:)

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