Help needed re input sns - getting a good clean sound - MBR

[Red62]

Hi All... well I've had a BR600 for a couple of years but I received a Micro BR as a Christmas present.

I'm struggling to get a good clean sound with the JC-120 amp and speaker settings - guitar is a gibson les paul std with burstbucker pickups - I have Sns: down to -8 and input level around 75... OVER light is not coming on and the level meter seems about right, ie not getting too high, maybe 4-5 bars...

in spite if this I find it difficult to get a really clean sound - sounds like it's still overdriving a little - any suggestions?  I've read existing long post on sns setting - and at -8db I think I'm in the right area....

Can you guys get a good clean sound from the MBR?

cheers

L.

[launched]

Hi Laurence:

It's possible to get a clean sound with the MBR, but tough to do it with humbuckers  

The last part of the equation is tone and volume. That's where overdrive/distortion comes from. I am by far Edit:(Whoops - NOT!) an expert and can barely hang on myself, but I find that the volume and tone controls on the guitar, and the volume setting in the MBR patch is where the distortion source is. Start at 10 on tone and 0 for all volume settings and work your way up(Or down).

I have read and learned that the sensitivity setting is only used to control clipping - It will not do much to get rid of/reduce overdrive.

Another thing you could try is to turn the guitar effect patch off, and slowly raise the volume of the guitar to make sure your source is clean. With hot pickups, you may find that a volume of 2 or 3 is sufficient. I have a crappy Epi SG that rarely gets volume settings above 5.

Good luck!!

Mark

[Red62]

Thanks.. the MBR is definitely more susceptible to distorting even on the clean/JC-120 models compared to my 600... I have dropped a line to Roland support in the UK asking their view.... will keep you posted

[Justin_Case]

Have tried to edit the JC-120 patch itself?  There is a lot you can do in there to shape the tone.

[henwrench]

Are you happy with the 'live' sound and unhappy with the recorded sound?
 I've found I need to keep the recording levels very low to acheive a clean, true reproduction of the 'live' sound. Digital distortion is horrible and very unforgiving. Try input sens on the lowest setting and dial the input to around 50 for hard played rhythm or 60 for lead work. When you need to monitor your input signal louder, just pull down the volumes of the other tracks. The leds on the meters will look way to low, but when you play stuff back push your volumes way up to the 105-120 region. Back in the days of reel to reel recording, I was a great believer in the old addage 'if it ain't in the red, it ain't cred', but this digital stuff just doesn't like loud input. Try going as low as you can and watch it when you start bouncing stuff as well.... same principles apply. Good luck!

                                   henwrench

[Red62]

Hi.. yeah.. I have created a patch from scratch, switching off everything but AMP and SP... having settings that are not extreme and I still find the clean distort more than say the exact same settings on my 600...

I'll do some more comparisons and also try a single coil guitar....

cheers

[Justin_Case]

I found the same as henwrench as far as keeping the levels low, but I also find it better to play with over all level in Audacity to achive the best of clean / quite and overall level.

[launched]

Digital distortion is horrible and very unforgiving.

I find this to be very true. Even on commercial albums (Some of them garbage - Want my money back!!) - Maybe from old school engineers that learned on analog equipment, I dunno. I barely remember the tape days  , but do know that you had to keep it flicking in the red a little bit when recording CD's and such to keep it at 0db. Not so with digital. I can see why some of the experts prefer to still record on tape/analog equipment.

And I think you are also right that there is no need to record too high of a level with 24 bit digital. The signal to noise ratio is not that bad, even if you have to raise the track level 30 points or so.

Peace,

Mark