Update - Horrible first gig, learning experience.

[rickshapiro]

So, I finally had a chance to give my SR a whirl live. It did not go so well, hopefully all is my fault. This was an outdoor gig with decent FOH system. The starting time changed and I was rushed to get all my gear setup. I also play keyboards so I have a lot to bring. My amp was the last thing I setup. Problem number one, I was unable to get my TC Nova working in the loop, switched some cables and the two loop switches on the back to no avail, I had to give up on that. The stage was raised off the ground by 3 feet, no room on the stage for that amp so I put it on the side of the stage on a speaker stand facing up. I did not having any time to tweak the amp, so the setting were set the same as the studio. Prior to going on, one of my power strips was showing a wiring problem and was not working, I swapped that for a "dumb" strip and got everything up and running. First song was one that needed the clean channel. To hear myself I really had to drive the amp, the clean was awful, farty and distorted with tons of sag. The OD channel sounded small, compressed and buzzy. I had the OD cranked. I hated the damn amp. I got home and hooked it up and noticed a couple of things, I thought I had it on full power but it was on half. Reading the manual for my power strip, the error condition could be a wiring fault or insufficient power. I did get the effect loop to work at home. All user error. Also I should not have expected the amp to really be too loud in an open outdoor space. My next few gigs are outdoors, cannot wait for a indoor venue to give it another shot. At home, I am still loving it. Need to give another try in better conditions.

[blcws6]

Interesting. I have no problems getting a HUGE sound out of my SR for outdoor gigs. My SR is so big and full, that our lead guitarist doesnt even need to play rhythm with me on a lot of songs for the tune to sound full.
How are you running the loop volume? I run mine anywhere from 9 to 12 oclock. As far as the loop not working, I have no idea why its not working, i would try and give scott splawn a call and talk to him about your issues.

[rickshapiro]

Sept 14, 2012 12:03:21 GMT -5 blcws6 said:

Interesting. I have no problems getting a HUGE sound out of my SR for outdoor gigs. My SR is so big and full, that our lead guitarist doesnt even need to play rhythm with me on a lot of songs for the tune to sound full.
How are you running the loop volume? I run mine anywhere from 9 to 12 oclock. As far as the loop not working, I have no idea why its not working, i would try and give scott splawn a call and talk to him about your issues.

I think my problem was the bad line power and the fact I had the amp set at half power. I have an acoustic gig this weekend but an electric one the following. It is outdoors but is facing a closed structure about 30 feet in front. I am going to give it another try.

[splawndude]

You should have no problems indoor or outdoor, boosts or no boosts, FX loop or no, half power or full power.

please report back though as we will be curious how it goes. Good luck with the next one and give yourself plenty of time.

[rickshapiro]

Had a second gig with my SR and it was a completely different experience. This was an outdoor gig as well. My rig, the SR, a TC Electronic Nova (for delays, reverb and modulation) followed by a volume pedal in the effects loop. The loop volume was fully open. Gear 2. Volume on the drive channel was about 10:00 for most of the show although often my volume on the guitar was down just a little. I had the clean channel volume at about 12:00. I did not need the clean at that volume but needed the headroom. For a real clean I had to back off the guitar volume a bit, the clean preamp will distort with too much gain even from a single-coil. I was using my Strat this time with thee lacer single coils. Much better sound this time, the drive as rich and full with a nice distinctiveness to each string. I had a chance to walk out in front of the house speakers and it was totally awesome, much larger sound then you would expect. The cleans I struggled with a little bit more, they sound great standalone but needed a little bit of tweaking to get it to sound right with the band. Both the clean and drive was a pleasure to play, very musical. Sound guy really loved it as did my bass player who is on my side of the stage. The band is a cover band and plays a real wide range of music. From Tom Petty, A Brother, Zep, Goldfinger, Sublime, Beatles, etc I was able to get the tones I needed, all sat very well. I need to experiment more with bringing down the loop volume and increasing the drive volume to drive the power stage more but I need to balance that with my desire to maintain "clean" cleans. After the previous gig I was thinking perhaps this is not the right amp for me. That has all changed, cannot wait to get some more gigs under my belt with this. This is the season for outdoor gigs but really want to try an indoor venue. To put my playing in context I do mostly rhythm guitar. I do about 80 percent keyboard and 20 percent guitar. The link is to some random recording I did to get the feel for the sound. soundcloud.com/rickshapiro63/sets/splawn

[rocknrolla]

Cool. Glad it worked out.

[blcws6]

Gigged my Street Rod again last night with a 1 x 12 extension cab and got tons of comments on my tone. All for the good. I love gigging this thing it covers almost any music we play and it does it so well. Man she is loud too! I want to run her through a 4x12 to see what she can offer, I bet its godly.

[sasquatch]

Sept 24, 2012 9:12:35 GMT -5 rickshapiro said:

I need to experiment more with bringing down the loop volume and increasing the drive volume to drive the power stage more

You're not actually driving the power stage more by lowering the loop volume and increasing the channel master volume. This was explained to me by Scott. The loop volume allows you to run the master high enough to overcome the thin, buzzy sound you typically get from the amp (or any similar high gain, high wattage amp such as Marshall, etc) when the channel master is set too low, but it's not driving the power stage any harder. The only way to truly drive the power stage and maintain a manageable volume is through re-amping or use of an attenuator. I've experimented with re-amping and several attenuators and found the best balance of affordability, portability, sound quality and ease of use to be the Ultimate Attenuator. It's not the typical "stepped" passive attenuator using a resistive network to basically convert sound energy to heat and reduce the output volume to the speakers. It's actually an active re-amping device with a linear volume pot that functions just like the volume knob on an amp. Same tone at any volume and no need to attenuate in steps, which makes it very useable in a live setting. It also has a voltage reduction feature that, if you plug your amp's power cord into, reduces the voltage fed to the amp from 120v to 100v... a fixed Variac if you will. Nice feature and works well with the QR.

One thing to keep in mind too is that the higher the master and lower the loop volume... the less volume boost you'll get when kicking in the solo boost. I don't have a SR, but with the QR you won't have any volume boost in the solo mode once the channel master is set past about 10 o'clock or so.