Here again with my questions about the octatrack. I want to plug in my Waldorf Blofeld synth through Radial reamp box like the ”Radial ProRMP” and then to a reverb quitar fx pedal and finally to the octatrrack. Do I really need to connect 2 cables to the radial?
And also an important question for me: do I really need 2 TRS/TS cables from OT output to my recording devices inputs? OT is stereo right? Should suffice with one cable abd get nice results?
It depends completely on the kind of input(s) you are connecting to.
If you connect to a stereo input a Y cable (2TS => 1TRS) is all you need.
If you connect to a normal mono inputs you’ll need 2 TS cables.
If you connect to balanced mono inputs you can use either 2 TS cables (when you don’t need the additional noise protection of a balanced signal transfer) or you can use 2 TRS cables.
This reamp has only a single balanced mono input. So if you want to use the stereo signal from the Blofeld you will need to use two of these devices (one for the left and one for the right channel).
But of course this depends also if your pedal can process a stereo input signal.
I would prefer to plug in 2 TS mono cables from my synth which has 2 mono outputs to the radial unit which has only 1 input (TS or TRS? Dont know right now), with one of those Y-cables.
And then plug in radial unit to the reverb pedal which has two TS inputs/outputs and then further to the OT with 2 or 1 cables…
This will not work, because the input on the radial is a single balanced mono input. You cannot connect a stereo signal to it, because it would cancel out the LEFT with the RIGHT channel resulting in almost silence.
Some infos about balanced inputs:
As I wrote above: you will need two of these reamps if you want to use stereo (one connected to the LEFT and one connected to the RIGHT channel).
Now I understand a lot more. Trying to find a radial reamp (or maybe other brand) that has stereo to begin with or maybe I should sell my reverb pedal and only get pedals that has line level input… =/
You most likely don’t need to use a reamp box in front of the pedal at all. Have you tried going directly to it and had issues? A lot of modern digital pedals (especially reverbs) are designed to handle a wide range of input gains and impedences and should do fine without a reamp box. Where those really shine is with distortion/fuzz, amplifiers (obviously) and older pedals in general - especially BBD based analog stuff, although even that doesn’t necessarily need one - so far I’ve never needed to use a reamp box to get a good sound running a line level synth or sampler output through any 80s DOD pedal of any kind, for example.
It sounds like the reamp box is complicating your setup unnecessarily here.
Thanks for helping out, didnt look through the manual enough so it seems but still I tried running my synth through the pedal in to the Octatrack and getting to ”hot” signal/low sound volume and If I raise the gain in different ways the OT flashes orange and still nearly audible sound from the synth.
But if I ditch the pedal and go straight from the synth all is fine…
Flashing orange from time to time is fine. You can always check levels in IT by recording it and displaying the waveform in OTs audio editor. The ceiling is clipping, so try to stay under the ceiling, but it‘s fine as long as you don‘t hit it.
I‘m not familiar the Ocean 12 unfortunately, from the manual it looks like a pretty straight forward pedal. There‘s no input level setting or output level setting, only dry/wet, right?
Levels drop considerably when you go from synth into pedal even if set to dry (fx level set fully ccw)?
No, it doesn‘t sound right! Definitely not.
You should be able to get a clean sound out of it.
Some pedals handle line level better than others, some are noisier than others, but I‘d expect a stereo reverb to handle line levels well!
Maybe someone with an Ocean 12 can chime in. @jayhosking has one IIRC
Maybe Im using my pedal the wrong way. Must look in to it further then.
Of course tips, tricks and advice are always welcome. And also want to take the oportunity to express what a great forum this is with such kind people.
Yeah, my OT flashes orange all the time I jsut go by ear with that.
Right now I’m running an instrument level signal from a Boss pedal into it and I have to keep the input level at -54 just to keep it in the yellow, which is completely bewildering, especially because I have a line level signal patched into the other input that shares the -54 level and it stays in the green easily. I’ve noticed other great with single LED metering (especially EHX stuff, actually) will go orange or red at hugely different input levels depending on frequency content so I take them as a really rough guide.
When the OT clips badly it’s usually very, VERY obvious, especially on low frequency stuff, and if it’s chopping off the occasional transient spike that usually doesn’t sound bad (if it’s audible at all) and can even be helpful.
Have you an OT MK2 (the MK2 has balanced mono inputs)? Because this sounds again like a balanced input problem. Are you feeding a stereo signal into a single input?
This would explain your problem. While the input signal on both channels is strong (indicated by the leds), after unbalancing it becomes almost completely cancelled out …
Try to use TS cables to connect to the inputs of the OT.
Are you preparing your samples on a computer? Because the OT defaults to boosting all samples by 12db (to compensate for the -12db pad it applies when recording) so if you load normalized samples they’ll be much louder than the inputs. You can change that in the attributes page of the audio editor per-sample, but if you work in 24 bit there’s really never any reason for a ample to be anywhere near full scale, peaking somewhere between -12db and -6db (preferrably on the quieter end of that) is good for tracking in a DAW but even that might be a little on the loud side for the Octatrack depending on context.
If your samples are drowning out the input and you aren’t recording them directly on the Octatrack, change their gain from +12 to 0 in the AED and see if that helps.
I’ve got all three devices (same pedal, OT MK2, and Blo). I. Not having any problems with levels on my end. Ha e you checked the basics like levels? How about OTs mixer, do you have the gains too high? Very well could be your cable choice as pointed out above.
Ah, I run TS cables only. 2 TS cables from the synth in to the pedal and 2 TS cables from the pedal in to OT mk2.
Thanks for the advice about lowering the gain of the the samples Supercolor… I do use almost only samples from the PC.
Considering the levels Jacob. What do you mean? Of course I checked gain/volume levels if thats what you mean. Why would I lower the gain? The sound is already way too low from the pedal/synth to begin with. Just because you dont have any problem with these devices doesnt have to mean that I shouldnt. Its too bad but your reply is no help for me at all.
I did use only short Roland TS cables by the way in my connections.
