Digitech RP1000 - Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How?

[beammeupwelshy]

Bugger. Hopefully its a fixable thing. Sounds like you've covered the various testable stuff.

Have you tried just taking the line outs and sticking them stright into a line input on a mixing desk or something? Then whack a pair of headphones somewhere and use your ears to tell you if the Hiss is coming form the RP, I'd do it this way instead of using the phones on the RP, then you are testing the signal that would go into the amp.

Don't want to tell you what to do, (you probably already got it coverd) but one thing I would definatly check is the level going into your amp/s. If you are going into your amp via the RP outputs, try plugging the guitar stright into the amp and see what sort of volume level you get with the amp set to say 1/3, then put the RP back in line with it and see if its about the same. If so then its not levels, if not adjust the RP so that all the Present levels are around 40ish and adjust the master volume of the RP to level match your guitar without the RP in the guitar to amp chain.

Its just that Hiss is usually the noise floor of a device, so it could be that the signal isn't loud enough somwhere and the noise from boosting it at the wrong stage is causeing Hiss, or its too loud and the noise floor is way higher in level than normal. Or it could just be something is kafuckt =) I guess.

Cheers.

 

[beammeupwelshy]

Any advice on types of PA speaker and amp all in one units?

Thinking about starting to do some jamming with people and hopefully gigging, and I really dont want to have to lug my amp everywhere I go. Been thinking about it for ages really, but always think I'm too busy etc, but if I dont just do it, I'll be like 40 in ten years and I'll have never really gave my one passion in life a good go. Even if its just a bit of jamming with random dudes it'll be cool.

So what I might do is get a PA Speaker with amp combo thingy, and just whack the RP through it. Just wondering if anybody has done anything along these lines with their unit? And if there are factors to concider? Like does it just sound terrible at a gig for example? Or do i loose all my street cred for not having an amp?

Cheers.

 

[royslead]

There are people on the Digitech forum that use powered loudspeakers as you are thinking. I think as long as you go with a quality built unit, you wont go wrong. From what I understand, full-range, full-response units are the ticket for modelers.

 

[wizard_37]

I messed around for one of our practices and did not bring my amp and i just ran my effects pedal through the board and rocked away, sounded great after i made a few tweeks, their are powered pa speakers that have the built in mixers now and they run about 300 bucks, you can plug in your ipod or what ever else you got into it, i have a friend that has one, it has a 12" speaker in it and i hooked up my pedal and guitar and jammed away on it and again it did not sound bad at all.

 

[beammeupwelshy]

Sweet, sounds like an easy way to jam and practise then. That is good to know. I guess in the grand scheme I'd never be happy with that setup but it definatly beats lugging my 4x12 around.

On the other hand just saw Kyuss last night and the guitarist (not Josh Home, the new guy) was using a couple of marshalls and something else from what I could see, and he was getting the sweetest sound, so maybe it would be worth some back breaking for a gig, maybe not practise though.

 

[DragonSarc]

Hey guys just a quick question i bought an RP355 and sounds awesome but i need more banks than what the rp355 has now theres a guy trading my 355 with his rp1000 and hes asking the RP355 + $235 bucks is that a good deal? thanks

 

[beammeupwelshy]

Does that mean you give him your RP355 and and the cash and you get an RP1000 out of it?

I dont know how much the US dollar is worth, but if its in good condition and the retail price is a good bit higher than the figure then I'd say go for it.

Not 100% but I would imagine that the 1000 would will do everything the 355 does plus a whole lot more functionality etc. Don't think you can transfer your patches over either but you will have fun making all new ones.

 

[DragonSarc]

Does that mean you give him your RP355 and and the cash and you get an RP1000 out of it?

I dont know how much the US dollar is worth, but if its in good condition and the retail price is a good bit higher than the figure then I'd say go for it.

Not 100% but I would imagine that the 1000 would will do everything the 355 does plus a whole lot more functionality etc. Don't think you can transfer your patches over either but you will have fun making all new ones.

yup u got it, i know but i know the settings i made so its cool hopefully the guy would decide already

 

[snark]

Greetings All!

Anyone using the RP1000 with multiple amp heads? I've been playing with a few configurations and just can't get the right set up yet...what I'm looking at is connecting the RP1000 into my rig of 4 amp heads all which have effects loops. I have a Voodoo Labs Amp switcher as I want to select each amp individually. What I would ideally like to do is be able to place the RP1000 into the Effects loops of each of the 4 amps and use the Voodoo to select which amps are active. (all or some)

I've tried daisy chaining the loops via a the recommended diagram on the Digitech site..but this defeats the preamps in the amp??? Ideas???

 

[beammeupwelshy]

Wow, that sounds epic.

I take it from the switcher that you only want one amp to work at one time and not all four togther? My guess would be that will get complicated.

I will attach a drawing of how i think it should go, but I'm no pro guitar tech.

 

[beammeupwelshy]

How do I attach stuff to a message?

 

[beammeupwelshy]

Think I got it.

 

[beammeupwelshy]

I could be completely off the mark on what you want to do but, those two diagrams are how I think you mean you want to work it.

Its gonna hinge on which way you want to go, like do you just want to use the power amp from one amp or do you want to use all the power amps?

If I was doing this I'd convert a 4x12 so that each speaker has a jack and you plug each amp into one speaker, so that way every combo of pre and power amp can be acheived and you would get an interesting multi-tone 4x12. If you wanted to get even tricker you could have two amps work on a Left output from the RP1000 and two work on the Right output, so you'd have a stereo FX rig.

It would be pretty awesome. I'm guessing you will have channels on the amps too? Man that would be such a head ache that I reckon just get a JVM with four channles and be done with it, but on the other hand how awesome would a setup like that be. I think very. If you do try this you have stick pics up or something.

As far as I know this should all be totally sweet as far as the RP1000 is concerned as its just the same as when you use one amp in the amp loop, only you would switching between 4, but it doensn't know that, so apart from the stress of making it all go, it should be sweet.

 

[snark]

Thanks so much for replying..you nailed it with your 1st drawing...This is exactly what I'm trying to achieve except I cannot find anyone who makes a switching box to switch the 4 effects loops. The key here is I may want to use any combination of 1 to 4 of the heads and feed the RP1000 effects through the loops...not sure how that would work if I have more than 1 amp's effect loop engaged? That's the issue...Right now I have the amp output of the RP1000 going to the 4 channel switcher then to each of the 4 inputs on the Amps. No effects loops are being used...It sounds ok, but I'd really like to send the time and modulation effects through the loops...doing it with multiple amps though is a bitch... tons of cabling, groundloops, etc... almost seems like I might need a custom designed rig????

Thanks for your thoughts on this though!!

 

[beammeupwelshy]

OK, are you wanting to use the amps by them selfs? So swicthing the RP1000 between the amps FX loops. Kind of like if you had a four amp channles, only in your case you have fours amps instead?

That is basically the first drawing but instead of a splitter to feed the power amps you would need another switcher, which would send out to the power amp you want.

I think that would be pretty sweet as. If the loop pedals were just simple straight forward true bypass (no buffers) I don't think you will run into any problems from a technical point of view, it would just be a totall mess of cables and a head axche if you were moving/gigging with tha rig.

OK I might draw that out too, to get my head around it.

 

[beammeupwelshy]

OK, I think thats what your after this time.

Not sure if i read your post right but are you saying you may want multiple Preamp signals mixed together? For this you would need a fancy 4 way loop pedal that can mix the loops together, as you can't just combine two or more outputs togther (splitting a signal is fine, but joining is more complicated) they need to be weighted by resistors etc. This applies to your pre-amp outputs. I would assume a fancy loop pedal would take care of that as long as it wasn't just dasiy chaining the loops (that might be why its hard to find one, like you say). You definalty can't daisy chain the pre-amps together as an already pre-ampd signal going into a pre-amp will be tonally bad and maybe even could damage things after prolonged use.

If you only want one preamp at one time however then a simple bare bones loop pedal should be fine, preferably if would only be able to have one active loop at one time to avoid mixing preamps togther and avoiding the above mentioned issue.

The other 4 way switcher to switch the output of the RP would just have be a basic one as well, best to avoid buffers in this one as the RP1000 sends out a treated signal when its going back to an amp (hense the amp/line level output switch on the back). Buffer might alter the tone of this (not sure though).

I guess doing it this way would be a bit clumsy as you would have to pre-plan your switching and make sure you were on the ball for every pedal change. What you would really need is a smart box that does all that switching and routing with only a few switches. I guess like you say thats custom rig territory.

Good luck with that man it sounds sweet. Maybe the next RP1000, will have four amp loops on it, that would solve your problems right there. ha ha.

 

[snark]

Yep your last drawing is it exactly...I've already got the switcher on the right.. It's the switcher on the left I cannot find..as you stated there are challenges when combining signals, so the "standard" switch products are not usable...guess I 've got to reach deeper into my pockets for some custom gear I'm also going to do some more research on the web to see what some of the pros are touring with on their rigs...I'm sure the majority have multi-amp set ups...maybe I 'll get some other ideas??

Thanks again for your input!!

 

[beammeupwelshy]

Cool. Yeah there must be solutions for that sort of thing out there. On the extreme end of the scale I guess there are guys like this.

Pete Cornish

 

[beammeupwelshy]

Just re-read alot of this thread, I never realised how much of a know it all I sound, Ha ha, what a dick. Anyway I have some more set up tips for the RP1000 just because I modded my amp a little to make it work a bit better and now have a great way to set up a 4 cable method with this thing so that it works at an optimised level.

So if you read above I have a Laney GH100L which I use most of the time now. I pretty much gave my AVT275 to my old man to play with. The Laney doesn't have an FX send level it just spits out a line level signal. Which is a sweet as level for the RP1000's analogue input. However what I noticed when trying to set patches to the same approximate level as the incoming Laney preamp signal is that the RP1000 will clip its digital signal and you get nasty digital pops etc which sound terrible. Seems to me Digitech need to put a bit of work into the analogue input and output side of the RP1000, to cater for this kind of thing, which I'm sure would happen fairly often with guitar gear.

So, the best way I can figure to make everything work in harmony, is to reduce the FX send level of the laney Pre amp, so I put a simple line level pot into the chassis so I can attenuate the signal, (these days most amps probably have a level control for this anyway I would hope).

This allows me have the Laney preamp at a level which is approximately a similar level to the operating level of the RP1000 preamp with a good bit of head room to cater for lots of FX and other stuff which could clip the signal when applied.

So with all this in mind I will post a step by step set-up guide the way I think it should work, just because it took me a while to get this sorted to where I'm happy with everything, mainly because of a the idiosyncratic nature of my dated amp, but then again most people these days want dated amps because they sound the best =).

 

[beammeupwelshy]

RP1000 4 cable method setup.

Step1 – Cabling

Guitar goes into RP1000 input. RP1000 Amp loop send goes to Guitar Amp input. Guitar Amp FX Send goes to Rp1000 Amp Loop Return. RP1000 Left output goes to Guitar Amp FX Loop Return. You need 3 cables to go between your amp and the RP1000, and a 4th cable to plug you guitar in with. Use good cables as you don't want to introduce noise etc. Check that the amp/mixer button is set to amp, as this changes you tone for a mixer or an amp, its not just a level thing, it applies an EQ curve.

Now this is done, your amp master volume (dear god I hope you have one), is now the overall level control for how much air your speakers move. If you don't have a master volume amp, the RP1000's master is the volume control.

Step2 – Modeling patches

Set your most loud and FX laden patch on the RP1000 (internal preamp patch, no amp loop active) so that you get no clipping when everything is going nuts. I set the Master volume to 99 (always). The patch level to 40, the amp level to 40, at this level it seems you can apply as much FX as you want with no clipping (I think anyway). Set all other patches at either the same level or lower than this patch (Actual number levels may be higher on the quieter models, you are going for perceived loudest once you have set the loudest patch accurately). This is now your loudest output level from your RP1000. It is quite low and could be a lot louder, but this will guarantee no unwanted digital clipping when you put that infinite feed back delay on or other such huge amounts of stuff on top of you signal.

Step3 – Amp loop patches

First thing to do is to set unity gain. This means that when you bypass your amp loop patches (guitar straight to amp) you get no level change. So on my setup I set the master to 99 and the patch level to 34 (no RP1000 preamps or FX on of course). 34 Seems to be almost exactly unity with the master is at 99. However amp level, master level and patch level all contribute to the overall output level so a patch level of 34 only seems to be unity when no other volumes are used and master is at 99. Others may find this value is different for their setup, but it should be around that point. Test this by playing your patch, then bypass your patch, you want no level change.

Now setup your incoming signal from your amp (hopefully your amp has a send level knob). Basically the idea here is that the Amp pre-amp signal (your real amp with valves and stuff) should be at a level (once its gone inside the RP1000) that is at the approximate same level as the Loudest patch you just set above in step 2. This is one of those hard ones to judge because the louder your amp is the more you may think your pre amp signals might be at different levels. You just have to adjust while playing it loud and find a happy medium. After a couple of days if you haven’t adjusted this level cause it sounds right, mark whatever knob you turn so you can easily find this point again.

Step4

Now that you have set these levels up, your pretty much done. On my amp I have an FX level return knob, I turn this all the way up top compensate for the lower output of the RP1000. If you don't have something like this you may feel that you power amp isn't getting enough signal. The only solution here is to boost the level with a mixer or maybe a guitar preamp pedal, anything that will boost a signal without colouring it basically. However I think in most cases if you have a loud amp, you can just turn it up more, I doubt it would cause any major issues.

Trouble Shooting – I use this with a Laney GH100l and one issue this amp brings to the mix is that even when using the FX loop there is still a low level signal (cross talk) passed directly from the preamp to the power amp, its low and isn't a problem once you turn things up a little but at volumes under 1 on the master volume on the Laney, it causes the two signals to mix and creates horrible phase sounding cancellation noise. Its at very low volumes and it isn't really a problem, but its just one of those things that annoys me as I play at really low volumes when people are home etc. So I'm sure every amp will bring some not ideal issues up when doing this but for the most part the above steps should get you there.

Hope this helps.