Tweak Peaks Revisited

[palembic]

Brothers and sisters,
 
let me fill you in on some serious matters (oh ...uhuh ....Paul TBO getting serious ...THAT will be the day).
Anyway.
Some of you friends know Bonnie and Tweak Peaks (for thos who don't see http://club.alembic.com/Images/394/6134.html?1069586402
As you probably read I suffered in Tweak Peaks of a severe hum that was -weird- variable in intensity and kinda building up over time playing. It was no light hiss but an annoying low hum.
In the start I didn't pay much attention. You know me: I'am the technical moron of the gang here and I tought ...well ...it's acceptable (in fact not admitting to say that I was afraid as HELL to restart building it all again).
Now ...a couple of months ago the guitarplayer in our band gave me a remark and said: Paul the SOUND/TONE of your bass is changing over the time you play a gig. It HAS to do with that building up hum. He adviced me to get some Humfrees rackscrews.
Now brothers and sisters in the lower part of the frequencies, I am not easy in recommending stuff (leave alone endorsing HA!) but our guitar WAS right.
I invested quite a part of a night in re-organising my rack. The Lexicon MPX 100 was left out. I didn't use it THAT much and was changed for a 1U rack-tray to fit in Red (you know Red? My brand new multi-cable???) the Swingstrings (you surely have seen the guitarholders to clamb on the sidegrips of an amp or cab) spare strings etc.... .
So first step: less is more = less Tweaking for more Peaking.
ALL rackscrews were changed for the Humfrees and the elements in the rack were carefully spaced. All cables were fixed inside with binders soundcables left, powercables right.
Yesterday I rehearsed for the first time with Bonnie and the revisited Tweak Peaks.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
MYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD
 
Brothers and sisters ....
I put all to work and ....dead-silent!!
For a moment I thought ...shit ...no sound.
Oh ...huhuhuhuh ...I touched the strings and yes ...there it WAS: the deep frequencies rolling out of Tweak Peaks with absolutely NO HUM. Even on fairly high volumes. There is only a light hiss coming from the setting of my SF-2 I guess.
But ...man ...the sound is more clear ... and ...consistent for about the full 3 hours!
 
To be honest ...I don't have the faintest clue what I did.
My friend the guitar-player said the low-hums building up and variable in location are most of the time grouding problems and THAT is what the Humfrees are isolating.
Guys abd dolls  ...DON'T ASK ME TECHNICAL DETAILS BECAUSE I DUNNO!!
 
Just ...I love my rig even more!!!
 
 
Paul the bad one

[jet_powers]

Bro Paul TBO,
 
I too have a Lexicon MPX-100 in my rack. One night I noticed I too was getting a lot of noise. I took the Lexicon out of the loop and things got a whole lot more quiet. Coincidence? On opposite sides of the pond? Maybe..... maybe not?
 
John Paul

[David Houck]

Paul, an interesting concept; thanks for reporting your findings.  Usually, the positioning of gear in a rack is so tight that I find it surprising that you were able to get each unit into the rack without any unit touching another.  In fact I must admit that, while isolating the gear seems like a worthy endeavor, I have this doubt that I could get all the gear to fit in the rack and still be isolated.
 
And you organized your cables too!  That is something I've been meaning to do for a while now.  Mine are all longer than necessary.  I need to make the effort to learn how to use a soldering iron and make cables of the proper length.

[bracheen]

Being somewhat gear challenged please explain what a Lexicon MPX-100 does.  What about it could cause Paul's hum?  I wonder if it's the way it interacts with a particular piece of equipment such as a F1X or power amp.  Do you two have other common components than the Lexicon and are they in the same sequence?
Believe me I am gathering a wealth of knowledge here that will serve me well one day.
 
Sam

[pookeymp]

Hey Paul,
 
Humfrees you say...I'll have to do a search and see what that's all about.
 
Mikey/

[David Houck]

John Paul; what kind of noise is your Lexicon causing; hum, hiss?  Is the noise present when the Lexicon is in bypass mode?  Just curious.

[David Houck]

Sam, the Lexicon MPX-100 is a digital multi effects unit.  I don't own one, but it has lots of knobs, which I find appealing.  I use an Alesis Midiverb III, and I only use it for reverb.  The Alesis is pretty adjustable, but it has push buttons instead of knobs and is therefore not as easily adjusted live on stage.

[palembic]

Po-pooom ...
entrance of the technical Morons.
 
Cleaning the cables.
Hehe ...I didn'te really cut them all.
So let's see:
- the power cable of the Dynacord is kept on his original lenght, as well as all the stuff. I just bind them together with ...well ...how you call that ....a fastbinder (help - help ...the small strap in plastic that you pull through the hole in it's own end ...it goes trrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr and it fixes ...gosh ....my english). I bought auto-gluing kind of small plates of 3M and I glued them on the inside of my rack against the walls (yeah ...right Paul). I pulled the binder through these holders first so when I pull them they fix the cables aside.
 
 
***sigh***
you know what ...I'll take some pictures ...no???
 
About those Humfrees:
look at this:

They are US-made. I bought mine in Germany.
 
A Lexicon MPX 100 is a Dual channel effect generator: chorus, harmonsir, flanger, reverb etc ...etc + combination of those. Simple, with the turn of a finger you have them ready.
I think most used in studio set-ups. NOT meant for bass I guess,
Very versatile and extremely userfriendly.
The LEXICON was on my HIGH signal only (I play bi-amp) because most effects don't sound on the lower freqs.
What I did wrong was -given the fact that one can control input level, output level and dry/wet of the signal (the amount of effect in you pure basssound)- is OVERSTEERING the INPUT level of the LEXICON.
I am not going to dump him -yet- because the effects were really neat. A very nice choice of choruses for example in combination with a reverb or an echo.
 
Anyway ...people ....IT'S CLEAN NOW!
NO HUM!!!!!
 
About the size of my RACK?
It's 8U's. And it IS a tiny bit larger (about 1 cm) so with some patience one can space nicely between the stuff.
BTW ...I used rubber strips to keep the units apart on distance.
 
 
Paul TBO

[bracheen]

Paul, tie wrap is the english word you were looking for to describe the plastic strap you used on your cables.
 
Sam

[wideload]

That's funny, on the West Coast we call them zip ties(or maybe only on the Central Coast of Caifornia where people of questionable verbal skills congregate)
 
Larry

[valvil]

Humfrees are real cool, I used them in my studio racks for close to 10 years now. As a side effect they also keep the corners of your rack units from getting all scratched up.
 
Valentino

[jet_powers]

Dave,
 
I've had the MPX100 out of the loop for a little while now and I don't recall precisely but I remember getting a quite a bit of line noise, even in bypass mode. My signal path ran from the amp to a tuner to a compressor and then to the MPX. As soon as I disconnected it I was back to acceptable levels of noise. Bad power supply perhaps? Then again maybe not as that same power supply powers my Alesis drum machine without incident.
 
JP

[bracheen]

Larry, I've always heard that English is difficult.  Maybe because of the different regional ways to say the same thing, ie bag, sack, poke.  I have heard the phrase zip tie now that you mention it.  Also wire tie.  Heck, I liked Paul's fastbinder.  
 
Sam  
 
 
 
(Message edited by bracheen on June 17, 2004)

[David Houck]

JP; thanks for the info.