OT: Can someone lend a hand with my signal chain please?

[John Egerton]

Hey guys... I was wondering if you could lend a hand trying to figure out something with my signal chain.

I've basically ordred a Diezel VH4 amp and I've also ordered a Korg Kaoss Pad http://www.korg.co.uk/products/dance_dj/kp2/dj_kp2.asp

As the kaoss pad is a digital effect, sticking it in series with my effects chain will mean a loss of signal quality (I'm keeping the path from guitar to amp as simple as a single lead and running effects in the parrallell loop).

I ordered it thinking that I could just stick it in the parrallell loop and be done with it however I've remembered something that I read about amps with parrallell loops and a mix control for the loop. You must set your effects on 100% wet as any dry signal coming though will cause a problem (phase?).

I emailed korg support asking if there was a way of setting the pad for 100% wet to which they told me that i could save the unit with the pad in the top corner position and that would mak it 100% wet, only I want to use the pad!

My question is, will I have to make a true bypass box for this unit and stick it in the serial effects loop or is there another way around this problem that will allow me to stick it in my parrallell loop with my other effects so it behaves?

Thanks guys...

John

[Pushtone]

I see a couple of issues that will make it a little more complicated to integrate this into a guitar signal chain.

From the web site specifications:

Effect Types:
Filter, Isolator, Distortion,
Wah, Talking Modulator, Flanger,
Vibrato, Tremolo, Slicer,
Auto Pan, Phaser, Pitch Shift,
Delay, Ping-Pong Delay, Tape Echo,
Multi Tap Delay, Reverb, Gate Reverb,
Reverse Delay, Ring Modulator,
Broken Modulator, Analog Modeling Synthesizer, Percussion Synthesizer, KAOSS Synthesizer,
Vocoder (Manual/Auto Tuning),
Sample/Play (Loop, Forward/Reverse,
Time Stretch, Scratch)

Connections:
Input: LINE IN (stereo RCA phono jack)
PHONO IN (stereo RCA phono jack)
MIC IN (phone jack)

Output: LINE OUT: Stereo RCA phono jack
Headphones: stereo phone jack (volume control)
***********************************************

First off it uses RCA jacks and its a stereo device. I can't see a manual or the rear panel so I can't tell if the LEFT channel can be used for straight mono, but for now lets asume it will work in mono (or you have a stereo effect loop or some stereo pedals that can generate a L&R from a mono input...bla bla bla.

Next is this is a line level device. The effects loop on your amp might output a line level but unless there is a switch to select between line and instrument level I'd assume it would be instrument level to interface with standard effect pedals. The result of feeding a line level device with instrument level will be more noise. How much noise is hard to tell. Have you plugged this in and tried it in a store or something? I think you will need a preamp in front of the Kaos to feed it the level it wants.

Next you will have the opposite problem on the output. The Kaos is line level out and it will be up to you to keep your level under control. Anyone who has plugged a synth into a guitar amp knows what I'm talking about. Again, if your amp has a line level loop you will be ok. BUT you won't be able to put standard guitar pedals in the loop if set to line level because they will get blasted with signal causing you to balance the gain stages which can be tricky and add noise (hiss).

I see the Kaos has a mic input. You could use a direct box to feed the Kaos a mic level signal and a simple mixer to mix the direct boxes parallel thru with the output of the Kaos. This would be close to the ideal situation where the Kaos is used like an effects processor connected to a mixing console's aux send and return.

If you were to build a loop box to have the Kaos in series I think it would need to buffer to bring the loop box's "send" up to line level and a PAD on the "return" to drop line level back to instrument level.

I'm a live sound engineer (no laughing please) and if you walked onto my stage with this thing I would set you up like this...