Panic attack at session.

John Lacey · Post by **John Lacey** » 13 Sep 2002 6:00 am

Yesterday I did a session for a client and brought along my trusty GX-700 as a preliminary eq. The engineer came out of my Goodrich L-120 pedal with a 1/4"/XLR adapter then into a tube preamp, then into the board. Immediately when I worked the volume pedal there was a "swooshing" sound coming from my rig. It sound like the pot going on the volume pedal. Now I was a little doubtful as my pedal is only about 6 months old, but it sure sounded like it, so after a few cord changes, we determined I needed another volume pedal. Unfortunately, even in a large city like Calgary there is no retail outlet to buy a proper pedal other than the usual Morley and Ernie Ball ones which I won't use, so I borrowed forumite Greg Derksen's Franklin stereo pedal, which fortunately fit my Emmons perfectly. Same sound with his. Then I knew it was too unlikely that both pots were gone in 2 pedals so we looked at the signal chain. I still don't know what fixed it but I believe it was too much signal from the preamp to the board. In case anyone else runs into this, don't freak over your pedal first, check out the signal chain.

Johan Jansen · Post by **Johan Jansen** » 14 Sep 2002 7:13 am

Been there too, John.
Advice to new studioplayers, Always be shure your rig and instruments are OK, and then trust on it. A lot of studio's have so much wissles and bells in their chains that their technicians easily can make mistakes too, and give them the time to figger out what's wrong. Don't feel blamed, go to the cantina, take a cup of coffee and return when they fixed the problem. Easy does it !

John, did that session go well for the remain of time?
Thanks for the story,
Johan www.steeljj.com

John Lacey · Post by **John Lacey** » 14 Sep 2002 9:37 am

Yes, it did go smoothly after that. It was a typical ProTools session, "play over everything 3 times and will take out the stuff we don't need."

Ole Dantoft · Post by **Ole Dantoft** » 15 Sep 2002 8:31 am

John,
I'm in no way an expert on the steel-guitar, and I've never played in the studio (probably never will either), but I AM an electronics engineer by profession, and this sounds to me like a typical example of DC on the volume pedal pot. A DC-voltage on a potentiometer always gives a scratchy sound, and you saying that the next thing in the signal-chain was a tube preamp makes this all the more likely, as a LOT of tubeamps don't use a blocking capacitor in the input - not MY favorite way of designing an input stage, but it saves a few cents a-piece I guess !

Ole

John Lacey · Post by **John Lacey** » 15 Sep 2002 11:26 am

Ole, I'm not sure what happened technically. Eventually, the engineer replaced the phone/XLR connector and I went into a Avalon direct box (expensive at $1000.) and that seemed to fix it. I think maybe he just had the gain too high on the preamp. I've also heard that sound when I've plugged into my volume pedal the opposite way.