krm27

Sorry, these are newbie questions, I've been playing classical / acoustic and am just trying to figure out an amplified set up for electric guitar & some other stuff. Don't know squat about amplification. Trying to get simplest set up that will do everything I think I might want to do. Here's what I've come up with as a general flow chart / shopping list:

Guitar–>Modeling/Effects Pedal–>Loop Pedal–>Mixing Board–->?speaker?
Drum Machine ---------------------------–>Mixing board –>?speaker?
Synthesizer-------------------------------–>Mixing board –>?speaker?
Microphone -------------------------------–>Mixing board –>?speaker?

The idea is that I want to layer guitar sounds with different effects, using a looper. As I understand it, this means I need my effects all before the looper or all my loops will be stuck with same effects. This also means I cannot use an amp or amp head with effects, I guess. So I am thinking I need something like a Line 6 stomp box to go before a looper pedal in my chain.

I also have a drum machine, synth, and mic, and I think it makes sense to route them all into one amp / speaker monitor (not sure of right term for what I need). One speaker seems to make sense to me financially and to limit space / clutter. Which I guess means a mixing board? Or do I just get an amp that has four line-ins?

From the mixing board, I'm not sure what exactly to go into. An amp? A pre-amp? A monitor? A speaker?

I'm also a bit confused as to the microphone, as to whether that needs a dedicated pre-amp and where that would go in the chain (?between mic and mixing board?)

Any advice appreciated,

~Ken

Robbgnarly

Line 6 HD500 has a looper built in, and is one of the best non-high priced MFX pedals you can get

Get a small Mixer behringer make a small xeynix 802 (i have one and it is a good cheap small mixer)
and a powered monitor/speaker will do you fine.


EDIT: The L6 HD500 also does vocal FX and has a mic input

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GaryBillington

Have you considered getting a multitracker or PC interface so you can record the parts you'll be looping in order to have them there ready to go next time you want to play?

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fly135

I would suggest you get a mixer with an aux bus. Send the aux output to the looper and then the looper back to the mixer. You can decide what you want the looper to record by which input you send to the aux bus. The reason being that you will probably want to loop some of the other inputs... (drums, synth, and mic).

If you are thinking of looping to the drums by simply letting the drum machine play while looping your guitar, you are going to find that it's impossible to keep the drums in sync over multiple loops.

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gumbilicious

+1

this also allows you to plug right into a DAW or performance software. sync beats and loops cuz it's all getting taken care of in one program.

if you use a computer interface and some software like abbleton, then you could stage the song (tempo, time signatures, beats, loops) and make real time loops of any instrument. plus you could also use software to make your beats and eliminate the need for a drum machine.

you can use usb hardware interfaces if you want knobs, switches, faders, drum pads... w/e.



-Guitar
-effect unit
-looper
-drum machine
-synth
-microphone
-mixer
-PA/speaker

that is pretty much how you'd hook it up, nothing wrong with that arrangement.

that is a hefty list. you could replace the looper, drum machine, guitar effects unit and mixer with a computer interface and use software for beats and looping.



effects positioned before the looper will be copied in the looper.



you may be able to use amp with effects. if you had like a spider IV, you could use the headphone outs to the mixer; that should bypass the speaker and let you use all the effects.

line 6, boss, digitech, etc all make multi effects. i'd recommend going to a store to try a few and see if there is one you like better over another.



it'd make controlling the levels/mixing easier.



you have plenty of options, one of the most obvious is to use a small mixer in front to a powered speaker. this is a great option cuz you have scalability: extra inputs, effects loops, extra sends, you can buy another speaker when you can afford it later, it can function as a great monitoring system when you expand, etc.



a mixer is basically a bunch of preamps controlled by faders that combine audio signals into a single (mono or stereo) audio signal.

so you plug stuff that may need a preamp into the mixer (microphones for example), but you can also plug stuff that has it's own preamp (ipods, keyboards, etc) into a mixer as well.

the output of the mixer is generally ready to be sent to a power amp, which is then sent to a speaker cabinet.



the mixer should provide the preamp.

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