GSP1101 & 4CM??

[Hamner1]

OK quick rant, unrelated to the GSP & rig, before I go on. I ended up having a 1/2 day of work yesterday (didn't go in until 3PM), so I waited around the house since the GSP package needed a signature. 2:40PM as I am ready to leave for work, up pulls the UPS truck. Are you fricking kidding me. :roll: So much for trying it out yesterday. :evil:

Anyway some quick thoughts on the GSP out of the box. I tried just the strait GSP to poweramp (at very low volumes - I got home at 10PM last night). I didn't think anything spectacular, but then again low volume so... About an hour ago I got home & tried it at normal poweramp volume. Most of the patches sound bass heavy, lifeless, & fuzzy (even the clean tones). Ok I did not tweak the patches at this point. So to make them sound better I quickly tweaked some patches (EQ) this helped some,at least they didn't sound super bass heavy/muddy, although still lifeless. I imagine if I spent more time tweakig they would be a little better yet. So I thought lets do an A/B. I compared the Plexi Drive patch with the Brahma. Brahma wins. It had a presence to it that just cuts through & has a vibe that the GSP did not. Again I only tweaked the EQ on the patch. Ok so it is still early & the jury is still out on the GSP sims.

Now I am off to put the RM4 in the loop of the GSP & go from there. If all goes well I may even get the C2 hooked up and a couple of patches set up tonight. One can hope anyway. :lol:

By the way, thank you all for the tips & insight. Keep them coming.

 

[Hamner1]

Holy crap there is a lot of stuff to this unit. Obviously I have not messed with all of them yet (USB, XLR, etc). Without saving anything I just kind of messed around with some features/settings on the Plexi Drive patch. So far I am digging this unit.

Here is a problem I could not get worked out. I wanted to set up the C2 expression pedal like a volume pedal before the RM4. So I could have my OD sound from the Brahma, but rock the pedal back to clean it up by reducing the signal coming from the guitar. No matter how I set it up it just seemed to act like a volume after the effects, same tone just lower overall volume. Any ideas?

ps: Yes the 68 Plexi amp sim was turned off. I have not update to C63 yet.
Getting my feet wet 1st. This weekend will be when I have some time to really dig in.

 

[ricky]

Not sure how to pull that one off except using the volume knob on the guitar. There may be a way to put the volume pedal up front, but I am not sure. One of the complaints about the GSP was that you could not move stuff around enough. Their new product thzt works with an iPad is capable I think.

 

[Hamner1]

Hey Stormrider, I am also a midi luddite, but I do have the C2 pedal switching my RM4 channels. What you do is start with the first footswitch and find the Randall pre that you like. Hold the switching button in on the RM4 for about 3 seconds. Then go to footswitch #2, get the pre you want and do the same. Do this for all four pres. So now for every bank on the gsp 1101 I use, each switch is assigned to an RM4 preamp. It is way cool to watch the different colored LEDs light up when I stomp on the switch!
Hope this helps.
ricky

Cool tip ricky :wink:

I tried this and it works. The only downside, in 5 patch mode is, you have to plan your presets a little more. Otherwise you might be doing a 2+ buttom tap dance to switch to the appropriate patch & Preamp module. Patch 1, 6, 11, etc select the same assigned module. Patch 2, 7, 12, etc select the same assigned module. You get the idea. So if you happen to like a clean tone on the 3 bank, but your OD or lead tone is in bank 1 it's not a quick switch. I know this is a relatively minor issue. I was/am used to the Rocktron MidiMate & I had it set for 10 patch mode. Essential patch 1 could have module 1, patch 11 could have module 2 or 3 or 4, etc. Maybe 10 patch mode on the C2 would be the same, I don't know.

I imagine once I really dive in & settle on my core tones, this will be less of an issue. :lol:

 

[ricky]

I think the 10 patch mode will work the same way, but then you lose the ability t kick on an effect. I usually have mine set up in five patch, with each assigned to a module. I have effects on each patch that I can use plus a second pedal to control whatever effect parameter I need, like Button one will be a fender twin and the chorus assigned to the tremolo with the second pedal assigned to the speed of the tremolo. Also, remember that you can assign the control switch to whatever you want. Mine is assigned usually to the wah on/off as kicking the wah on with the pedal is a pain in the ass.
ricky

 

[Hamner1]

I guess it doesn't have too work the way it was described above. I messed around with it today & chose different mods for different patches & it worked. Patch 2 (bank 1 button 2) I set to the Brahma. Patch 7 (bank 2 button 2) I set to the SLOD100. Patch 12 (bank 3 button 2) I set to the RR59. When switching between patches & banks it worked so the assigned mods came up when selecting those patches. Now I'm even happier, I don't have to plan 1 particular module per button. 8)

 

[ricky]

Hamner,
I like your idea and for some reason it never occurred to me. I tried it last week and set up bank one for all of my twin reverb patches w/patch one being chorus, 2 tremolo, 3 rotary, etc. That way I can have one sound and use five different chorus or delay type effects on the same amp, or have different distortions on each patch. I used to set it up with each patch a separate preamp.What a great idea!
thanks
ricky

 

[Hamner1]

Awesome, I'm glad I was of some value to the board finally. :lol:
Well the honeymoon period is over I think for the most part. I hate all of the OD amp sims. The JC120 & GSP2101 Clean are pretty good. Maybe a little lifeless, but I can't recall the last time I played clean without some type of chorus &/or reverb, so that's all good. I still love the unit.

Someone smarter than me, on this board, mentioned programming a base tone & then having other effects programmed but turned off in 5 patch mode, hit a button & they are on. I found the control button is my friend . Instead of tap dancing like a traditional pedal board. I just program the Control button to turn on/off the effects. For example I have a patch labled Brahma Drive (Original huh :lol, anyway it is the Brahma preamp & a little reverb. I have the Control button set to switch it to a lead tone by, turning the OD on (Screamer for a mid boost & slight distortion/OD boost), the Delay on, the Reverb off, & boost the patch level.
It occured to me today I could use the EQ instead for the mid boost, so we will see how well that goes tomorrow during programming. Now if I could just figure out how to assign the damn volume before the preamp, so I can clean up the signal rocking the expression pedal, I would be set.

 

[ricky]

I don't like the clean sims much, but that is why I love the MTS stuff so much and have the RM4 hooked into the GSP.
Maybe I am hearing you wrong, but how do you get the control button to turn on/off more than one effect at a time. I usually have it set up to turn the wah on/off as it doesn't like to go on easily with the pedal itself. Are you using xEdit? I don't have mine with me right now, but it seems that in xEdit,the control fsw is assignable to only one thing. It may be great if I am wrong!
ricky

 

[Hamner1]

I actually stumbled upon it on the GSP. But you can use Xedit as well. Once I figured out where the expression links were in Xedit I prefer to do all my editing using Xedit. It is so much quicker, plus you can see everything at once instead of scrolling through screens. I was mistaken about the reverb being turned off on this patch. That is on the SLO100+ patch I created. Below is a shot of the Xedit expression page. I probably could have eliminated 1 or 2 of those Volume links... oh well. Anyway you can see I programed link 4 to adjust the patch level, Link 5 to turn the distortion on/off, link 6 to turn the delay on/off. Hit the control button & on comes the Delay & Distortion as well as the patch level/volume increases. Hit it again (to turn it off) & off goes the delay & distortion & the patch level returns to rhythm level/volume. Damn cool if you ask me. 8)
If I wanted I could use link 7 to turn the reverb on this patch off/on. I would just need to set the Min value to On & the Max value to Off.

 

[ricky]

Well I'll be dipped in sh*t! I had just assumed that it would only do one thing at a time. Thanks so much! This does open up some possibilities for me now!

 

[Hamner1]

Yeah I was shocked it worked myself. I just decided to take a chance and bingo. As stated earlier there is a ton of stuff to this. At least compared to other items I've used.

 

[Hamner1]

Well I figured out a "solution" for rolling back the volume. It involves assigning the expression pedal to the loop send level. It "works" although I'm not sure how well. I had to run pretty low poweramp volume as people were sleeping.
I'm still ticked the PreFX volume doesn't do what I want.

 

[ricky]

I did a live gig with my GSP\RM4 rig last night and all of my patches were distorted. Luckily it was a balls to the wall rock and roll gig, so it didn't matter too much. I went direct and had no power amp or speakers. I seemed to be over driving it somewhere and am thinking it was my patch volume. I had them set at 75. Does this seem too high to anyone? Usually when I play live I use a power amp and speakers and have never had an issue with distortion or finding nice clean sounds. I had my XLR volume low enough that the board did not have any clipping. Any ideas?

 

[ricky]

Okay, I have the rig out here at home now with headphones and was wondering something. the distortion seems to come from running the RM4 master too hot. However "too hot" seems to be at around 2. not 2 o'clock, but 2. Now I like to run my clean mods with the volume wide open and then add some gain to round out the tone. I find that if I back the volume off, then I can turn up the master on the RM4. I am running my preset volume at 50. Is there another place on the GSP that I could turn down? I have the XLRs down for live playing going to the board. Is there some kind of loop volume that I might be running too hot? What do your rigs look like as far as this stuff goes? I like distortion, but not the clipping I seem to be getting.
thanks
rick

 

[Nightdare]

Is there some kind of loop volume that I might be running too hot?

well, your returnlevels after the RM4 could be set too high (fx in/output may also distort the next fx 'block')
OR it just may be possible that your clean modules are overdriving the tubes in your RM4
(I believe I read that one of the tubes in the RM4 is for fx return/output)

 

[m0jo]

Okay, I have the rig out here at home now with headphones and was wondering something. the distortion seems to come from running the RM4 master too hot. However "too hot" seems to be at around 2. not 2 o'clock, but 2. Now I like to run my clean mods with the volume wide open and then add some gain to round out the tone. I find that if I back the volume off, then I can turn up the master on the RM4. I am running my preset volume at 50. Is there another place on the GSP that I could turn down? I have the XLRs down for live playing going to the board. Is there some kind of loop volume that I might be running too hot? What do your rigs look like as far as this stuff goes? I like distortion, but not the clipping I seem to be getting.
thanks
rick

There's a switch on the back of the GSP to have it handle a hotter signal.
Make sure it's set to -10db (pressed in).

I run the modules at 11 o clock-ish, master at 3 o clock.
You can switch those values around (modules 3, master 11), much higher levels will start clipping.

 

[Hamner1]

There's a switch on the back of the GSP to have it handle a hotter signal. Make sure it's set to -10db (pressed in).

I thought it was the other way around. I have it set at +4 (out). I am running the volumes about 11 oclock & 11 oclock. maybe I should check out this -10 setting.

 

[ricky]

Even though mine has always been set to -10, there was a lot of discussion on the GSP1101 forum b/c what the manual says about that switch is backward from the machine. Maybe I should try switching it to see what happens?

 

[m0jo]

Even though mine has always been set to -10, there was a lot of discussion on the GSP1101 forum b/c what the manual says about that switch is backward from the machine. Maybe I should try switching it to see what happens?

Eh now I'm not sure anymore. But go ahead and try, can't hurt!