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w5rhr
Audio Head
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Apr 02, 2012 2:37 pm

New to the VooDoo

Post by w5rhr »

Hello all, this is Joe, W5SLU and I stumbled across this forum and ESSB through a Google search, and I see I have neighbors to the south of me immersed in this endevour!

I have been a professional musician for almost all of life so audio is a fascination for me.

My first foray into hi-fi SSb consists of a Heil PR40 into a Presonus Studio Channel( mic pre, compression and para eq) , then into a BBE Sonic Maximizer, into an Better RF Bet-I-Mate into an Icom7000 through the rear accessory jack,TBW is set to high.

I want to ad en EQ into the signal chain, and possibly downward expansion and maybe a subharmonix generator, although the last may be futile with the passband of the Icom.

I am enjoying this topic anf forum and hope to hear some of your fine signals on the air.

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Post by Voodoo Guru »

Howdy Joe,
Welcome to the forum!
So glad you joined the group and hope that you find all the answers to your questions.
Sounds like you on a great start to Voodoo Nirvana!
Take Care,
Voodoo Guru
From Deep in the IDD of the Sub-Harmonix Realm

w5rhr
Audio Head
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Apr 02, 2012 2:37 pm

Post by w5rhr »

Thank you for the welcome. I just ordered an MDX1600 and a DEQ2496, should both be in next week.
This forum is giving me a serious G.A.S attack!!!

BillPaul
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Joined: Wed Jan 19, 2011 11:52 am

Post by BillPaul »

I have both of those units. (I bought the DEQ2496 after my last "rack attack.") It seems to me though that if you have the DEQ2496, I think the MDX1600 may be redundant. The DEQ2496's dynamics module can do compression and downward expansion too. After I got the DEQ2496, I took the MDX1600 out of line. The one thing that bugged me about the DEQ2496 is that you can't do both compression and downward expansion on a single channel: there's one dynamics module per channel and you have choose one function or the other.

I ended up setting the unit for dual mono mode and putting the left and right channels in series so that I could do compression on one and downward expansion on the other.

Hopefully I'm not an idiot for wanting to do that. :)

I don't know if I'm getting the most out of the DEQ2496 either. All I'm using is the graphical EQ and the dynamics modules. Something tells me I should be making better use of the dynamic EQ module, but I haven't quite gotten the hang of setting it up right. If nothing else, the GEQ is much easier to configure.

-Bill, N1GPT

w5rhr
Audio Head
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Apr 02, 2012 2:37 pm

Post by w5rhr »

Thank you Bill, for your reply and comments and suggestions.
I downloaded the manuals for the two pieces of Behringer gear to try and get a feel before I ordered them .

I had planned on using the 1600 for a gate only, because of the transceivers
and linears fans are both noisy, LOL.

I like the Presonus' compressor and it effect on my audio, BUT I am open to trying other combinations , for sure,
Here will be my proposed signal path

Heil Pr40 mic

Bet-I-Mate (blocked dc poer and pulse tune function)

Presonus Studio Channel (mic pre, compression, para eq)

DEQ2496 (31 band EQ) and maybe expansion?? or

MDX 1600 (gate)

BBE Sonic Maximizer (sparkle and lows)

IC7000 via 13 pin accessory jack 10K INPUT

BillPaul
Digital Voodoo Guru
Posts: 66
Joined: Wed Jan 19, 2011 11:52 am

Post by BillPaul »

My set-up is:

Behringer B1 mic
Behringer MIC2200 mic pre-amp
Behringer DEQ2496, left channel (GEQ, compressor)
Behringer DEQ2496, right channel (expander)
Behringer FX2000 (ultrabass effect)
Radial Engineering J-ISO transformer (isolation/impedance matching)
ACC2 port on TS-950SDX

I modded my TS-950SDX to improve the frequency response when using the ACC2 port, to give it that voodoo sound without needing to drill a hole in the back. :)

For a while I had second thoughts about the MIC2200 pre-amp. The main reason I got it was that the B1 needs phantom power to operate, but then I discovered that the DEQ2496 provides phantom power too. I've since put my doubts aside though: the phase-reversal feature on the MIC2200 has actually come in very handy. I've been doing some HiFi AM experiments with my Kenwood TS-850, and looking at my audio on the scope, I saw that it looked to be out of phase for some reason. (Curiously, that was only with analog AM. When using the DSP unit, the phase was correct.) I've also noticed that when cycling through the various HPF settings on the TS-950SDX, the DSP unit seems to reverse phase on every other setting. The phase-reversal feature on the pre-amp allows me to compensate for this.

When I had the MDX1600, I experimented with both the noise gate and downward expander. I found I liked the downward expansion effect better. They both reduce unwanted background noise, but the effect with downward expansion seems more subtle to me. That said, I don't have to deal with very loud fan noise (I live in an apartment building and want to avoid RFI issues with the neighbors, so an amp is not in the cards for me).

Anyway, once you get the gear, you can experiment with both effects.

-Bill, N1GPT

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