annoing popping using electronic roland kit.

tvaillan

tvaillan

New member
Big problem.

The roland/pintech kit we use for jaming is giving us such a headache , it's unreal.

It never produces pop's when recording .. of course .. it is electronic after all ... but when you try to play at a decent volume level .. it creates pops in the headphones when the drummer play anything remotely intense... there still aren't any pops in the recorded audio .. just the headphones. nothing is peaking.


So the problem is ...

we jam using headphones. (bass, guitar, keys, drums)

Say the bass, keys and guitar players find the perfect volume .. you know .. nice and loud.. but not too loud. no spikes, peaks , clipping ..nothing... just crystal clear audio joy.

Then you try to mix in the drums to that wonderful / perfect level .. and POP POP POP POP POP .. no clipping nothing .. it just pops in the headphones and isn't even that loud.

We end up having to play so soft that it's really gross.

FYI: The drums (TD-6 module) are lined into the mixer. The left is panned at 10 oclock and the right is panned at 2 oclock .


HELP!!!!!! hehehe
 
I work with a setup like this all the time, with no problems. Your problem is with the gain structure you are using, and very likely also with the headphone amp or amps themselves. You can get clear audio without the drums, but I'll bet it's the kick that causes the popping: that huge bass transient probably collapses the power rails on the headphone amp (especially if you are driving all the cans in parallel with a single driver), and that will indeed sound like shit.

You don't say what you are using for a headphone driver, but you need one with balls to do this: or several separate ones (one per pair of phones) with marginally less balls. This is *especially* true if you are using low-efficiency phones, or 600ohm phones like AKG 240s: if you parallel several sets of those on a normal mixer's headphone output, you'll run out of headroom _fast_, simply because of the voltage swing you need to get a decent level with those.

Major studios often use pretty hefty stereo amps to drive the headphones, just to handle this: a 60W/ch stereo amp will have all the headroom in the world into a single set of cans, and you'll never get a crunch right up until the point that the player's head explodes into flames. (;-) But dedicating a real power amp for headphones is a little rich for my blood, so instead I use a small 6-ch mixer with a relatively stout headphone driver for each player. I distribute a stereo pair around the room at line level, and then each player has their own volume control with their own little mixer. And since each small mixer only drives one pair of cans, you don't run out of steam. This is in fact the only use I can think of for the Behringer 602: it is perfect for this task, and when it gets beer spilled into it, no one really cares too much...

Going with relatively high-efficiency closed-back cans helps a lot as well. I like Sony 7506s for this, but your mileage may vary.

What are you using for the actual headphone dirver or drivers, what phones, and how many are loaded on each driver?
 
Thanks skippy.

You nailed it on the head.

It's a matter of balls on the driver side and quality phones.

Thank you.
 
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