Understanding Balanced vs. Unbalanced signals

  • Thread starter Thread starter progmr
  • Start date Start date
P

progmr

New member
Hello:

I'm hoping someone can tell me if I'm the right track in terms of my current rack setup. I use up to 3 guitars live so I did the following:
4 Channel DI Box to 8 Channel mixer mixer's effects loop to rackmounted effects back into mixer's return. Output to PA.

I'm thinking to get the Guitar Rig Pro software package and would probably not use their controller, instead to use my FCB1010 controller. My questions are, assuming that my interface is a firewire type interface, would I access the PC in the effects loop or ignore it all togther? I'm assuming that a firewire type interface has both balanced / unbalanced outputs but am wondering whether converting to a balance signal causes any audio problems?

Thanks, your board has been helpful for my PC based recording but I'm still in the stoneage with a 16bit Hecules interface.
 
progmr said:
Hello:

I'm hoping someone can tell me if I'm the right track in terms of my current rack setup. I use up to 3 guitars live so I did the following:
4 Channel DI Box to 8 Channel mixer mixer's effects loop to rackmounted effects back into mixer's return. Output to PA.

I'm thinking to get the Guitar Rig Pro software package and would probably not use their controller, instead to use my FCB1010 controller. My questions are, assuming that my interface is a firewire type interface, would I access the PC in the effects loop or ignore it all togther? I'm assuming that a firewire type interface has both balanced / unbalanced outputs but am wondering whether converting to a balance signal causes any audio problems?

Thanks, your board has been helpful for my PC based recording but I'm still in the stoneage with a 16bit Hecules interface.
Click to expand...

Correct me if I am wrong but there is no "Conversion" going on. Your just sending the same audio through a diffrent path. Think of it this way...say you have a nice clean car your driving along and a fork in the road is coming upon you....to the left is a clean street....to the right is a dirty street.....if you go to the right (unbalanced) your still going to have the same car but a little dirty
 
Right the conversion from unbalanced to balanced occurs in the front end. I guess my question is more whether I should interface with the PC first then output a balanced signal to the board or whether it even matters or not.

Thanks!
 
Today, most likely there won't be any problem hooking balanced and unbalaced gear. Most mixers can deal with both on their line inputs and outputs.

As far as the setup, a few questions:

Are you replacing the rack unit, or running both that and the PC?
Is this stuff just for FX, or amp tones/distortion as well? That is, do you use the straight sound from your DIs at all in your sound, or just the tones you get from your rack gear/PC?

Does your mixer have more than one aux send (loop)? Can they be set pre/post fader?

In any case, I'd probably return my FX to an unused mixer channel myself, rather than the aux (loop) return, so I could use the channel eq and fader.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top