NERD - New Eleven Rack day.

MatthewShreddery

So I've just received an Eleven Rack that I bought off ebay. 

I actually 'didn't mean to' buy it - I put in a lowish bid, expecting it to go for more than it did, but it didn't, so it's mine!

Anyway, on powering it up and playing through the presets into my headphones I was rather underwhelmed. 

I thought some of the clean sounds were nice but the higher gain sounds were dreadful mostly.

They all seemed to have this fizzy sound to them, especially on the 'back end' of the note, IYKWIM.

HOWEVER - I've been working on a lead tone from scratch on this thing and I'm very happy so far. 

Managed to tame the fizziness, whilst still using lots of gain.

Also noticed that it plays nicer with different pickups - on the presets I found that a tone would be OK in bridge position, but bad in neck.

So, I'm looking forward to tinkering with this unit for a while longer. I reckon there are some good tones to be found.

Mine doesn't have the expansion pack - is it worth buying?

RMJ

Congrats. Awesome bit of kit. Mine came with expansion pack so can't comment on the necessity of it, but I ha e heard others say it's a must have.

Sassafras

Probably best not to play it through headphones, they hardly ever make guitars sound good.

RMJ

Sassafras;574701" said:

Probably best not to play it through headphones, they hardly ever make guitars sound good.

Mine sounds AMAZING through headphones. Better than any other thing that makes guitar sounds with a headphone socket.....and I've owned lots of them

MatthewShreddery

Trouble is I do the bulk of my home practice through headphones.

I've got some reasonably decent monitoring headphones that sound pretty good.

Sassafras

I suppose if you have to use headphones then fair enough, I'd rather not, I like a bit of air between me and the speaker. I've usually found phones add a kind of harshness but if it works for you, good.

Or maybe my headphones are crap.

digitalscream

MatthewShreddery said:

Mine doesn't have the expansion pack - is it worth buying?

Yes. The new cab models (especially the Matchless 2x12") are out of this world compared to the old ones, and the speaker breakup modelling is truly excellent for adding realism when used with restraint.

For lead tones, try using the Gray Comp with the sustain at noon and the level as a slight boost in front of the amp model - you'll find you can get away with a lot less gain, but still keep the smooth/screamy lead tone you were originally going for without the fizz.

Another trick - if you find that your low end is going a bit fuzzy with high-gain tones, use the Para EQ in front of the amp to take some of the bottom end out, then use the same model again after the amp to put the same frequency back in and presto...tight, full bass without any of the farting.

(this last one requires the expansion pack, unfortunately)

digitalscream

If you want, I can dig out the patches I used on our album - I spent a good amount of time tweaking them with the reamp feature, so they're basically as good as I can make them. Might be a useful starting point for you, if nothing else.

TheCount

As digitalscream said, para eq is the key with those, also the headphone output isn't great at driving high impedance headphones so a cheap h/p amp might improve things

I had one when they where crazy priced and ended up returning it, wasn't really worth the money to me. Now prices are a lot more reasonable I think they are a bit of a steal, especially for headphone practice

chrishill901

As has already been mentioned, the para EQ in the expansion pack is reason alone to buy it. I used the para eq to tame that fizz on every patch!

The 11r is a great unit, I've owned two, but it requires a serious investment in time to get sounding good. Thats not a criticism; you get out what you put in!

I found the headphone out remarkable underwhelming so I bought the cheap behringer headphone preamp and it did improve things a little

MatthewShreddery

Thanks for all the input everyone!

So the guy I bought it off didn't think the rack had the expansion pack on it, but after a bit of research I'm pretty sure it does, so that's a bit of a bonus.

Regarding the headphones - assuming you're using reasonably decent headphones what would make you think the headphone out sounded bad as opposed to the possibility that your 'rig' just needs tweaking a bit?

Also, I'm trying to hook up my 11R to my Macbook pro running Logic Pro X.

I've downloaded the latest 11R USB drivers etc and the Mac can 'see' the 11R.

Logic can record a dry signal from the 11r but not an FX signal.

I want to be able to monitor through the 11R, i.e use it as an audio interface - is that possible?

What I resorted to last night was plugging my Scarlett interface via usb into the Mac, then running a line out of the 11R into the input of the Scarlett. 

That way I could hear the wet signal of the 11R plus the backing track I'm playing over in Logic.

However, surely I can just get rid of the Scarlett from the equation, hook up the 11r and play/listen through it???

Cheers guys for your help.

TheCount

I was using Beyer DT150's and it didn't have much output, sounded a bit flat but they're 250ohm so need driving a bit

digitalscream

MatthewShreddery said:

Thanks for all the input everyone!

So the guy I bought it off didn't think the rack had the expansion pack on it, but after a bit of research I'm pretty sure it does, so that's a bit of a bonus.

Regarding the headphones - assuming you're using reasonably decent headphones what would make you think the headphone out sounded bad as opposed to the possibility that your 'rig' just needs tweaking a bit?

Also, I'm trying to hook up my 11R to my Macbook pro running Logic Pro X.

I've downloaded the latest 11R USB drivers etc and the Mac can 'see' the 11R.

Logic can record a dry signal from the 11r but not an FX signal.

I want to be able to monitor through the 11R, i.e use it as an audio interface - is that possible?

What I resorted to last night was plugging my Scarlett interface via usb into the Mac, then running a line out of the 11R into the input of the Scarlett. 

That way I could hear the wet signal of the 11R plus the backing track I'm playing over in Logic.

However, surely I can just get rid of the Scarlett from the equation, hook up the 11r and play/listen through it???

Cheers guys for your help.

Yes, you can - however, I've never set it up on a Mac before. You need to set the outputs to the Line Out L/R, and the input on the track you're recording to Rig Out L (mono) or Rig Out L/R (Stereo). You should find that it's currently set to Guitar In, which is how you record the dry track for reamping (which can be a bit of a pain in Logic, I think).

MatthewShreddery

Thanks for that, but I don't really understand.

Where are these outs and ins etc?

Are they in logic, or on the 11R?

MatthewShreddery

Scrap that!

I don't know what I've done but it works! Cheers :-)

MatthewShreddery

Dammit!

It's not working anymore.

I've no idea what I did earlier. I managed to get my 11r to work as a USB interface exactly like my Scarlett.

I could hear the backing track through the 11R, plus I was able to play my guitar along using the 11R as an FX processor.

Does anybody know how to set up the 11R as a USB interface?

@RMJ

@digitalscream

@TheCount

@ChrisHill901

@Sassafras

digitalscream

Head on over here - it tells you how to do it:

http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=344410

You want the output to be "Main Out L/R" (I think that's what it'll come up with) and the input on the track to be Rig Out L (mono), Rig Out L/R (stereo) or Guitar In (dry track, should you want to try reamping).

MatthewShreddery

Thanks mate - I read that earlier but couldn't make any sense out of it.

I believe there are issues with my Mac and it not working properly with the driver so I suspect this may be the actual problem.

MatthewShreddery

Here's part of that answer I didn't understand:

Open Audio/Midi Setup. Go to the Audio window, click on the "Avid Eleven Rack" and it will show all the 8 inputs and 6 outputs available. Note the input/output naming there and what number is what (that is not presented inside Logic). And these inputs and outputs are all explained clearly in the Eleven Rack user guide.

Open Logic, Preferences>Audio and select the Eleven Rack as the input and output interface. Assign the appropriate audio track inputs you want. Output should default to main out.

When he says Open Audio/Midi Setup...

does he mean in Logic, 11R or Mac?

RMJ

I had a nightmare getting it to work with my mac. Had to upgrade to Yosemite, then reinstall drivers. What DAW are you using? Make sure you select the 11 as your monitoring device if you want hear playback through the 11.

MatthewShreddery

Yes it's turning into a nightmare.

I did get it to work earlier - no idea how because it's not working anymore. Maybe I dreamt it??!!??

I tried uninstalling/reinstalling the driver - no luck.

When I play youtube videos etc I get sound but it's really messed up sound. Like it's been chopped up into millions of slices, and distorted, yet you can recognise the music still.

I have read that some macs, including my particular one (mid 2009 macbook pro core 2 duo, 2.something gHz, OSx 10.9.x) have problems with the drivers and there are no practical workarounds.