Help with Para Di, radius and rare earth banjo pickup

[duongthuan]

I've got a para di, radius for mando and a fishman rare earth(I couldn't find a lr baggs banjo pickup). I've got questions. I've never used an fx loop, and there were some terms in the guide I hadn't heard of. I read something about a stereo y cable, and a ring? Never heard of those. Can someone explain to me how to use the effects loop and what I will need to make it work? Right now I'm just trying to use the pedal tuner. If I use the tuner through the fx loop will it still mute the signal when activated?
I've also got the fishman rare earth banjo pickup which is active and my head is already hurting thinking about making adjustments to the para di mid set when switching instruments. Just seems like a disaster waiting to happen. Is there some other must instrumentalist or sound guys that can give me some advice on how to make this work? I play in a rock band so a mic is out of the question. I already tried it.

[Caleb_Elling]

Hi duongthuan,

The FX loop is an easy way to plug your pickup into the preamp end of the unit, giving you the louder signal and lower impedance (don't worry about the terminology), before going into your other pedals via the FX Loop.

A stereo Y cable allows you to use a single jack on the DI (FX Loop) to go out of the unit, through your pedals, and back into the Para DI. The Y cable itself has a stereo cable tip that plugs into the FX Loop jack, and the other end has two cable tips which are used to pass the signal into your pedal(s) and back out to the Para DI. The two cable tips are usually labeled as "tip" and "ring" to avoid confusion. The tip is the end that would go into the input on your tuner, and the ring would be the end that comes out of the output. Muting the tuner in the FX Loop will still mute the whole signal.

Since you are just using a tuner right now, it would definitely be worth trying to run the tuner first, then taking the tuner out into the Para DI. Running it like this will change the tone of the Radius slightly, but it should be OK. Then you won't need to worry about using a stereo-Y cable for the time being. You can definitely use a stereo Y cable, but this way would be an easy place to start.

You'll need to turn the Para DI's gain up when you use the Radius, and you'll probably use a lower gain setting for the active system, but that setup should work well for what you need it to do.

I hope that helps. If you ever want to give me a call at LR Baggs and go over any technical questions, you can reach me at 805-929-3545 ext. 121.