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I have been enjoying my Seesion for a couple of months now. Today I was playing around with a Taylor with an ES2 connected to a Session then Venue into a Schertler amp. Great results until I turned up the Compression knob and I heard a very undesirable distortion. It went away when I turned the compression knob off. I tried adjusting every gain stage but to no avail. Any ideas?
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Hey Vancebo,
Did you turn down the Saturation as well? If you lowered the Gain and the Saturation, and you still had distortion, I'm wondering if it might be something in the ES2. If the same distortion isn't present in other pickup systems, then it could be a rattle or buzz in the ES2 that is coming to the surface when certain frequencies around it are compressed.
Those are my initial thoughts, for what they're worth. -
The distortion seems to be limited to the Comp. EQ no matter where the Saturation is set. I set the gain to where the VU meters only reaches yellow on the hardest of attacks. When I turn that gain stage down the distortion does go away eventually. The same thing happens when I plug in my Lyric Equipped guitar.
The thing is, I used to be able to turn both of those knobs up all the way and not get distortion. This seems to be a new thing. Batteries have been replaced and all.
So are you saying the distortion is a normal thing?Comment
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Distortion should definitely not be coming from the Comp-EQ. If it's happening with an ES2 and with a Lyric, then that's really strange.
I would recommend trying it on Phantom Power and DC power too, just to troubleshoot. If you still have the same problem, shoot me an email at [email protected]Comment
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I'm going to run a few tests today to see what I can find out. I've been working on some ideas to reproduce it with our engineers.Originally posted by Vancebo View Post
I'll keep you posted.Comment
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Ok,
We haven't been able to reproduce anything here in the shop yet. However, I'm going to take a couple of Session DI's over the weekend to try some "field testing" just to cover our bases.
I'll let you know how that goes.
By the way, Vancebo, I wouldn't want to make you send in your DI if it wasn't necessary, but if it comes down to it, we can always take a look at your Session, just to be sure. I'll keep you posted on my tests.Comment
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Alright,
I took two Session DI's with my two guitars over the weekend and ran some tests through a full PA system. The two Sessions that I used functioned the exact same way as the other at all settings, on phantom power as well as on battery power. The Saturation knob was set fully counter-clockwise for all of my tests.
My smaller 0-sized guitar (Anthem SL) did exhibit some low-level "grunge", and due to the excessive mid-range of the instrument, the Comp-EQ did bring the grunge further forefront in the signal. After careful listening, I did note that the noise did not actually increase when the Comp-EQ was engaged, but it was more obvious due to the compression of nearby frequencies. Lowering the gain slightly eliminated the grungy response completely.
On my larger guitar (Stage Pro Anthem), the same settings on the Session did not show any noticeable noise in the signal at all.
So I may or may not have re-produced the same results that you were experiencing. It's hard to say.
If you are having issues that you did not encounter when you first got the Session, then there might be something else going on. If you would like to go over additional options for your Session, I would be happy to help further. You can email me any time at [email protected]Comment
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Following up
Thanks for all of your work on this. I have been on vacation so I finally came back to this and I can't seem to duplicate it either. Hmmm. I'll keep you posted if it happens again. Thanks again.Comment
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Found it!!
Okay. I wanted to put this to bed. If I put the Session after the Venue in the signal chain, I could get the distortion only with certain EQ changes. For example if I did a mid boost there would be a noticeable unwanted distortion. In my original post, I don't think I remembered that I have the Venue in the signal chain. I couldn't recreate it any other way. I wondered if the Venue was overdriving the Session. If so, the VU meter wasn't showing it.Comment
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That actually makes sense.
We haven't done extensive testing with the Venue into the Session, or vice-versa. So boosting a lower-mid frequency into the Session could easily explain the added distortion.
Thanks for following up!Comment
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