Do u guys use a direct box to clean the signal of ur andy?

lunaire · Joined: Jan 23, 2009 Posts: 19 Location: Sao Paulo

I was wondering, since I feel the sound of my andromeda is not totally pure of inconvinient noise through my recordings, do you guys use a direct box or anything else to "clean" the signal right before the pre amp? Or perhaps something inside the box? I tried those noise resuction plugins around, like even top notch from waves or something, but it does not take out noise without taking out other particles of sound I dont want to take out so, I thought about a passive DI unit, what u say?

Peake · Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2010 1:17 pm Post subject:

I've heard the A6 through the Manley tube DI, which makes it sound a bit darker (not a bad thing) and adds what you'd expect, some nice-ing up of the tone. A "hard" sounding DI such as the API 312 series, which are perfect for rock drums etc., would likely make the A6 too harsh (or that could be a good thing, depends upon you).

BTW, I believe that the A6 S/N is about 87dB or so on the main outs, dependint upon how you use the gain structure throughout a patch. Not astonishing, but not bad considering that there are sixteen voices. Wink

sunny pedaal · Posted: Fri Sep 24, 2010 3:18 pm Post subject:

i don't use anything, except some good quality preamp of my soundtracs mixer and /or my fireface400 interface.
i don't think the sound is very noisy/bad, in regard to lots of other analogs i own.
one thing however, as you probably know , with analog, softer is better ( as opposed to digital where you want(ed) to get most out of your adda converters by getting within the -6dbmax range mostly.)
so make loud patches, don't use more then you need, set the volume out of the a6 softer and use good preamps to process further.
works good enough for me
sorry if i told something trivial

Shreddie · Joined: May 12, 2009 Posts: 96 Location: UK

If the SNR is 87db it really shouldn't be a problem, in fact I'm surprised you can even hear it... The SNR of most CDs is worse than that!

Presuming that your Andromeda is ok, maybe your cables are close to something which is causing the noise?

Just out of curiosity, have you tried using the individual voice outs or the Aux outs... If these are far quieter it may be that there's a problem with your Andromeda.

Peake · Posted: Thu Oct 21, 2010 3:32 pm Post subject:

Definitely use the individual out(s) when playing monophonic patches, as the individual outputs are indeed at maximum gain, whereas the main and aux outs are for mixing the sixteen voices without clipping the output.

If you are having noise problems, try muting the digital FX. If something went wrong there, it could output continuous trouble. Unlikely, but worth checking.

look37 · Joined: Nov 03, 2010 Posts: 6 Location: Germany

you also might consider that the noise might be actually hum coming from your power outlet or other gear connected in the same audio circuit than your Andy, a so-called ground loop.

I had this from the first day, and I did the strictly forbidden (!) trick with taping some contacts... you should know what I'm talking about.

Since that, my Andy sounds clean as clear water without any additional hardware Wink

Regards,
look37