Boss DD-3 Pedal use with NL2

Lindsay · Joined: Jul 11, 2009 Posts: 4 Location: Australia

Hello,

Not having used a stomp pedal with a synth before and as I do not current have access to a guitar I was hoping the more experienced of you may be able to advise on my current dilemma...

I recently bought a Boss Delay DD-3 for use with my Nord Lead 2. I run a cable from the headphones on my Lead to the Line In on the DD-3 yet the volume of the output into headphones from the DD-3 is unusable, its VERY quiet and also only sending signal to the left earphone. Is this due to the pedal expecting a mono input and output? As the signal from the Nord is rather loud I would expect that the output on the DD-3 to be the same. Do I have a faulty pedal here?

Any advice on how these pedals are used for synths would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Wout Blommers · Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2009 11:54 pm Post subject:

Lindsay

Maybe this could be important...

1 M

10 k

Anyway, is it wise to use the Leads headphone output? Try the normal out, plug the output of the Boss into your mixing desk or Amplifier and listen what happens.
Or try to find a friend who can help you with these electricity things...

Wout

Lindsay · Joined: Jul 11, 2009 Posts: 4 Location: Australia

Thanks Wout,

So, in layman's (I'm an electrical moron) terms, the input signal is not what the pedal is expecting?

I take it that using the pedal in conjunction with an amp would mean that the signal would be in mono anyway which would explain why sound is only sent to the left earphone.

I've switched the output from the Nord to the mono, but I'm wondering if it will be possible to have sound presented to both left and right earphones when using headphones.

Surely, players don't turn the synth volume to max to get a decent output from the pedal. The pedal distorts a little on high feedback settings which I assume is related to the synth output volume.

Again thanks.

Wout Blommers · Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 12:35 am Post subject:

Lindsay · Joined: Jul 11, 2009 Posts: 4 Location: Australia

Thanks again Wout.

So that is my first query answered (output being mono)

Any ideas on the volume?

Thanks for your assistance with this.

Wout Blommers · Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 1:01 am Post subject:

Do you have a mixing desk or something like that?
Maybe you'll need a direct-in box, but I'm not sure.

Here also some help from eg Blue Hell could help, but I think he's still asleep Smile

(Performed live tonight on electro-music.com)

Wout

blue hell · Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 8:50 am Post subject:

Looks like this is a guitar pedal, so impedance and level matching would be such that it would be suitable to plug between a guitar and a guitar amp. Unfortunately this means it would be less suitable for a synth, as a synth operates with higher signal levels at a lower impedance ...

That being said when you'd go into it with a soft enough synth signal it would not clip (and a mixer could be used to do this, one having an FX plugin, or an AUX bus). But the output level would still be low then, to fix that some type of DI would be in order, but I don't know too much about such devices.

Wout Blommers · Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 9:44 am Post subject:

I was in such a hurry and didn't knew how to put it exactly, but this is the way to do it, Jan.
Using a mixing desk which is able to work with sub-groups, just one sub-group (or an auxiliary channel) to lower the signal, fed in the stomp box and using a DI box to return it to a normal channel, could do the trick.

Tanks Jan.

blue hell · Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 9:53 am Post subject:

Tanks

where? Revolution? Simon Vinkenoog died, he would have wanted to be there ....

But yes, that seems the way to do it Laughing

Wout Blommers · Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 11:33 am Post subject:

Lindsay · Joined: Jul 11, 2009 Posts: 4 Location: Australia

Thanks guys, that's of great help, I appreciate it.