Mix knob resolution in H90

[transmetropolitan]

Firstly to say, I deeply love my H90 – it’s a go to source of joy and inspiration. Thank you to everyone at Eventide who has made it the wonderful tool it is.

I generally use the pedal with guitar in front of a real amp. Sometimes in the studio as outboard. And I have a related issue that I wanted to see if I am alone in.

When using the pedal with guitar, with some effects I’m finding that I need the mix set super low to get a nice subtle/natural sounding tone. For example, I love the sound of the plates in the 2016 reverb but find the reverb is prominent very quickly even with low mix levels. For some of my presets I’m right down by miminum on the mix (on some things it’s 0.1/0.2/0.3). At that level, in relative terms a change of one unit is a significant change, and therefore I don’t have all the resolution available that I might like.

On the other hand, if I’m using the pedal as outboard I’m going to run it 100% wet. So this leaves me with 90%ish of the sweep of the knob that I’m unlikely to ever use. I therefore wondered whether the scaling of this (very important) parameter is optimal.

I recognise others may have very different use cases and experiences, hence opening up the discussion. I’d highlight I’ve never been unable to get a sound I’m happy with, just that this variable hasn’t been dialled in how I’d have personally chosen it for some of the algorithms.

So is this a silly observation (very open to being told I’m wrong!), or have others had similar experiences? Thanks

[brock]

My approach (it may or may not apply here):

Program Mix (as the overall dry/wet FX master) – 50% as a starting point.

Preset A and Preset B Mix – 100% as starting points.

Tweak the Preset effects parameters to your liking.  You can temporarily turn Program Mix=100% to focus only on the particular effect you’re after.

Often, it’s then a simple matter of dialing down the Program Mix to 25-30-35-40%, to strike a good balance between your dry input tone and its effected counterpart.

Occasionally, you may need to adjust Preset A / B Mix control(s) down from 100% (in order to fold in more targeted dry signal).  Or adjust any misbehaving levels with the Preset In or Out Gains.

Yes, the ranges from parameter to parameter (even algorithm to algorithm) are ‘curved’ differently.  But this kind of approach lets you focus first on the FX sound itself.  Once you’re satisfied, you might consider saving two versions of the Program:  One for front-of-amp; the other for send/receive as an outboard (setting Program Mix=100% or one of the Kill Dry options).

[tbskoglund]

I would suggest making different lists that are dependent on what application you are using. You can make a list for your guitar amp sounds, and another list for your DAW/outboard sounds.

If using the H90 100% wet in a DAW/outboard setting, you can turn Kill Dry on and this will remove the dry signal. The full sweep of the mix knob will be determining the level of the wet signal.

When Kill Dry is off, the mix knob will act as a balance between the wet/dry signal, and will mix out the wet or dry signal at either end of the knobs value.

At 0 it will be 100% dry, at 100 it will be 100% wet, at 50% it will be 100% dry + 100% wet.

Note that there are also Program and Preset mix levels, and this will give you another range of how you can balance your signal.

For example, if Program mix is at 50%, and Preset A mix for SP2016 is at 100%, you can turn the output gain of Preset A down and this will just turn down the volume of the reverb since you have the dry signal from the Program mix.

Let me know if that helps.

[transmetropolitan]

Thanks for replies.

 

The program mix point is a good one. It does impact on both of the slots however, so if one wanted to use the other slot for something at 100% wet it wouldn’t help for that use case. But the vast majority of the time this will give me a good practical solution.

 

The Kill dry point is another very good one & I’ll definitely use lists to do that.

 

Appreciate your time to respond. Thank you.

[transmetropolitan]

One final point I’d make… I can’t help but wonder if the way the mix parameter is dialled in is resulting in some users not getting the best out of some of the algorithms.

For example I saw on another thread someone say that the SP2016 wasn’t to them a natural sounding reverb. To me, it absolutely is – the only caveat being that you need only a small sprinkle to make it sound natural, and it’s easy to be too heavy-handed.

What I’m saying is perhaps more about how UX could be optimised rather than a harder-edged problem to be solved. But it could also just be me!

[Hermetech]

Yeah I’m also never above around 10% on the mix knob with SP2016 and would also appreciate much finer control of that subtle end of things.

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