Balancing channel volumes for looper pedal on Roadster

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spawnofthesith

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Hello all, just got a roadster. Absolutely love the tones out of it, but I’m running into a peculiar “issue” with my looper.

Myself and my bass player both use rc-500 loopers and do quite a bit of live looping. I run my rc-500 as the very last pedal in my fx loop chain.

I’ve noticed that when changing channels there’s some volume drops/jumps. For example if I set a clean loop on channel 2 and the. Switch to channel 4 for a heavy rhythm, there is a big volume jump and a bit of a tone change on the loop itself (even though I’m perceiving the volumes to be fairly balanced just playing) and it kind of over powers my actual playing on the 4th channel. Turning up the channel master seems to just increase the loop volume as well.

The opposite is true as well setting distorted loops and switching to clean

Any thoughts on why this might be? I have all the channels set to 100 watts. The only other thing I can think of to try off the top of my head is thst I have my cleans on tube rectification and gain sounds on diode. Amp is at my drummers house right now I’ll try thet and any other suggestions on Wednesday..
 
I’ve had Roadster in multiple occasions and there’s a noticeable difference in different channels’ fx-loop levels 🤔

tried some looper stuff but quickly noticed that it’s better to record loop in same channel as actual performance to attain similar levels… so it’ll have some learning curve to get levels straight.

Channels are so different it’s amazing how well they work together 😂
 
I’ve had Roadster in multiple occasions and there’s a noticeable difference in different channels’ fx-loop levels 🤔

tried some looper stuff but quickly noticed that it’s better to record loop in same channel as actual performance to attain similar levels… so it’ll have some learning curve to get levels straight.

Channels are so different it’s amazing how well they work together 😂

Yeah I think it will just be a matter of tweaking compromise on the looper level as well. It occurred to me I think I might be able to hook up a expression pedal to control the loop level so failing anything else I might look into that. Unfortunately a lot of my bands song require clean stacked on high gain loops
 
Following up in this thread, practice number 2 after spending a minimal amount of time playing with wattage, rectifier, and level settings I was able to get past this issue pretty quickly. I changed a bunch of settings all at once so I can't quite pin point but no longer having an issue
 
Second followup, without a knob twiddling balancing act - the easiest way around this is actually to run the clean channel in 100 watt mode, and channel 4 in 50 watt mode. Instantly remediates any issue
 
There is only one aspect of the amp that may change levels from the FX send/return and phase inverter. That would be the how the presence feature is managed on the phase inverter.

You can change the presence controls to your hearts content, they are not connected to the actual presence of the feedback circuit. It is fixed. they are just high pass filters. The exception is the modern voice, that disconnects the fixed feedback circuit used for presence. The high pass filter part on the tone stack gets connected to ground. The presence control then gets connected as a tone control to the phase inverter at the same location the disconnected feedback circuit was injected. In other words, if you are not using the modern voice, there should be no major level shifting occurring on the phase inverter. Perhaps there is a way to balance it out when using the modern voice but doubt it. Just my 2 cents.
 
There is only one aspect of the amp that may change levels from the FX send/return and phase inverter. That would be the how the presence feature is managed on the phase inverter.

You can change the presence controls to your hearts content, they are not connected to the actual presence of the feedback circuit. It is fixed. they are just high pass filters. The exception is the modern voice, that disconnects the fixed feedback circuit used for presence. The high pass filter part on the tone stack gets connected to ground. The presence control then gets connected as a tone control to the phase inverter at the same location the disconnected feedback circuit was injected. In other words, if you are not using the modern voice, there should be no major level shifting occurring on the phase inverter. Perhaps there is a way to balance it out when using the modern voice but doubt it. Just my 2 cents.

Yes, this only happens with modern mode, which is my favorite for the high gain haha. Fortunately, I did figure out how to fix this. As long as I'm running channel 4 in 50 watts, and my cleans in 100 watts, there is no volume jump issue. Everything is all balanced. Works like a charm!
 

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