Thought I would start a new thread on this. I met Russ when he and his band Redline Zydeco were backing up Willis Prudhomme a couple of weeks ago. I checked out his setup and he had the Boss EQ hooked up to a Rocktron Big Crush Compressor. I was impressed by the sound to say the least and being very low tech I asked questions and he very kindly answered them and gave me a nice lesson in zydeco sound reinforcement. So I went out and got the Boss EQ (ebay) and the Rocktron Big Crush. I put the signal first into an ART Tube MP pre amp (got that tip from Li'l
Anne) then in to the Boss, then into the compressor even though the instructions say the compressor should be first. As my Bass player and sound expert explained it to me, since I am switching accordions, it is better to compress it last to reduce feedback (or something like that). Anyway, it sounds terrific to my ear, big and fat but with clarity if that makes sense. I also took Russ's advice and run it through a direct box before it hits the Pa mixer. His sound guy prefers it that way to further reduce feedback potential and I am not going to argue with that since I liked his sound. I have not tried this set up with an external mic so I can't comment on it for you Cajun and Zydecajun players but I think it would be good for that application too. I do believe Steve Riley uses some type of compression pedal on his set up too but I never did look too close at it the last time I saw him play. Hope this helps.

This is why I love this forum! Thanks VERY much, Johnny!


R!CK

i don;t think mr steve uses compression

every time i have ever seen him, he just
has a single pedal - a 'phaser' effect, that
he only uses for a couple songs

another thing about compression is that
it can *increase* your feedback, if you have
it set wrong

because it brings the low level sounds up,
as well as bringing the high level ones down

it;s the low-level boosting you have to watch


wle.

Good point Larry. I thought that white pedal Steve had was a milk box compressor but I wasn't paying attention at the time.

What's your set up like?

me?
just 2 boxes
can;t seem to get it down to one

boss VF-1
l r baggs paracoustic DI box

accordion plugs into the vf1
it;s a multi-effect digital processor
footswitch
volume control
most of the time it's not doing anything
when i want though, it can do:
phaser
flanger
several guitar amp simulators [distortion,
reverb, echo, eq]
volume boost
hammond organ
'wet' tune [ i use this one the most ]
octave doubler [for adding a 'low reed'
with 2 reed 3 row accordions ]
really cool sound for little walter-style
'electric harmonica' - i remove the
accordion mic cable and plug in a
harmonic mic to the vf1
bunch of other stuff, some of which i 'invented'
you get to customize your sounds and
give them your own names
it only does one at a time
there are EQ effects but unfortunately you
can only have one effect active at a time
[though some 'effects' have multiple
subeffects like eqs and compressors]
there is no global EQ that always stays
active, or compressor
so i don;t have a compressor
[the VF 1 is discontinued, it was too complicated for guitar players :)
but they crop up on ebay all the time for
$125-200]


the LR Baggs is a DI box and 5 band
partially parametric EQ
and a 'rumble filter' below i think 50 hz
it also has a volume control but
it broke off :)
it can run on phantom power or a 9v battery
battery life is many many hours
{UNLIKE the cheap $30 behringer i tried once
- [V-TONE ACOUSTIC ADI21]
battery life was like 6 hours!]

wle.

It was cool running into Johnny down NYC way (I'm from way upstate, 6 hours from NYC). I used to avoid zydeco accordion sound equipment geekdom, but necessity kicked in and I've embraced it. Looking for that elusive raunchy sound, I've tried a guitar amp, a powered mixer, a chorus pedal, an unpowered mixer through the ART tube preamp, and earlier this year, the aforementioned EQ/compression duo. Rick R. posted here about the Boss EQ-20, which replaced the unpowered mixer. Instead of 4 cables for 4 accordions into 4 channels, each with it's own little 3-band eq setting, the Boss leaves me with one cable for 4 accordions, 9 unique custom eq+volume settings saved to memory, each with a 10-band eq. I got the compressor as an act of faith, after hearing what a studio mix guy did with light compression to an accordion track. If he could do it with 20-20 hindsight in the studio, why couldn't I do it live? I run the accordions through the compressor first, then the Boss eq. I use a tiny amount of compression, just enough to give the left hand the same presence as the right, and to give the extreme high and low notes on the right side the same presence as the notes in the middle of the row. Steve Riley just played here, and I didn't see a compressor on stage, but they travel with a sound man. No doubt he adjusts compression live to match the compression that's a part of the SRMP recorded sound. Willis Prudhomme loved hearing his low F accordion with a little compression. He's so generous with his music, that it was nice to be able to show him a little sound thing. I told Willis he's the James Brown of zydeco. Every note fits just where it should, and there isn't one extra note all night long.

actually, a compressor can;t fix *balance* problems

if the mic is too close to some reeds
and too far from others,
and you try to play those notes *together*,
they will still not be balanced,
even with a compressor

the close ones will be loud and the
far ones won;t

only when you play those notes
*separately*, does the compressor
have a hope of making
the loud ones quieter and/or the
quiet ones louder

wle.

testyourself testyourself testyourself testyourself