Home › Forums › Help/Technical Questions › 2880 Headphone Out Distortion

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  • February 26, 2011 at 3:04 am #81405
    nneekolas
    Participant

    Just thought I’d check here first, since my well-traveled 2880 is long past warranty.

    I use my 2880 as a headphone amp (among other things) and for the last month or so there has been a loud distortion in the right channel of the stereo field. I’ve tried different headphones, different stereo-to-mono jacks, etc., and it is consistent. It sounds like guitar overdrive but only on one side. It also has nothing to do with the input gain (I usually leave both at zero, or fully counter-clockwise), and the clipping LED doesn’t come on when it does it. It kind of stutters when I tap the headphone volume pot, but it never goes away at any volume. All of this distortion does not show up on the recorded output though. The loops and .wav files on the memory card sound fine.

    This could be an unrelated issue, but it also seems like the headroom on the 2880 has gone down considerably over the last several months. It seems like even not-so-low bass frequencies cause crazy clipping.

    I’ve tried contact cleaner on the pot and that didn’t help. Any ideas?

    I’m hoping its something minor so I don’t have to pay for the repairs, but it may be unavoidable I guess.

    February 28, 2011 at 2:41 pm #114507
    Cryabetes
    Participant

    have you tried plugging your headphones in to the line out? maybe get one of those Left-Right TS to TRS female adapters or a two input headphone amp or something; it almost sounds like it’s just the headphone pre going.

    February 28, 2011 at 4:33 pm #114509
    ishcabittle
    Member

    I too have had clipping issues in my headphones, with the gains all the way down.

    What I need to check:

    1. If clipping is transmitted to main stereo out to amplifier
    2. If clipping is recorded to .wav files in flash

    All of the 2880 clipping threads on the board have me worried, however. I use a LP1 and Black Finger to get a nice, mildly overdriven and clean guitar sound, but it clips terribly in headphones when those two pedals are in the signal path before the 2880. If it is only in headphones I can deal with it, but if that clipping is going to be pushed to the amps when I play live I’ll have to figure something out.

    February 28, 2011 at 4:40 pm #114510
    Cryabetes
    Participant

    ish, the LPB1 and Black Finger would definitely both clip out the input stage of the 2880. What you might want to try is moving the 2880 before them in your signal chain. If that’s an issue, maybe use the panning to get what you want [ie, dry out panned hard left, loops panned hard right, with the LPB1 + Bfinger from the left out.]

    February 28, 2011 at 4:44 pm #114511
    ishcabittle
    Member

    When I do indeed play live, I plan on using two amps, one for each channel. Is there a way to keep both pedals in the main signal path but still pan various loops to each of the two amps?

    February 28, 2011 at 4:53 pm #114512
    Cryabetes
    Participant

    yeah. Although you might not like it. your LPB1 and Black Finger are the basis of your guitar tone, right? no amp breakup or anything?
    Basically, you need to lower your volume into the 2880 [either via compressor or some kind of attenuator]. and then probably boost it again afterwards. Products I’d look into for this would be another EHX LPB1, maybe the LP2B, a mixer of some kind, the Boss LS-2, or the DOD FX10.

    February 28, 2011 at 4:57 pm #114513
    ishcabittle
    Member

    Yeah, the tone I get from my amps are relatively flat and my OD comes from the combo of those two pedals (one amp is a keyboard amp, actually). Would a limiter hit the spot in this? I’m not opposed to splitting the two pedals up, and if I don’t have to spend money that’s ideal, I just wanted to make sure that what I was hearing wasn’t any sort of fault of the pedal.

    February 28, 2011 at 5:02 pm #114514
    Cryabetes
    Participant

    A limiter would work, but probably not without sound artifacts. Maybe look into a two channel rack compressor that you can keep under the 2880 on your board. The ART dual compressor is nice and usually pretty cheap on ebay.

    And it’s not really a fault in the pedal, more a design oversight.

    edit: also I realise it kind of sounds like I’m pushing you to buy things [when you don’t want to buy things] but if you have any spare gear you think might be useful, use that instead.

    February 28, 2011 at 9:59 pm #114519
    ishcabittle
    Member

    No worries on the gear purchasing, I’m getting hip to a small gear addiction trend in my spending and you certainly wouldn’t need to push very hard for me to buy EHX.

    What I’m wondering now, though, is if I want to eventually add a distortion pedal how do I sample that distortion. I can’t add a blanket distortion to everything the looper is playing back, that would get very muddy very quick, but if I put the distortion before the 2880 it will clip. Hmm.

    February 28, 2011 at 10:05 pm #114520
    Cryabetes
    Participant

    depends how you have the distortion. Keep the level lower and you’ll be okay. If you want a big Mogwai-esque ‘BOOM’ to the distortion, you’ll have a hard time with that. Although the input clipping actually makes my DOD punkifier sound even better, so go figure. I think what i’m trying to say is that it’s more a ‘cross that bridge when you come to it’ thing. or the compressor will help with it. either or.

    March 4, 2011 at 11:07 pm #114551
    nneekolas
    Participant

    The distorting that my 2880 is doing doesn’t sound like the clipping distortion though. I think the headphone amp may truly need repair, alas.

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