Topic: Mme soft limit and gain questions..

[marc0789]

I'd change the internal jumpers to high gain instead of low so you don't have to crank it. The diagram with jumper location is in the manual. I'd also turn off the SL as this may be causing the compressed sound.

I think that the best way to run the MME is to have the gain so that the lowest greens are always on with flickers of the second set of green LEDs. This should leave plenty of room for any sudden increase in decibel level. I'd read that the red LEDs are pretty forgiving, but I haven't found that to be true. Besides at 24 bit, you are using more with less gain than I am at 16 bit. I try to maximize bits and don't mind the effect of the SL kicking in (would rather have that than clipping). With SL, I can focus on the band and not levels. When I eventually go to 24 bit, I'll dial back the gain and turn off SL.

BTW - in the picture you posted at the ABB/moe show, the SL doesn't look like it is turned on (all the way to the left). And you definitely have the gain way up! 

sorry, but I disagree with just about everything above. you do *not* want to run the high gain setting. And the mme is extremely tough to clip. I shoot for lots of greens, lots of yellows and an occasional red. Never a touch of distortion. Running the SL when the music will exceed -4 is a bad idea. You will compress and distort the music.

How much gain does the high gain jumper setting add? I never found that out. I know it states 12-65 dB gain, but I assume that is for the factory default (high gain setting). Do the two settings overlap - like 12-40 and 30-65?

My first show with the MME was kaki king and I had the levels set for the first two (relatively quiet) acoustic guitar songs so that I had constant greens with flickering yellows. Then she started playing very loud and aggresively and I was pegging reds with horrible clipping on playback. Since then, I've run it with SL on. I guess I'll try it again without the SL. Thanks  +T 

gotta leave yourself some headroom for that kind of stuff, but that's a tough situation. To me the SL is a crutch that will result in unwelcome artifacts, in my experience, unless it's an all acoustic show with the potential for loud applause, I just don't use it.