Focusrite 2nd vs 3rd Gen and others - help please

The ironic thing is you love clean transparent amps; nothing is cleaner and more transparent than mixer to PA. They would probably serve you way better than your bass amp and cab.

Maybe, but I love what I have.
Like runaway together forever love.
Sorry man.

Yes

Not having actually heard it, Iā€™m pretty sure his particular bass cabinet is more full range than many PA.

Oof, annoying.

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I also buy with an eye toward system calibration mic capture. My last was a USBPre 2 selling now for $1080 for two channels. I know a few colleagues running the Roland Octa for their measurement systems so I know itā€™s going to be clean. System measurements are granted above the noise floor of any mic pre, but no one has said anything bad about the Octa noise floor that Iā€™ve heard and these sorts of folks are sensitive. Iā€™m curious too. Mine comes Thursday.

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Correct sir!
You can run an entire band through it if you really wanted to.

My other someday reason for this cab is for uprightā€¦

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@DaveT, when they sayā€¦
INPUT 1 and 2 support high impedance

If I understand it correctly, then I can use 1 & 2 only to plug a bass directly into the DAI (which I normally never do).

However, my XLR outs from my amp, or B7K etc can go to any input as they are line level and therefore low impadence, yes?

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No.

Hi-Z vs normal is about the impedance of the input, not necessarily what you are sending in to it. You want a high impedance input for things like condenser microphones or passive inputs; they will be more susceptible to noise but will also prevent reducing tone quality when the ratio of the input impedance versus the instrument impedance is wrong.

What you need to watch out for in terms of a line level input (via XLR or otherwise) is what the input levels of the input are. Some XLR inputs can only take microphones, while others work with line level signals.

You should be able to plug an instrument in to any of those, but they will probably sound better on the high impedance inputs. Whether or not you can plug a line level XLR in to them depends upon the input level range of the input, which should be documented.

Hereā€™s some background:

https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/articles/whats-the-difference-between-mic-instrument-line-and-speaker-level-signals/

https://service.shure.com/s/article/mic-level-and-line-level-what-do-they-mean

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From the Roland

Nominal Input Level
Combo input jacks 1ā€“6 (XLR type): -56 to -6 dBu
Combo input jacks 7ā€“8 (XLR type): -50 to +0 dBu
Combo input jacks 1ā€“8 (1/4 inch TRS phone type): -46 to +4 dBu

Input Impedance
Combo input jacks 1ā€“6 (XLR type): 5 k ohms (balanced)
Combo input jacks 7ā€“8 (XLR type): 10 k ohms (balanced)
Combo input jacks 1ā€“8 (1/4 inch TRS phone type): 17 k ohms (balanced)
Combo input jacks 1ā€“2 (1/4 inch TRS phone type, Hi-Z): 740 k ohms (unbalanced)

I donā€™t actually have any plans on using the 1/4 inputs.

This stuff is not my forte at all (and it should be cause I am an EE (at least I have a paper that says so).

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Anything that is consumer or pro line level should be fine into any of those inputs on the 1/4" jack. Anything that is professional line level should only go in to 7-8 if XLR. At least thatā€™s what it looks like to me. @DaveT?

Ya, so what does that mean?
I assume the XLR outs I am dealing with on my amp and B7K and VT Bass DI are CONSUMER level and fine on any XLR input?

ā€œLine Levelā€ is an overloaded term. Thereā€™s two ranges, consumer and professional, and they are about 10dB different, so substantial.

I would not make any assumption about the output level of any electronic device in general, especially preamps :slight_smile:

That said, those are probably safe. I used to run XLR from a bass preamp to my DAI when I still used pedals.

I do this all the time to the Focusrite 2i2 now, I just donā€™t want to get the thing and realize there is some quirky thing about it that is only looking for microphones or something on all those inputs.

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They are definitely all fine for instrument level inputs and should be fine for line level. I would check your preamps to see what the XLR output levels are but I would be surprised if they were out of range.

The specs for all the amp/preamp donā€™t quote levels, soā€¦

I just called Sweetwater to triple check in regards to the Roland.
You assign to each input what you are doing (mic/line) and he stated any line level of what I have is fine.
He also confirmed I can use the mixer to then send back to my amp on an output for the Ric-O-Sound bit, which saves me about $120 for the alternative pedal.

Also, the onboard compression and reverb will work well for sax.

So I think this thing will serve me well.
Thanks for the help @howard

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Correct for a passive bass. You also have to set the input to Hi-Z in the software or maybe menu? for that input. An active bass is already line level buffered so you donā€™t care about the load impedance of the input any more.

However, my XLR outs from my amp, or B7K etc can go to any input as they are line level and therefore low impadence, yes?

Correct. Inputs 7/8 have a slightly higher low impedance for ribbon mic inputs, but your amp doesnā€™t care.

I know Iā€™m maybe contradicting part of @howardā€™s next reply. The Hi-Z input load is needed for passive pickups because they donā€™t have enough current output to drive a low Z load. Condenser mics need phantom power and have enough current to drive a 5k-Ohm load. Ribbon mics will like the 10k inputs better.

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We basically said the same thing - the instruments will sound much better into the high-Z (unless they have active pickups, then all bets for output level are off). They can go into the other ones but there will be tone attenuation in the high end.

Cool, I have one, and now know where to stick it.
I got this for sax and it is really niceā€¦
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/VoodooVR1--se-electronics-voodoo-vr1-passive-ribbon-microphone

It is a really inexpensive ribbon mic and is pretty darn good.

My other mic is a Rode NT-1A, and needs the phantom power.
The ribbon I can actually plug into my pedalboard with an XLR-1/4" impedance adapter and use all my pedals with sax, canā€™t do that with a phantom power mic very easily.

Meanwhile, my 18i20 is:
Instrument In: 1.5MĪ© (1/4" of front combos with instrument selected)
Mic In: 3kĪ© (which would be the XLR of the combo jacks)
Line In: 60kĪ© (which would be the 1/4" of the combo jacks)

Also, I was running my B7K DI/XLR directly into those front XLRs without problem. I kept the gain all the way down because it was already loud enough.