Aaallright. News:
Recording session was partially successful. We spent all day gathering all guitars, speaker cab, a laptop with a firewire connection, charger for this laptop (forgot it, dammit), then made some sound tests without recording (RR480 was fucking happy - this version 9 unit sounds MUCH better than v8. And it also played nice with the SP1000 and Marshall 1936 cab - something we did not see before.
We found a reason why - if you turn the master pot on GP to 9 o'clock (where it should be to get a good sound), you have to be very careful when setting volume on SP1000. Because you move the volume pot one milimeter and is gets loud as hell. So loud in fact, that when I hid behind the cab to save my ears and pushed the volume on SP to 30-40 percent, brick and mortar wall in my garage started shaking and some dust fell out from behind of some pipes. F***ing loud.
Anyway - RR480 suggested a mod of the SP1000 which was swiftly done. It mods the feedback resistor in op-amp section, lowering the maximum volume approximately to 1/30 of regular output. Very simple stuff and it allows to use the front volume pot on SP1000 in its entire range. Great news is, that this does not screw up the sound in any way - did measurements and it is perfect, only changes volume.
Back to why we did not think that GP plays with SP and Marshall nicely - we never gave it enough volume which resulted in a (now
) known phenomenon about potentiometers - they limit treble on low volumes. I remember RR480 saying few months ago that the tone was as good as he was expecting only after he turned the volume quite high in recording room. However, our old borrowed sound card and mic could not work with volume so high and the recording was shitty.
Right now we limited maximum power of SP1000, but got rid of the problem with the volume pot. Ideal for room level or even for recording.
Aaaanyway.. back on topic. After we found this it was already 18:30 and we got an ultimatum from grandparents living in the house we were testing in. They go to bed at 18:30 and after some minor arguing we decided to make you guys a 5 minute sound test and come back tomorrow and do the rest.
During testing we also found something very important - again, the trimpot on the PCB. Rune says that in his GP1000 units it solved issue with bad sound after he set it very precisely to around 25 percent.
RR480 likes more edgy and may I say "trebly, sharp bordering on unpleasantly sharp" That's why he set it to around 50 percent and was very happy with the sound. However, when we later listened to JonWormwood's gp1000 recording via Kemper (
this one), it is clear, that his sound is not so sharp and trebly. Fortunately during the recording I played with the trimpot and you can hear what it does to the sound. And I would say that with correct trimpot setting (yes, around 25 percent as Rune has) should give the same sound. You can find exact time in next paragraph.
0:00 - 0:10 I was looking for correct volume on sound card. Few seconds went to limitation.
0:25 - 1:00 RR480's attempt at some solos
1:50 - Start trimpot test at 50 percent.
1:53 - Trimpot at zero
1:54 - 2:06 turning trimpot slowly to 100 percent.
2:07 - 2:17 turning trimpot slowly to zero again
2:21 - trimpot back at 40-50 percent (I know, way too much - will use 25 percent tomorrow)
3:00 more squeaky solos
3:24 attempt at some song
3:30 attempt failed
3:57 - 4:31 I played with microphone placement. Went from left to right in various heights and distances from the speaker.
Oh by the way - due to lack of time (and lack of mic stand which i forgot to borrow, dammit) I placed the mic on a wooden box cca 20 cm from the cab in front of one speaker. See picture for more details. If I remember correctly, the mic should be much closer to the speaker? Around 2-5 cm? And also, is it best to place it in the middle of one of the speakers, or in halfway between middle and side? Or do you have any other suggestions?
Pic of test bench with v9 GP.
Pic of mic placement (after we were done, that's why there is no cable)