the 1/8" to 1/4" issue ...

ShoNuff · Post by **ShoNuff** » Mon Mar 11, 2019 11:41 am

so all volcas need a cable that goes from 1/8" to 1/4" if you're going to interface with a regular mixer or any fx processing.

what do you do? did you just chop off the end of a stereo minijack cable and solder a 1/4" jack to the other end as mono? and make as many of these as you need? - easiest solution maybe.

- is there an opportunity here to make this mono cable balanced? -

adapters are a pain: do you want a mini-to-mono adapter on the end of each cable? (stereo minijack cables are the easiest to come across) - presumably this would achieve the same result as soldering both signal lines to the tip of a 1/4" mono jack ? -

had a slightly illogical idea of making a little box with 1/8" on input side, and
1/4" on the other, as a patchbay, but it doesn't make any sense, just a load of cables for nothing.

roblabs · Post by **roblabs** » Tue Mar 12, 2019 2:00 am

Dude they sell these cables everywhere. They even have 1/8 stereo to 1/4 mono cables. I buy HOSA cables cuz the quality is excellent. You can find them on Amazon as well as most music retailers

megamarkd · Post by **megamarkd** » Tue Mar 12, 2019 4:19 am

Get the Hosa 1/8" to 1/4" 'breakout' cable (model# CMP-159/CMP-153 10ft and 3ft respectively). Works perfectly for plugging into a mixing desk. Can be a little pricey to buy many of them, so maybe get a Volca Mix and then use one to go out of there your desk?

ShoNuff · Post by **ShoNuff** » Tue Mar 12, 2019 4:52 am

spend spend spend ! hahaha.
nope, i'm not buying anything, except maybe a bag of minijack plugs.
have a case of cables, and a box of cable spares. can make my own.

can't see how the TRS Insert cable will help: that will give stereo minijack out to two mono 1/4" - ie: 2 desk inputs for a mono signal (ok if you want to pan them and effect them separately, i guess). i have some, on 1/4", but use them for other purposes. (ie: inserts, sidechain etc.)

do not need a Volca Mix

need to cut down on my mixer habit...
small mixer here is a behringer1202 xenyx thing; has HPF pad and some EQ.
if i want to go mad, there's one of those little 8:2 battery powered mono/stereo things (cool, but basic).

what i noticed is that if i plug mini-stereo with adapter full into a mono channel, i get no sound. must be cancelling out, so i have to pull it halfway out so it's only tip. at least as far as i can work out for now.

i have 2 or 3 mini mono 1/8" to 1/4" - are you saying i'm losing 'half' of the signal strength there?
so if i have to use the stereo mini, and want to interface with 1/4" mono input - for the mono units - what is the best way to wire it? i was thinking either just leave one side unconnected, and take signal to tip of a mono 1/4" plug - or maybe wire both signals to tip? what happens then?

i just want to recycle what i have, not splash cash on more 'stuff'.
stereo mini cables appear all the time, and the split RCA versions, have loads of those too. i figure this has to be easy, not 'specialist'.

(actually i awoke with a vision of volcas being broken and fragile and disposable - but that's another topic hehe)

ShoNuff · Post by **ShoNuff** » Tue Mar 12, 2019 4:59 am

okay, so looking at the spec' for the Mix, it says
Sample and FM are stereo outputs, and
Keys, Bass, Beats, and Kick are mono.

not sure why FM has to be stereo: for the Chorus?
so what if you just want to sum them to mono?

and what is really happening on the mono outputs of the other ones?
2 mono sides at half amplitude?

it's a headphone output, but does it sense a line input, or deliver a boosted signal all the time?

dunno: Mix might be fun, with its mid-side and compressor thing, but not right now.

thread about it here:
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/electro ... cable.html

megamarkd · Post by **megamarkd** » Tue Mar 12, 2019 9:29 am

ShoNuff wrote: can't see how the TRS Insert cable will help: that will give stereo minijack out to two mono 1/4" - ie: 2 desk inputs for a mono signal (ok if you want to pan them and effect them separately, i guess). i have some, on 1/4", but use them for other purposes. (ie: inserts, sidechain etc.)

Makes a big difference with the Beats. I don't know about the others but the Beats suffers badly when it's not running with a trs lead. It sounds like a low frequency ducker is working on it when you use either a ts -> ts or a trs->ts cable and try to use the other instruments on the Beats with the kick. If another instrument is playing when the kick hits, the kick will be ducked. I thought my unit had a fault at first but it's a universal issue. The Volca Kick has a way hotter signal and doesn't suffer in the same way but the Beats does big time. Make a trs->ts+ts if you need to.

ShoNuff wrote:okay, so looking at the spec' for the Mix, it says
Sample and FM are stereo outputs, and
Keys, Bass, Beats, and Kick are mono.

not sure why FM has to be stereo: for the Chorus?
so what if you just want to sum them to mono?

and what is really happening on the mono outputs of the other ones?
2 mono sides at half amplitude?

it's a headphone output, but does it sense a line input, or deliver a boosted signal all the time?

dunno: Mix might be fun, with its mid-side and compressor thing, but not right now.

thread about it here:
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/electro ... cable.html

They may have a mono signal on both tip and ring, but they are sill a dual channel output. I dare say the impedance changes if you only connect one channel or combine the two and thus the issues. I dunno about all that too much, I'm sure you understand how that side of things works way better than I.

I'm still tempted to get a VMix just to make things a little easier to deal with and save channels on the big mixer. The side chain compression is a novel idea, if ironic considering the effect is the inverse of what happens when running the VBeats on a mono cable. It also doesn't run on sensing the incoming audio, but runs on the beat constantly, which is actually a bit of a minus I my mind. I want to set a threshold and whatnot when I use a compressor. The inclusion of an fx send is very useful though.

ShoNuff · Post by **ShoNuff** » Tue Mar 12, 2019 11:43 am

it's definitely all new to me

at least i have a notion of what to look out for now.

does the Mix compressor really run on the beat, and not with whatever it is sensing? that's weird.

jeftones · Post by **jeftones** » Tue Mar 12, 2019 3:47 pm

ShoNuff wrote:okay, so looking at the spec' for the Mix, it says
Sample and FM are stereo outputs, and
Keys, Bass, Beats, and Kick are mono.

not sure why FM has to be stereo: for the Chorus?
so what if you just want to sum them to mono?

and what is really happening on the mono outputs of the other ones?
2 mono sides at half amplitude?

it's a headphone output, but does it sense a line input, or deliver a boosted signal all the time?

dunno: Mix might be fun, with its mid-side and compressor thing, but not right now.

thread about it here:
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/electro ... cable.html

The Volca FM is stereo because of the chorus effect. The Volca Sample is Stereo because there is internal panning and the reverb.

The volca keys, beats, and bass send a split mono signal. The signal is split so that the jack can function as both headphone out and mono out, the insert style cables suggested earlier are perfect to get the proper signal out. If you plug in a ts cable to the volcas, you are effectively only tapping into half of the audio signal. This will then cause you to need to boost gain on the audio signal of the volca. Over boosting the signal due to using improper cables is where it complaints of the volcas being noisy originate from.

jeftones · Post by **jeftones** » Tue Mar 12, 2019 3:48 pm

ShoNuff wrote:okay, so looking at the spec' for the Mix, it says
Sample and FM are stereo outputs, and
Keys, Bass, Beats, and Kick are mono.

not sure why FM has to be stereo: for the Chorus?
so what if you just want to sum them to mono?

and what is really happening on the mono outputs of the other ones?
2 mono sides at half amplitude?

The Volca FM is stereo because of the chorus effect. The Volca Sample is Stereo because there is internal panning and the reverb.

The volca keys, beats, kick, and bass send a split mono signal. The signal is split so that the jack can function as both headphone out and mono out, the insert style cables suggested earlier are perfect to get the proper signal out. If you plug in a ts cable to the volcas, you are effectively only tapping into half of the audio signal. This will then cause you to need to boost gain on the audio signal of the volca. Over boosting the signal due to using improper cables is where it complaints of the volcas being noisy originate from.

ShoNuff · Post by **ShoNuff** » Tue Mar 12, 2019 5:34 pm

jeftones wrote:
The Volca FM is stereo because of the chorus effect. The Volca Sample is Stereo because there is internal panning and the reverb.

The volca keys, beats, and bass send a split mono signal. The signal is split so that the jack can function as both headphone out and mono out, the insert style cables suggested earlier are perfect to get the proper signal out. If you plug in a ts cable to the volcas, you are effectively only tapping into half of the audio signal. This will then cause you to need to boost gain on the audio signal of the volca. Over boosting the signal due to using improper cables is where it complaints of the volcas being noisy originate from.

yes i did find them noisy initially. and i get the 2 sides thing.
but this means you need 2 input channels on your mixer, doesn't it? if you want to maintain signal level. if people are advising using a, insert cable and only using one side, is that not the same as having TS>TS?

this brings me back to this idea i had of making a little patchbay box for volcas - i have ..um..boxes of assorted parts and junk .. including a very fine hard drive enclosure

with enough aluminium sheet in it to provide RF shielding, i hope, and it's roughly volca size too... what could i do with this..(thinks): a banks of minijack inputs... 1/4" jack on the way out...seemed superfluous but could be handy - can i make a passive summing device for 2 sides? maybe with a switch for dual-purpose inputs (overkill)... something like that.

if you have a full bank of volcas, you need 4x2 mono inputs, 2x stereo pairs - that's 8 gone. i suppose the benefit of splitting a mono signal like that is that you could process both sides separately - ok if you have multiple sends or inserts.

it does set the Mix in a new light - but that has its limitations as well.
i suppose it's a very elaborate approach to the same kind of idea.

i mean, i have a patchbay and a rack of assorted fx. it would be nice to
bring that into play in an easy way.