Strymon Big Sky Parallel question

go2ldook

Active Member
I have my board set up with Big Sky in 9 and Timeline in 10. I was looking at options for running direct into a PA for small gigs. I have a Line 6 POD, which works OK, then I read that the Big Sky has a cabinet simulator, which I had not realized. With this, they recommend running the Reverb at the end of your chain. I was all set to switch the order, and began to wonder why I ran it this way in the first place, as most people recommend reverb after delay anyway (and I would have likely researched this when I set up the board), then I realized I have them in parallel.

So the question, I guess, is this: any reason to change what I have? Is running the Reverb/Delay in parallel an issue at all if I want to use the cab simulation on the Big Sky? If I am thinking correctly, the only other possible set-up would be to run the Big Sky series in 9, and the Timeline parallel, because you would accomplish nothing by moving the Big Sky to 10 (unless you were running both the Big Sky and the Timeline in series) because order of the 9/10 effects is essentially irrelevant if any one of the effects is parallel, right?
 
The order is only irrelevant if both of those are in parallel. If one is in series, order matters. For example, if you have the TL in 9 and the BS in 10, with the BS in series, your dry and delayed signals from loop 9 get combined at the send of loop 10, and both are affected by the what's in loop 10 (the BS in my example). In order to effectively use the cab sim on the BS, it would need to be in loop 10 in series. If it's in parallel, the cab sim would only impact the wet signal of the BS.
 
Actually, from what I read in the manual, if you have the TL in parallel in 9 and the BS in series in 10, the TL signals do NOT go through 10 at all....any loop in parallel goes directly to the PBC output. The BS would be fed by the last pedal that is in a series configuration.

From the standpoint of the BS cabinet sim, it would work in parallel, there would just be a weak dry signal. That would totally screw up the delays though, unless I had the TL before it in a series set up.

I think I am wrapping my brain around this, and deciding that running the whole rig into a POD makes the most sense if I want to run direct.

Wondering if anyone has ever seen some benefit to a stereo set-up with an on stage amp for one channel, plus a direct to PA set-up for the other? It would, of course, save me micing the amp for my in ears. Wonder if it could make for an interesting combo from the audience perspective?
 
Actually, from what I read in the manual, if you have the TL in parallel in 9 and the BS in series in 10, the TL signals do NOT go through 10 at all....any loop in parallel goes directly to the PBC output. The BS would be fed by the last pedal that is in a series configuration.

From the standpoint of the BS cabinet sim, it would work in parallel, there would just be a weak dry signal. That would totally screw up the delays though, unless I had the TL before it in a series set up.

I think I am wrapping my brain around this, and deciding that running the whole rig into a POD makes the most sense if I want to run direct.

Wondering if anyone has ever seen some benefit to a stereo set-up with an on stage amp for one channel, plus a direct to PA set-up for the other? It would, of course, save me micing the amp for my in ears. Wonder if it could make for an interesting combo from the audience perspective?

Ah, you might be right, the schematic in the manual is pretty confusing.

Using the cab sim in parallel wouldn't impact your dry signal at all, only the wet signal from the BS (in parallel, your dry signal never reaches the BS). I believe all of your effects would have to be in series for the cab sim to have the intended effect, and the BS would also need to be last in order to apply the cab sim to the entire signal chain.

The problem is that you will only hear the channel coming directly from the amp, while the audience hears the channel going to FOH. If you have any left/right specific material, it could be an issue. In a P&W setting, I don't imagine you'd be able to have an amp on stage loud enough where you can hear it.
 
It sounds like from your description you could only achieve this with a dedicated cab simulator (your POD, Two notes, Suhr, A/DA, etc) after the output of the PBC.

Most of those boxes have a dry out (no cab sim) that you could send to your amp while sending the cab sim'ed signal to FOH.
Or you could send PBC A output to your cab sim device and PBC B output direct to your amp.

As Boyce pointed out, if you want to take advantage of a cab sim with your setup you'd need to stay mono.

Alternate idea is to put your BS after your PBC and turn the cab sim on when you need to run direct.
This would allow you to run in stereo (stereo outs of PBC into stereo ins of BS), but your choice would be cab sim or no cab sim depending on venue / gig.

Curious to know how the cab sim in your BS compares to the POD.
 
there's also a TL ( loop9) and TL (loop 10) on my pedal board in parallel (PBC) and Kill Dry (Strymon)
i take the signal ( overdrives pedals) out 5/6 to my input amp
i take the send of the loop effects ( amp) to in 7/10 (PBC)
i send the Output A (left) to a PDI 09 ( pad 0db, normal position) Palmer to the mix desk,
i send the Output B (right) to the return of the loop effects (amp)
i send the Output of the amp to a PDI 09 (pad -15db, mellow position) to the mix desk, and the thru to speakers..

So i can hear right signal on stage from my amp behind me, and there's a stereo signal in front of house a little bit different, i just have to take care with phase on the mix desk..
For me it works fine!
(sorry for my poor english,it was just my two cents)
 

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Sweet setup, Refagaem!

Just curious why the second PDI 09 instead of the line out on the Torpedo Reload?
 
So back to my original issue (I kind of dropped this and did look further at going direct to PA, but here I am again), the order does NOT seem to matter with respect to using the Blue Sky as a cab filter AS LONG AS you do not have the KillDry enabled. Can get cab filtering regardelss of where it is in the chain. Now it may affect the sound somewhat, and I have not switched pedals around for that. The one thing I noted was that to my ears, with the cab filtering, it sounded better with the reverb in series. In Parallel there was a slight phasing effect I guess...more nasalness to the guitar. So I am leaving the Modfactor and Timeline in parallel and for now the Blue Sky is in series with Cab filtering on if I want to run direct. Will have to re-evaluate the situation soon as we are really moving towards playing direct to the PA for voume reasons, so I am buying an Ethos Clean Fusion II for my preamp/cab filtering. Question will now be where I put that in the chain? After the whole pedalboard, or somewhere else in my chain.

Any advice on this would be appreciated.

As for the POD 2.0 versus the cab filter on the Blue Sky, I think they both sound OK. With the POD you have all these amp model options to choose from that color the tone. I think you can tweak one of them to sound on par with the Blue Sky Cab filter. Since I like the sound of the Blue Sky cab filter, I see no need for the POD. Question will be if the Ethos adds significantly to the sound. Hope so. Not cheap.
 
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