What's the Point of the 'Kill Dry' function in PBC/10?

rlhinc

Well-Known Member
I'm sure this is very elementary, but the fact that I need to ask this question proves that I don't understand something very basic about PBC/10:

I understand that you can configure the 'Dry' setting to either send the Dry signal to the Internal Mixer... or not. But, I fail to understand why one would want to do that.

If you don't send the dry signal to the Internal Mixer, how will the pedals in loops 7-10 (assuming those loops are configured for parallel operation) not be... totally silent? In other words, if there's no Dry signal driving those pedals on parallel loops, how will they do anything?

Like I said, the question suggests that I don't understand something very important about how the PBC/10 operates.

Robert
 
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Assuming you use a stereo delay in loop 10 in parallel mode ( and make sure you kill the dry sound in your delay setting) you will only have the delayed sound and no dry signal … your dry signal will be mixed with your delayed sound in the PBC internal mixer if you leave the dry signal on.
Now if you turn the dry signal off, you will only hear the delayed signal ( again you have to make sure you have the dry signal turned of in your delay pedal)
Hope it helps
 
Dry signal in the line mixer is in addition to the dry signal in your pedal signal chain. So like Kamil mentioned, it’s great for wet effects - run them in kill dry mode or 100% wet. It allows you to have a wet-dry or wet-dry-wet setup, where you run the PBC in kill dry (Loops 7-10 are wet-only) and your dry signal is coming out of loop 6. Even if you don’t play in wet-dry or wet-dry-wet in separate amps, it give a sense of clarity just by splitting the dry and wet signals in parallel.

If you leave the dry on in the pedals in loops 7-10 and the dry signal is on in the PBC, you’ll get a volume increase because you’re essentially running two dry signal paths.

As far as what would happen if you do NOT return the dry signal into the IN 7-10 jack, I’m not totally sure but I *think* you would still get the dry from the line mixer. Hoping Ron can clarify this as I don’t know what point in the path the dry mix splits off to the line mixer.
 
Thank you, Kamil and Josh…

I think you (Josh) mentioned the key thing I’m missing. You wrote, “… Dry signal in the line mixer is in addition to the dry signal in your pedal signal chain…” That is certainly news to me, if that’s true!

It leads me to ask, “Where is the ‘line mixer dry signal’ (as opposed to the ‘pedal signal chain dry signal’) derived from?

Are you suggesting that the dry signal present at “In 7-10” is split in some way at that point? And one ‘leg’ of that split goes into Loop 7, and other ‘leg’ goes into the Line Mixer? Really? That seems very odd to me, because if Dry signal is fed into Loop 7 - again assuming Loops 7-10 are ALL in parallel mode - then wouldn’t that Dry signal ‘die’ at Loop 7?

In other words, the Dry ‘input’ to Loop 7, because it’s in parallel mode, would not have a way to get to Loops 8, 9, or 10 without the dry in the Line Mixer. Or am I still missing something important?

I guess it’ll remain a mystery until I’m lucky enough to hear from Ron. But, again, thank you both for your help and suggestions.
 
Ron will respond and make better sense of what we are saying, I’m sure.

When you have any of the loops running in parallel, they also get the dry signal, so you have dry in leg 1 (the main path) and in leg 2 (the parallel path). Turning off the dry signal on the PBC kills your dry signal on leg 1, but the loops set to parallel still get the dry signal in leg 2. If I understand correctly, I think “leg 2” would actually be “legs 2, 3, 4, and 5” since each loop runs parallel to each other, they aren’t running into one another on a second path).

With wet effects like delay and reverb, you would have best results running their loops in parallel and the pedals themselves set to kill dry, or running them in series mode with kill dry off on the pedals themselves. Other configurations will give you two dry signals (volume boost) or no dry signal (volume drop), which may be useful on occasion but not globally/generally.
 
Ok, I'll try to explain. This may be a repeat of what's stated above (because it's basically correct), but I'll try to condense it.

- The dry signal comes from the return of the last series loop that's active. Or, it comes from the main input if no series loop is active.
- The dry signal is sent to the line mixer, and it's also sent to the Send jack of each active parallel loop.
- When you switch off the dry signal, you're only switching off the dry signal that goes directly to the line mixer. The dry signal feeds to each parallel loop are always on (for any parallel loop that's currently active)

If you just split the signal, sent it to four pedals, then combined their outputs, you would get 4x boost in signal level. You're effectively generating four copies of the same dry signal and adding them together. To fix this, we set "kill dry" on each pedal or set the output to 100% wet on each of the pedals. We then send the dry signal to the mixer, plus the delay repeats, plus reverb trails, etc. This doesn't create a volume boost (at least, not any more than the pedals would by themselves).
 
Thanks for the crystal clear explanation, Ron… and to Josh and Kami, too. One tiny clarification, so my knowledge of this subject is even more complete:

When you wrote, “… the dry signal comes from the return of the last series loop that’s active,” do you mean ‘… the last series loop that’s active…’ that precedes Loops 7-10? ‘

In other words, if I run Loops 7-9 in parallel, and Loop 10 in series… I assume the dry signal will come from Loop 6, not Loop 10, even though Loop 10 is technically, “… the last series loop that’s active…”

Is that correct?

Many thanks.
 
Thanks for the crystal clear explanation, Ron… and to Josh and Kami, too. One tiny clarification, so my knowledge of this subject is even more complete:

When you wrote, “… the dry signal comes from the return of the last series loop that’s active,” do you mean ‘… the last series loop that’s active…’ that precedes Loops 7-10? ‘

In other words, if I run Loops 7-9 in parallel, and Loop 10 in series… I assume the dry signal will come from Loop 6, not Loop 10, even though Loop 10 is technically, “… the last series loop that’s active…”

Is that correct?

Many thanks.
It actually will come from loop 10 in that case. A little weird, I admit, but that's what it'll do.
 
Just to beat this dead horse: If Loops 1-6 are active, and Loops 7-10 are all parallel, and there's a cable plugged into the 'OUT 5-6' jack - and NOT returned to 'IN 7-10' jack - will the DRY from Loop 6 ('... the last active serial loop...") still be available at Loops 7-10?

In other words, does the signal 'split' at the 'OUT 5-6' jack? I think another way to ask is: Is the 'OUT 5-6' 'normalled' or 'half-normalled' with the 'IN 7-10' jack.
 
It's half normalled, signal will continue to loops 7-10 even if something is plugged into Out 5-6 (and nothing plugged into In 7-10).
 
Yet one more related scenario has cropped up and I need one more bit of clarification - sorry!

Running a W/D/W rig with PBC/10
Loops 1-6 active with gain, EQ, etc. pedals.
Loops 7-10 all in parallel with 4 stereo effects pedals in those loops.
'OUT -5-6' in use to feed DRY to center (mono) amp.
I have one 'Stand Alone' effect pedal - not in a loop - with a MONO output that I want to make 'dual mono' be mixed with Stereo WET effects in Loops 7-10.
To help clarify this: this 'standalone' pedal is a GameChanger Plus pedal. It generates an 'ethereal' sort of 'cloud of sound,' and mimics the 'sustain pedal' on a piano for any instrument that's plugged into it. My goal is to take that MONO 'ethereal' effect and get it combined only with the stereo effects in loops 7-10 and out to L/R amps to play in stereo.
Of course, I understand that the MONO effect from the Plus pedal will be converted to 'dual mono' to be routed to the L/R amps.

So, my questions are:

Does it make sense to plug that 'ethereal' MONO signal that I want to make 'dual mono' and mix with the stereo pedals in 7-10 into the 'IN 7-10' jack?

If I do that, will I ALSO have the DRY from Loop 6 for the pedals in Loops 7-10?

Am I correct in assuming that I NEED the DRY signal from Loops 1-6 to feed the Stereo pedals in Loops 7-10 so they can operate properly?

If all those stereo pedal are 'seeing' is an 'ethereal' MONO effect - from the GameChanger Plus pedal - it feels like it makes no sense.

This is devilishly hard to describe in words, so I hope the questions/issues are understandable!

As always, thanks for any help and/or insight!
 
In that case (all 4 loops parallel), the signal from the pedal going into In 7-10 will become the dry signal that's fed to the mixer, as well as to the inputs of all parallel pedals. If the "Mono -> Stereo (in)" button is pressed in, the incoming mono signal will become dual mono before being sent to the parallel circuit.
 
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