Distortion when playing hard but not clipping

[Keredallen]

Im getting crackling unless my guitar volume is down halfway, and my input gain is at -12.

Dig in hard to the guitar.

I would like to be able to play at full volume withour the static/ crackling

Runnung 11.3 just updated today but was having the same issue before

[malfunction54]

I assume you don’t hear the crackling when the Dwarf is removed from the signal chain? If so, do the output LEDs ever go red while you play (I assume they don’t, since you said “no clipping”)? I know these are basic questions. I’m not trying to insult your intelligence, I just want to understand what you’ve tried so far. I had similar symptoms a few days ago and tracked it down to a bad cable in my signal chain.

[Julien]

I had exactly the same problem with my Mod Duo X.
Output and input was not clipping and signal was good. I had distortion on the headphone output. In fact the output signal was too loud and that was the signal chain after the mod duo that was clipping.

[Keredallen]

Ive narrowed it down to the Onyx and Titan plugins. Even if your input signal isn’t clipping, you get this almost static sound. If I roll back on the volume pedal to a certain point it goes away.

[llorenzo]

It is a matter of gainstaging I guess. I often have too hot signals in the chain and it drives me mad. How a bout an gainstageing overlay to switch on like the CV. Every audio cable would have a little volume meter. That would help.

[plutek]

you might check out this recent discussion:

Level control for every plugin

On some of the pedalboards I’ve created, depending on which guitar I use, I sometimes get digital clipping within the signal path. It’s pretty much impossible to tell if it’s the effect itself that’s clipping or the following effect since there are no VU meters. It would be nice to have output level controls for each plugin to prevent and control this.

[Rom]

Hi,
When you split your signal-chain in 2, don’t forget to put -3dB when you mix those 2 together again !
It should solve quite some situations, but I agree, this advice is nowhere to be found in the mod docs and I think it would be helpful for some of us.

[danmh]

@Rom

When you split your signal-chain in 2, don’t forget to put -3dB when you mix those 2 together again

Hey Ron, thanks for sharing this info.

Do you have any more information about why this is the case? Or any good links you could share?

[Rom]

I don’t have a good link for this, but it’s because of how is designed the decibel unit. In the wikipedia page you can find this :

Practically, this means that, armed only with the knowledge that 1 dB is a power gain of approximately 26%, 3 dB is approximately 2× power gain, and 10 dB is 10× power gain

Decibel