Chapter IV: Prepping for heavy metal live gig.
Ok, since a great opportinity came up, my roadmap slightly changed.
Next week, we open for a semi-famous Belgian band and I really want to take the Dwarf on stage.
Rehearsal session I:
I made 2 great patches but quikly realised I made 2 mistakes.
mistake 1: I made a patch with an audio file for practicing but forgot to map a button to turn it off. Since the file player is “on” by default. I couldn’t use the patch as a file was playing all the time 
Mistake 2: I made a patch with an amp and cabinet and I couldn’t turn these of either. a sound with a cab sim through an amp and cab is just…mush :D. sound unusable but because of me, not the dwarf.
Back to the drawing board
Rehearsal session II:
Made patch without power amp and without cab sim.
Sounded much better.
Based my sound around the new Metal Zone emulation, followed by an EQ.
Mapped 3 of the EQ’s controls so I could control a tactical bass, mid and treble region with 3 knobs.
Mapped some controls on the MetalZone as well but didn’t really have to touch these. (besides, everything above 9 o’ clock on distortion dial was gritty mud.)
I EQ’d my sound to combine it with that of the lead guitarist and we found something useful for my rhythm section. Now…can’t I save this setting? Perhaps I can but i didn’t know how so I took a picture of my EQ settings
Our drummer was absent but I mapped a gain contol and preset list to the file player filled with our drumtracks. I was smarter this time and mapped a switch to the on/off of the file player …
…but not smart enough. next time, I map the file player to output 2, so I can send that one straight into the PA for better drum sound :D.
I found cycling through the presets for the drumtracks on the fileplayer a bit slow. I turned the knob and the interface took a while to change the value to the next preset. file is about 4 or 5 MB.
Also, after a while, the file started playing again, even tohugh I wasn’t in loop mode
My bandmades were impressed though!
The built in noise supression in combo with the noise gate is bliss!
It took me an hour to notice I have no noise.
That is a good thing, I wasn’t missing it and took my clean signal for granted.
Set and forget, the best kind of setting <3
So far so good.
I even tried something more exotic.
I split the signal to go through a reverb butfirst it had to go through a high pass filter on a specifically high setting. I mostly play rhythm play the lowest 3 strings but on the song “Legion”,a darker and exotic tune, we double an oriental melody on higher strings.
Thanks to thigh pass filter on that split, I could have more of the reverb on those high notes and keep it moderately quiet on the lower chugging. Interesting!
I figured being able to switch between snapshots with one button would be handly though.
I might get an extra midi controller for that if it would be possible in the future.
I began to wonder is there are people who use the Dwarf as only preamp, straight into their power amp section. what gain settings to they use?
++ Noise suspression works well
++ theme color for leds on each page is a good visual support.
++ splitting signals and using filters gives you options your regular board probably can’t
++ I’m finding better ways to practice while the drummer is absent with the file player. (don’t forget separate on/off and gain for file player though.)
°° make sure you can turn off everything you don’t need when you are at rehearsal or live
°° How do I use it as only pre-amp in my setup (by using the loop in to the power amp section).?
– No setting saving when in standalone mode? (to be confirmed)
– switching between file presets on the file player with a knob went slow.
– file starts playing again after a while, even when not in loop 'on" mode
Next Sunday and Monday 2 rehearsals left and then: LIVE!
I do my vocals over the regular PA for now.
