Eleven rack right output is louder than left

[Judkins401]

I searched long and hard and couldn’t find any information on this problem.

I just purchased an eleven Rack. I have it plugged into ny PC by USB, and into powered studio monitors from the main XLR outputs. For some reason my right speaker is significantly louder than the left. I did flip the cables into the opposite speaker to make sure it wasn’t the speaker itself, this just made the other speaker louder, so it’s definitely the output on the 11R.

The problem persists while in stand alone, and also while recording into Reaper.

Does anyonbody know why it might be doing this and is there a way to fit it? I’ve exhausted my tinkering efforts and can’t seem to figure it out.


Extra credit question: is there a better way to get soundto those monitors/computer? I feel as though the sound I am getting out is not nearly the quality of some of the demos and YouTube videos I’ve seen. The distortion feels really grainy and tinny. I’m hoping it’s somehing to do with the reason my speaker volumes are off and I just have something set up incorrectly.

[Benoni]

could it be one cable is bad? or did you flip those as well?

[Judkins401]

Thanks for the reply,

I did try multiple cables and it was the same outcome. I get matching volumes when I try other outputs, such as just through USB or through the output to amp. I tried with headphones but I cant tell via phones if there's any difference.

I'm wondering if I just have this thing set up wrong. How would you reccomend getting a quality signal into a DAW such as reaper? Even my stand alone playback through the monitors just doesn't sound great, volume issue aside.

[PatriotsBiker]

Just to clarify. You indicated that the volume increase happens in stand-alone mode. Does stand-alone mode mean nothing at all hooked up except power chord, the guitar cable to guitar-in and the two XLR cables to their respective monitors? USB cable disconnected and no connection at all to computer?

[stormstudios]

Does the same volume differential exist in a stereo recording in your DAW? What I'm getting at is the Left/Right issue happening over USB as well?

[Judkins401]

Thanks for the responses. I've tinkered a little bit more today to no avail. I did find that the USB out has equal volume between speakers, but sounds absolutely AWFUL. Extremely grainy, extremely synthetic sounding and the ends of the notes just sound like static. Clean or distorted (With or without noise gate on)

While the main outs sound "better", the volume discrepancy still exists, and it still doesn't sound great. The grain and poor quality is still there.

I've also attempted to play through amp out to my Marshall and 4x12. Same grainy, tinny sound. It sounds like a 50$ crate solid state amp, at very best. I tried all the output settings and also did turn the cab amulation off, then on. I feel like I've tried every output option and every sitting I can think of. Ifeel like I must be missing something. There's no way it can actually be this poor of a piece of equipment!! HELP!

[Darryl Ramm]

If the problem is the XLR output you can simplify stuff to a bare minimum and test by using the Eleven Rack playing back audio from a connected computer. Ideally using an audio signal generator in Pro Tools or a similar DAW.

The headphone output on the Eleven Rack mirror the main outputs so if you cannot hear a misbalance in the headphones that points to the analog output stage of the Eleven Rack or something after that.

If the inbalance is high you should also be able to measure that with a digital multimeter probing XLR outputs driven by a sine wave signal generator and confirm both the positive and negative side signals are mirrors of each other.... a common way of getting ~3dB loss on one side is to have one of a balanced pair broken/not working.


——

As for “sounding awful”, it’s impossible to guess what you are trying to do or exactly have set up. If you have solved the speaker balance issue then start simple with a guitar straight into the Eleven Rack and an amp sim in the rig only and monitoring via headphones or full range monitors are preferable to get started. Things will rarely sound great by just plugging a guitar into any amp sim, you have to spend time playing and learning.

If your Marshal has an FX loop you should start by going into that, and in all cases playing with gain staging is important.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[PatriotsBiker]

From some of the description of the bad sound, my line of thought is the doubling up o one side rsulting in the phasy-flammy sounding thing is going on. The OP did not answer my question, though, so can't even start to go down that path.

[Judkins401]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

If the problem is the XLR output you can simplify stuff to a bare minimum and test by using the Eleven Rack playing back audio from a connected computer. Ideally using an audio signal generator in Pro Tools or a similar DAW.

The headphone output on the Eleven Rack mirror the main outputs so if you cannot hear a misbalance in the headphones that points to the analog output stage of the Eleven Rack or something after that.

If the inbalance is high you should also be able to measure that with a digital multimeter probing XLR outputs driven by a sine wave signal generator and confirm both the positive and negative side signals are mirrors of each other.... a common way of getting ~3dB loss on one side is to have one of a balanced pair broken/not working.


——

As for “sounding awful”, it’s impossible to guess what you are trying to do or exactly have set up. If you have solved the speaker balance issue then start simple with a guitar straight into the Eleven Rack and an amp sim in the rig only and monitoring via headphones or full range monitors are preferable to get started. Things will rarely sound great by just plugging a guitar into any amp sim, you have to spend time playing and learning.

If your Marshal has an FX loop you should start by going into that, and in all cases playing with gain staging is important.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I did test this and found that my L XLR is constantly 3 or 4 mV stronger than the right, regardless of the volume. Any clue what that might mean?

[Judkins401]

Originally Posted by PatriotsBiker

Just to clarify. You indicated that the volume increase happens in stand-alone mode. Does stand-alone mode mean nothing at all hooked up except power chord, the guitar cable to guitar-in and the two XLR cables to their respective monitors? USB cable disconnected and no connection at all to computer?

That is correct, that's what I meant by stand alone. However, I have tried every other type of connection I could think of as well and same results!

I'm not sure if it's related or not, but I am getting some weird, awful noise on top of every single setting with any amount of distortion as well. Here's a clip sampling 2 different settings. Its a higher pitch, hiss or fizz that seems to bounce around in frequency, and its on every single setting, regardless of how I connect the device. Currently connected through L out into a interface to avid the volume issue, but it does make the same noise no matter what.

https://soundcloud.com/chrisjudkins/strange-sound-11r