[Staceman]

I've recently been working around some half-decent equipment, and was wondering about a few things.

The equipment is a 6 channel powered mixing board, and also an older Peavey vocal effects box. The board has a single red light on each channel, that I notice comes on when input is a little too loud. When that happens, I turn back the "Pad" knob for that channel.

The effects box, has an LED that is either off completely, green, or red sometimes. I assume it has a similar purpose, where off means you need to sing louder, green is good, and red is bad.

Is this right? Can I get some techy details on this? Any advice on things to cut back on when the light turns red?

Thanks!

[Ron]

You are doing the right thing. Those are "clipping" LEDs, and you need to decrease the input gain when they are getting hit a lot.
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... and then the wheel fell off.

[Staceman]

Thanks for the reply, Ron.

But I'm still a little curious about the light on the vocal effects box. Lately, I've been experimenting with more adjustments, and I currently have it set to where the green light doesn't always come on, and yet I feel that my voice is plenty loud in regards to the music.

However, I still fear that the theory I spoke of for the effects box may be correct, where no green light means I'm not loud enough. Any clues about that? Or is the green light simply a "mid-way" indicator, and that I shouldn't be alarmed about it not coming on all the time while I'm singing, as long as I know I'm loud enough?

With my practice set up, My goal is to set it up to be as close as possible to performing with a real band. The biggest problem I've always had in the past when trying out for bands, was not being able to deal with the differences in practicing raw vs. being amplified. I feel that my current practice setup, that I've been using for several months now, will help immensely, but I'm always open to hearing more advice on ways to make it better/more accurate.