7
representation of how your EQ settings are working.
8.9 100-240VAC POWER INPUT
Felix is powered by a universal AC power supply. This means
that no matter where your musical wanderings take you, you
can plug Felix in to the wall and it will work. And it also means
one less wall wart you’ll own in your life. All units are shipped
with a standard AC cable suitable for the country where it is
going. This is a standard, off-the-shelf IEC power cable, so in the
event you misplace the one that came with your Felix, you can
just borrow one from the soundperson or the bass player and
go.
9 Operation
9.1 WHERE TO PUT FELIX?
Great question. We recommend you put him wherever you
want. He will look very pretty when you first pull him out of his
box, but trust us, he is built to stand up to just about any kind
of stage shenanigans you might encounter. All the pots have
metal shafts and are well mounted to the top panel. All the 1/4”
jacks have heavy duty metal bushings. The top panel is 1/4”
extruded aluminum, and the bottom chassis is appropriately
heavy duty. As you may have surmised by now, the main
inspiration for this product was to have studio-grade audio
hardware, properly ruggedized to live on the stage floor or
mounted to a pedal board.
Also, we have included mounting holes on the underside for
a standard mic stand mounting flange (which can be found
at most larger music gear retailers). This allows Felix to be
mounted directly to the top of a mic stand. If you do chose
to keep Felix up off the floor, you can still access the BOOST/
TOGGLE and MUTE/ TUNE footswitch features by connecting an
external footswitch to the ‘fs’ jack on the rearpanel.
Now that you have picked a place for Felix to reside, it’s time to
make some sound.
9.2 USING THE XLR MIC INPUT CH1
Before connecting a microphone to Felix, make sure the Ch1
gain knob is turned all the way down and the side panel 48V
phantom power switch is set to off (pushed out). Then connect
your microphone and if 48V is needed, simply activate it with
the side panel 48V switch. Always remember to turn 48V
power ON after connecting your microphone and OFF before
disconnecting your microphone.
Gain range for this input is adjustable b18dB and
+60dB via the top panel Ch1 GAIN control knob. Use the top
panel Ch1 signal / clip indicator to properly set the mic level.
The LED will light green with signal present, then will begin to
flash red when the channel is 12dB before clipping. This means
that occasional red flashes are ok, but if the LED is mostly red,
well then, you better turn it down.
9.3 INSTRUMENT / LINE INPUTS
These are the inputs you will use for connecting your
instrument(s) to Felix. There is a wide array of different pickup
types in the world: active electronics in an electric bass, passive
under bridge plate transducers, contact mics, soundhole
magnetics, etc.. We wanted to make sure Felix brought out
the best in all of them and accordingly, there are some useful
features that can help make that happen.
Because we designed Felix to play well with a wide array of
mics and pickups on a wide array of instruments, the gain
control sweep required is more than this single potentiometer
can provide. Accordingly, there is an internal jumper which
activates an 18dB pad on the Ch1 line input. The Ch1
microphone XLR mic input is not affected by this pad. This
pad jumper is set to ‘ON’ from the factory, which mostly
matches the gains of Ch1 and Ch2. If you are using a source
that requires more gain (e.g. a low output pickup on a delicate
acoustic instrument), you may need to open up Felix and set
this jumper in the ‘ON’ position. Or likewise, if the source you
are using is overloading this channel, you will probably need
to set the pad back to its ‘OFF’ position. This is easy to do! We
specifically designed Felix’s chassis to make it easy to access
internal jumpers. Please refer to the jumper diagram and access
procedure on p. 12&13. See, aren’t you glad you’re reading this
manual? Us too.
WARNING: make sure to disconnect the power mains before
removing the Felix top panel to make jumper adjustments.
Using a Dual Source Instrument with a Single TRS Cable
The Ch2 input can accommodate two different signals from
a dual source pickup system on a single TRS 1/4” cable. The
connector is a standard TRS 1/4” jack and is wired:
•
Tip signal to Ch2 input,
•
Ring signal normaled to Ch1 input,
•
Sleeve to ground.
This feature makes using a dual source pickup system very
convenient. Assuming your instrument is properly wired with
a TRS output jack, you can simply use a standard TRS cable to
connect both sources to Felix, then EQ and blend each signal
accordingly. The sonic results of this kind of acoustic pickup
system can be very excellent.
Input Impedance Selection
Both instrument inputs have 3 different impedance settings:
Ch1: med - 1MΩ / hi -10MΩ / low – 10kΩ
Ch2: med - 1MΩ / hi -20MΩ / low – 332kΩ
In general, most passive pickups will want to connect to a
higher impedance setting, while active pickups probably a
lower. Passive pickups generally will have more sensitivity to
input impedance, but there are no hard and fast rules. Check
