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Steve's Insanely Hot GPZ 7000 Settings


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No settings are magic least of all mine! I rarely post specific settings for that reason and my original post is sprinkled with caveats just in case. Settings are site specific, not universal, otherwise we could just get rid of all those silly adjustments.

I could make the case for quiet as being best. But you never know until you try.

We have automatic ground tracking. Wouldn't it be great if at least on an experimental basis we had a totally automatic mode, that ran through all the settings and monitored ground feedback, to arrive at some sort of decent suggested optimum settings combination?

Thanks for the post klunker.

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On December 4, 2015 at 10:17 AM, klunker said:

I've been testing Steve's "insanely hot" settings. I'm having the same luck with them as I have with ladies of the same description. Not so good.

 Here are my thoughts:

The ground type here (Northern Sierras) can change more in 50 feet than some places in Nevada, and I'm assuming in Australia, change in 5 miles. It will change from bedrock to clay to volcanic to who knows what and then you add gobs of different hot rocks into the mix. I miss not having the Quick Track button of the X series detectors. I'm not convinced the 7000 ground tracking can keep up but I'll be the first to admit that I don't fully understand how to get the most out of it. But a quick look at the short history of the 7000 seems to indicate that Minelab doesn't know how to get the most out of it either.

 I seem to always return to my super quiet + high sensitivity settings. Its a choice between listening for the itsy bitsy teeny tiny (almost to the point of wishful thinking) variance in threshold or or listening to warbles, squeaks and squawks and trying to pick out a sound that actually means something.

 I'll keep fiddling with the settings but, being exceptionally lazy, am sort of leaning to the quiet side 

I'm with Steve on his comment and I quote:

Quote

Steve said:  No settings are magic least of all mine! I rarely post specific settings for that reason and my original post is sprinkled with caveats just in case. Settings are site specific, not universal, otherwise we could just get rid of all those silly adjustments.

And to be honest I think Minelab would be saying the same thing otherwise they would have only one mode for operators to use to prevent people becoming too disenchanted with the detector when they encounter ground that does not play nicely. 

The ground I work is extremely changeable, in fact that is very the nature of gold geology anywhere in the world you choose, not just Australia, the only difference is what oxidization has done to the changeable iron rich gold bearing mineralisation over time that affects the performance and behavior of the detector. In the case of Australia that Oxidization level is extreme due to the sheer age and weathering of our rocks,  something that I think you will find Minelab and Bruce Candy understand very well.

There are a number of ways to tame the GPZ beast, in my case I've kept my secret settings method to myself because up till now I haven't had the intestinal fortitude that Steve has had to make a public statement about them, but I've now decided I'll post up my own way of dealing with the sheer grunt of the GPZ when using "Steve's Insanely Hot settings" and see what people think if it. BTW this method can be used with any mode and is already common knowledge.

Here in Sunny hot central QLD the ground is mainly extremely mineralised, prior to the advent of the "Smooth" Timings of the GPX series the main coil of choice was a DD, without it you were constantly assailed by ground noise. When the GPX 4000 came out a LOT of gold came out of old patches thanks to Smooth mode.

This means I'm extremely limited in where I can effectively use an insane setting like Steve has especially with the Ground Type and Gold Mode he is using. But I do have one area, which is where I took my son when we were testing the SDC 2300 prior to its release. http://www.minelab.com/aus/go-minelabbing/treasure-talk/the-new-super-detector-from-minelab-the-sdc-2300 This spot has produced thousands of little nuggets for me over the years and was one of my favourite VLF locations 20 years ago because the ground is so quiet.

Thing is, even this location is noisy compared to what you guys and Gals in the US work, so I had to modify things to get the detector to a acceptable level so I could take advantage of what Steve has been tapping into. To work the location effectively I had to add filtering via the Audio Smoothing control, at the same time I had to also adjust both the Threshold and Volume controls and also the sensitivity to get a harmony of the settings where there was a clear advantage over my usual methods, and it worked. BTW I'm using a B&Z dual speaker combo, things will be different for the WM 12 speaker or headphones.

If you adjust Audio Smoothing from say OFF to Low you will need to increase the Volume by 2 points and the threshold by at least 3. In the end I selected Audio Smoothing on High, 32 on the Threshold, Volume on 13 and Sensitivity on 20/flat out (I use the B&Z through dual speakers)! This worked for me in the general area so long as I stuck to the paler quieter ground.

Most people don't realise they need to adjust the detector to run smoothly over the chosen terrain not adjust the detector to produce the loudest response on a target in the chosen terrain. There is no point having a great target response on a known signal if you miss that target whilst walking around blind. The level of ground signal in your chosen Gold Mode/Ground Type mode will determine your success, I modified the detectors settings to compensate for the ground signal to allow me to take advantage of Steve's insane settings and it worked really well. Throughout the session I made adjustments to the Sensitivity and found I could lower it by quite a lot and still have excellent signal response without too much interfering signals from target swallowing ground responses. 

All in all I learnt a lot about the interplay of Volume, Audio Smoothing, Sensitivity and Threshold. I also learnt that Steve is genuinely insane.  :lol:

JP

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On December 4, 2015 at 0:27 PM, Jonathan Porter said:

Most people don't realise they need to adjust the detector to run smoothly over the chosen terrain not adjust the detector to produce the loudest response on a target in the chosen terrain. There is no point having a great target response on a known signal if you miss that target whilst walking around blind. The level of ground signal in your chosen Gold Mode/Ground Type mode will determine your success, I modified the detectors settings to compensate for the ground signal to allow me to take advantage of Steve's insane settings and it worked really well.

All in all I learnt a lot about the interplay of Volume, Audio Smoothing, Sensitivity and Threshold. I also learnt that Steve is genuinely insane. :lol:

JP

Great post, JP!

I also discovered the benefits of exploiting the interplay of the Zed's audio functions early on to produce the most distinct (not loudest) target response relative to ground response; coincidentally, JP's modified audio settings are nearly identical to my go-to settings, as detailed here: http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/830-lunks-zed-settings/

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Thanks everyone for posting your experiences and settings. I now realize that I have been running in general/difficult and thinking I was cranking it by having audio smoothing off. I cant wait to get back into the gold bearing areas and explore my Z some more. YOU ARE MY MENTORS. THANKS.

I might add a tip from my hearing specialist. I had a hearing test and discovered I was below average on 4,6 and 8hz. I played JP's video finding the 4 gramer where initially he was just off the target. He could not pick the slight variation in the threashold either. I have cranked the 4,6 & 8hz on the equalizer on my computer, played the intial part of video hundreds of times and have trained myself to hear the slight variation.

The advice from the hearing specialist was that a hearing aid would not help because it is the variation in the threashold I am looking for and I should be able to detect it, now that I have zoned in on the force.

Bird calls and other sounds would be a distraction if I had hearing aids cranked to the higher hz's.

HIS SUGGESTION was to change the threashold pitch up or down a little every hour or two. This gives the ears a break because they do get tired. I thought this would be beneficial to anyone running insane.

All the best,

Pete

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Welcome to the forum Pete,

I have never considered my poor hearing to be an impediment as regards metal detecting for exactly the reason you bring up. If I hear the threshold, then I am hearing all I need to hear. It is variations in the threshold that matter, and ever people with poor hearing can hear changes in sound - once they have the sound set to where they can hear it! It may actually help me by mellowing things for me that others might find nerve wracking. Long story short is I do not normally wear my hearing aids while prospecting. Good thing to mention, thanks.

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  • 2 months later...
On November 15, 2015 at 8:03 PM, Steve Herschbach said:

Nope. As I noted volume is one setting that may need tweaking. If 8 works better for you use 8.

Hearing is funny stuff. I do not have good hearing. But I do have a finely tuned sense of audio change and what constitutes a target. I have always run audio settings on any detector I use quite low from a volume standpoint. All I need to be able to do is barely hear it, but I sure can pick up instantly on variations in what I am hearing. Or so it seems to me. How can I know what I am not hearing?

Kind of like in Chris post. It is not necessarily that I do not hear the stuff that sounds like noise to him and drives him crazy. I just lower the level of the "noise" to where it is comfortable for me to listen to, and the noise goes in one ear and out the other - until that magical difference that indicates a signal.

Hush now Steve.  You are letting out the secrets of a good VLF operator.

Tom

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  • 2 months later...

Seems the more we use the Z the more we fiddle with settings, which is logical as we want to maximise our chances. I am currently having good success with Steves Insane settings except I run in difficult and general, and do not sweep too often over a target in Auto GB, have the User switch set to allow me to go to manual GB easily. Seems the Z with sens on 20, no audio smoothing, general, difficult and running in auto GB will take out positive fringe signals almost as well as it takes out ground noise, thus found I was leaving deep gold behind(nothing unusual there always have) either small deep sub grammers and larger deep multi grammers.

Am finding I`m running in manual GB more and more, in fact presently feel the quick track button could simply be replaced with the GB button that allows you to cycle from manual to auto as per the Xs. Have not quick tracked for many months, I think the upgraded software has made it somewhat redundant, well to me anyway. But I must add that the country I prospect has not many ferrous targets and that settings used are constantly evolving. The Z is very capable in its default settings and really sings as it is cranked up.

 

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