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Recording Electric Guitar - not successfully


brandon

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2 hours ago, rsinger said:

It depends on your setup. Are you in a studio where the console is in an isolation booth? If not then if you are recording an amp with a mic you're probably using headphones. If not the speakers will create feedback with the mic and that creates problems. If you're mic'ing an amp and monitoring with headphones record a couple bars and listen back on the headphones - it should sound the same. If not why not?

If you're recording direct a similar thing applies - you're either listening with headphones or speakers. Record a couple bars and play it back - it should sound the same. If not why not?

Hi  - I am using the input of a Focusrite Scarlet 2i4 to record  the guitar through (either DI, or via an effects pedal or via a mic'd up amp). I am monitoring through headphones (plugged in to the headphones socket) and until now I believed what I was monitoring was what was being recorded.  Should I be monitoring in some other way i.e. via the balanced or unbalanced line outputs?

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Headphones are fine. Make sure the Direct Monitor knob on the 2i4 is turned fully clockwise to Playback while you set everything up. You need Input Echo enabled and when you play you should hear the DAW. Record a few bars and play it back. Does it sound the same? You don't need to record hot, -6 dB or -12 dB should be fine.

Edited by rsinger
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I have been a guitarist for 30+ years. I have recorded about 30 songs in a "traditional studio" over the years. I am also a recovering gear addict, and what I discovered is this: I LOVE MY AMP SIMS! I PREFER them over amps and there are a few reasons why:

1) I have the IK AXE I/O, which is a audio interface geared towards guitar player and their dynamics. I love it.

2) I can get an inspirational sound and take using Amplitube or Guitar Rig 5 that is easy to record.

3) #2 is really important, but even moreso is the ability to manipulate that take to fit in your mix (primarily distortion). That is a lot more difficult in a "traditional" sense.

So, experiment with whatever you can get your hands on. Talk to people who know their sh!t and figure out what works for the music you want to create. That goes with everything you do, and everything you use musically. There are no rules when it comes to expressing yourself. When Nine Inch Nails used a guitar straight in to a MAC(and them employing some trail-blazing techniques at the time), some(including myself) called it blasphemy, but we were wrong ...and that was the best means for Trent to express himself. The same applies to anyone.

Good luck!

Edited by hockeyjx
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On 10/18/2020 at 10:36 AM, brandon said:

I have the Boss ME80 (I was using individual pedals in my above description). Would you have any advice as how best to set it up i.e. what to do/not do for example? 

Set the overall volume level quite high (three quarters up.)  Keep your patch levels low to avoid noise.

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I used to record with amps and mics and would spend days trying to get a good sound. I even built my own tube amps and effect pedals and Poo Poo'ed anything solid state. Now I use a plugin like Bias FX2 and it's so easy to get great recording tone.

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19 minutes ago, kurt soderquist said:

I used to record with amps and mics and would spend days trying to get a good sound. I even built my own tube amps and effect pedals and Poo Poo'ed anything solid state. Now I use a plugin like Bias FX2 and it's so easy to get great recording tone.

I agree, but don't let DeeringAmps hear this sacrilege.

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I've gone the other way, from amp sim to amp. I used to play mainly through headphones at home.

Making a mic cable with the two leds definitely helps with the amp sim.

But my amp with a rock crusher attenuator is sick.

I love miking it myself. Moving the amp around the room.

I have never come close to the tones i get with my amp using software amp modeling.

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On 10/19/2020 at 8:23 PM, Gswitz said:

I've gone the other way, from amp sim to amp. I used to play mainly through headphones at home.

Making a mic cable with the two leds definitely helps with the amp sim.

But my amp with a rock crusher attenuator is sick.

I love miking it myself. Moving the amp around the room.

I have never come close to the tones i get with my amp using software amp modeling.

Interesting. 

 

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If your going to use amp sims then you better buy a better audio interface that is capable of a very low round trip latency. And your computer will also need to be capable of supporting very low buffer settings without drop outs.  See the very bottom line on this dialog box- "Total Roundtrip"- that has to be below 6ms for most people to not through your playing off time.  

One solution is to blend the playback with the direct sound. 

2019-11-06.png

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On 10/19/2020 at 3:56 PM, William W. Saunders, Jr. said:

don't let DeeringAmps hear this sacrilege.

Generally I record the dry guitar input to CbB, then re-amp if I'm not happy with the tone I'm getting in Amplitube or S-Gear.
Sometimes I monitor via an amp, sometimes in software; no real rhyme or reason, what can I say....

I am going to build an led "buffered" cord today as I sometimes get the "scratchy" transient on the dry signal.
Thanks to @Gswitzfor posting the Anderton link. I think he had suggested in the past lowering the pickups to
cut down on the transient (maybe it was someone else), but I had totally missed this.

t

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