Recording a guitar line from the amp?

Narayan · 09-14-2016, 08:15 AM

Hi There,

I have been using an M Audio Mobile Pre USB unit to feed my signal into my computer. Unfortunately I have found that it only records the direct guitar line.

This is not ideal because I like the sound which my guitar produces through the actual guitar amp.

Is it normal that the hardware which processes guitar signals to a computer only does it direct from the guitar? If there are exceptions, which are the best ones (ideally not expensive)?

Trying to emulate my amp sound with VSTs isn't really fun or what I want to be doing. :/

Thanks

Judders · 09-14-2016, 09:05 AM

Buy a microphone and plug it into one of the mic channels. Going direct from the amp is possible, but it won't sound good.

Narayan · 09-14-2016, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Judders

Buy a microphone and plug it into one of the mic channels. Going direct from the amp is possible, but it won't sound good.

Why wouldn't it sound good?

Would that not make things more complicated because of range response/emphasis challenges?

karbomusic · 09-14-2016, 09:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Narayan

Why wouldn't it sound good?

Would that not make things more complicated because of range response/emphasis challenges?

A huge amount of the tone is due to the speakers and that interaction. So much so you can throw an amp on an oscilloscope and compare direct vs through a cab/mic and notice that without the cab the output looks almost identical to an amp SIM VST minus a cabinet emulator. I've done exactly that in the past.

So, throw a mic in front of it, or record it direct as you want and use a cab simulator VST in the box. If you don't do one of those two, it's going to sound pretty nasty but there is one exception and that is if the line output on the amp actually has it's own speaker simulation circuit which many amps do - usually they call it a recording output instead of line output etc.

Bazzbass · 09-15-2016, 04:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Narayan

This is not ideal because I like the sound which my guitar produces through the actual guitar amp.

the only way to capture your amp's sound is as suggested, stick a mic on that cab.

or buy a cab simulator pedal like the Sansamp stuff.

Taking a line out from your amp will not reproduce the sound out of your cab. Think about it.

trevlyns · 09-15-2016, 04:44 AM

Or if your amp has a headphone/line out, get the sound/FX you want and jack it straight into your audio input. I get great results with my Roland Microcube and an old Peavey amp.

Narayan · 09-19-2016, 05:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by trevlyns

Or if your amp has a headphone/line out, get the sound/FX you want and jack it straight into your audio input. I get great results with my Roland Microcube and an old Peavey amp.

It is only a small amp actually so it was the phones line I was considering using anyway as it doesn't have a normal output.

Quote:

Originally Posted by karbomusic

A huge amount of the tone is due to the speakers and that interaction. So much so you can throw an amp on an oscilloscope and compare direct vs through a cab/mic and notice that without the cab the output looks almost identical to an amp SIM VST minus a cabinet emulator. I've done exactly that in the past.

So, throw a mic in front of it, or record it direct as you want and use a cab simulator VST in the box. If you don't do one of those two, it's going to sound pretty nasty but there is one exception and that is if the line output on the amp actually has it's own speaker simulation circuit which many amps do - usually they call it a recording output instead of line output etc.

Ok thanks.

Are there many good cab simulators? Would you recommend any?

How good a mic does it have to be to capture the sound well? So that I don't need to do any other processing or minimal amounts at least in order to make it sound similar to what's heard directly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bazzbass

the only way to capture your amp's sound is as suggested, stick a mic on that cab.

or buy a cab simulator pedal like the Sansamp stuff.

Taking a line out from your amp will not reproduce the sound out of your cab. Think about it.

Thanks. What is normal for studio recording of electric guitars in reference to this discussion?

Judders · 09-19-2016, 08:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Narayan

Are there many good cab simulators? Would you recommend any?

The standard in cab emulation is to use an Impulse Response. There are lots of good free ones [http://bedroomproducersblog.com/2010...se-responses/], and you can load them into ReaVerb [http://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/reaverb-part-1].

Quote:

Originally Posted by Narayan

How good a mic does it have to be to capture the sound well? So that I don't need to do any other processing or minimal amounts at least in order to make it sound similar to what's heard directly.

That's a "how long is a piece of string" kind of question. Any and all mic's have been used on guitar cabs, it all depends on what you're after, but it doesn't have to be an expensive mic.

Most people mic cabs a lot closer than you have your head to the speaker, so recordings rarely sound like being in the room, but placement is something you'll have to experiment with if you go down the mic'ing route.

Narayan · 09-27-2016, 05:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Judders

The standard in cab emulation is to use an Impulse Response. There are lots of good free ones [http://bedroomproducersblog.com/2010...se-responses/], and you can load them into ReaVerb [http://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/reaverb-part-1].

That's a "how long is a piece of string" kind of question. Any and all mic's have been used on guitar cabs, it all depends on what you're after, but it doesn't have to be an expensive mic.

Most people mic cabs a lot closer than you have your head to the speaker, so recordings rarely sound like being in the room, but placement is something you'll have to experiment with if you go down the mic'ing route.

Thanks a lot, I will look into these.

Just out of interest, do you know why my device only accepts the line from the guitar and not the amp headphone socket btw?

I find it strange. It takes the line from a multi-fx pedal also (with guitar or bass plugged into it), but won't accept the amp line.

Thanks again!

Judders · 09-27-2016, 06:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Narayan

Thanks a lot, I will look into these.

Just out of interest, do you know why my device only accepts the line from the guitar and not the amp headphone socket btw?

I find it strange. It takes the line from a multi-fx pedal also (with guitar or bass plugged into it), but won't accept the amp line.

Thanks again!

You're welcome

At a guess I'd think the problem with the headphone output might be that it's stereo.

ashcat_lt · 09-27-2016, 08:51 AM

Wait. Are you saying that you couldn't get sound from the headphone out on the amp so you ditched it altogether and then plugged the guitar straight into the interface?

In that case, unless you're looking for a very particular type of clean sound, you're probably going to want a bit more than just a cab sim. Most guitar amps do some pretty drastic EQ even at moderate settings and most also introduce some amount of compression/overdrive/distortion even at cleaner settings. ReaEQ and ReaComp can get you there, but it's probably easier to find a decent amp simulator.

Why didn't the phones out work? Well, what kind of cable did you use? A normal TS "instrument" cable really should have worked. A TRS cable probably won't though. Judders touched on why but didn't explain fully.

The headphone out is TRS wired T>left headphone and R>right. Unless the amp has some stereo effects on it, this will pretty much be just exactly the same thing on both T and R so you hear the guitar right in the middle rather than only in one ear. The line input is also TRS, but is a "balanced" or more precisely a "differential" wiring. This means that it takes the difference of T and R as the signal. Now if T and R are exactly the same... 1 - 1 = 0

Slingy · 09-27-2016, 09:45 AM

My guess is that your mobile interface has multiple inputs, microphone, instrument, or line level and you will need to select the appropriate track input options in Reaper.

It will be helpful to know which amp you are recording since most tube amps do not have a headphone or speaker simulation out the only way to record them is with a microphone. It's not that hard to do.

Unless you really love the sound of the amp I would invest in some guitar VST like Podfarm, Amplitube, Etc.

Narayan · 10-08-2016, 04:31 AM

Thanks for the responses. This is all very interesting stuff and I'm learning as I go.

The sound that I get in the headphones when I plug them straight into the amp is fairly decent to me in terms of what the amp is doing to the signal.

The instrument cables I use are all TS. When I route the amp headphone out into the M audio Pre Usb instrument line the Reaper track immediately recognizes a signal which consistently reads at about -30 to -24db on the meter. This is regardless of what I am doing with the guitar or even whether it is plugged in or not.

The amp itself is a super cheap little Ibanez IBZ10B.

The Pre-Usb has 2 instrument line input sockets and 3 microphone inputs (one of which is like an earphone jack in size, so I wonder whether I could get a trs with a large plug at one end and earphone size jack at the other or maybe use an adapter on one end to make it fit and just use that input?).

Thanks all