Old 06-05-2007, 09:18 PM   #1
frozen
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Default Guitar sound question

Hello,
I'm running guitars through a DI, then a mixer (Behringer UB1204) then to my soundcard (M-Audio Delta Audiophile 2496).
The problem is that no matter what I do, the low frequencies are out of control. Whatever guitar I use, from Les Pauls to Strats, have too much bass to them that I cant EQ out without really ruining the sound. I keep the EQ on the mixer pretty much flat, and cutting the bass on that doesn't do much but weaken the sound while still leaving too much bass. I'm using Amplitube or else Green Maching amp sim with the guitar also.
It happens when using headphones, but especially when monitorting through speakers. I don't have decent monitors, just computer speakers with a sub woofer.
So, after all that, I guess my question is; am I missing something in my setup here, or it just the speakers. If so, can anyone recommend some decent monitors? I can only spend $200, so I guess "decent" is a relative term here. Thanks for your help.
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Old 06-07-2007, 04:42 AM   #2
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Recording an electric guitar by plugging it straight into the mixer can be unrewarding. The unprocessed sound is so far from what you want to hear that it can be difficult to process it sufficiently to get the sound you do want. In particular, the EQ on some mixers just isn't up to the task of shaping the sound. Personally, I've had much more success if I run the signal through some kind of hardware amp simulator (stomp box) before going into the mixer. The problem is that the electric guitar and amp together are the instrument. Without the amp, you are really missing part of the instrument, and it difficult to "fix" the raw input from the guitar. That's why lots of folks still mic the guitar amp. The hardware amp simulator gets you pretty close to what you want to hear, and you can use the amplitube software to tweak you sound from there. The hardware amp simulator doesn't have to be a high $ stompbox with a lot of features because you can modify the sound with your software.

T
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Old 06-07-2007, 05:04 AM   #3
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So should I run my lp copy through my marshall guvnor pedal before going into the mixer ?
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Old 06-07-2007, 06:05 AM   #4
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Well, the marshall guvnor is a nice pedal, but it isn't an amp simulator. It is designed to drive a guitar amp which further modifies the sound. So, you would still be lacking the amp part of the instrument.

The cool thing to me about the electric guitar - amp sound system and modern playing styles is that it all developed from the poor fidelity and overall crappy-ness of the early amps. The early amp builders were actually trying to make high fidelity amps, but failed due to technological and cost constraints. But then the early electric guitar players learned that higher fidelity amps sucked anyway, and began exploring the interactions between the guitars and the crappy amps. Voila - the amps weren't crappy anymore - they simply became part of the instrument and you had a thing that was much more than just a guitar.


The guvnor is more or less a simulation of what happens when you push tubes to saturation. But it doesn't attempt to capture the other aspects of the interaction between a guitar and amp because it is really designed to be plugged into a guitar amp. But with an amp simulator, for example, you can switch from simulating a single 10 inch speaker to simulating a 4x12" stack. So you can add the component of guitar-amp interactions related to speaker physics. Also, the amp sims have built in equalization that simulates the filtering that is built into the amps.

Now, in theory, all of the simulation stuff can be done as a post-recording process on a direct input guitar signal. It is probably true that I haven't given that approach a totally thorough look, but I have tried many times and I have never been happy with the result.

T

Last edited by tspring; 06-07-2007 at 06:17 AM.
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Old 06-07-2007, 10:11 AM   #5
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Thanks for the replies. As I mentioned in my first post, I am going through a DI box before the mixer. So....I'm still open to any other ideas. Thanks!
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Old 06-07-2007, 01:08 PM   #6
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A standard DI box just matches impedence of the guitar to the inputs of the mixer, and does no amp simulation. There are some specialized DI boxes that have filter networks built in to simulate aspects of a guitar amplifier's effect on the sound. But unless the specifications for your DI box say that it has something like a speaker simulator built in, it does nothing to process the sound. But perhaps you are using the term DI box to mean amp simulator?

T

Last edited by tspring; 06-07-2007 at 01:13 PM.
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Old 06-07-2007, 01:19 PM   #7
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Hmmmm, may try miking up my practice amp and all the fun that involves
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Old 06-07-2007, 01:57 PM   #8
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Small amps are great. In my opinion, there's nothing better than a little ol' blackface Fender Princeton amp for recording. Of course, I have one so, I might be a little biased.

T
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Old 06-07-2007, 11:05 PM   #9
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Thanks for your responses tspring. I should have been more specific on that. My DI (Behringer Ultra-G) has a cabinet simulator that can be turned on or off. I don't hear much difference with that though. I've been trying various vst amp plug-ins without much luck, but I'm going to try using an fx pedal with an emulated speaker output in front of the mixer as well as in front of the DI and see what happens. I'll post how it turns out. I'll try a mic on a couple amps too and see what I get out of that. Thanks again for your help....
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Old 06-08-2007, 07:36 AM   #10
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You are welcome. Another couple of thoughts... I think that part of your problem might also be your mixer. The Behringer UB1204 does not appear to have a sweepable midband. The low midrange is so important for a guitar's sound. I suspect that you might not have enough control over the EQ to control the midrange while cutting the lows. I almost always have to cut low frequencies on my mixer when recording electric guitar, even when I mic the amp. What I like to hear from the amp when I am listening to it live usually seems to have to much low frequency in it to sit properly in the mix when it is recorded without EQ. The fix usually involves cutting back the lows, and fiddling with the band width and central frequency of the mid band sweep - which you don't have. It is much easier to get the sound I want in the DAW if I get it close to being right with the mixer. Of course even better is to tweak the sound at the source. You might also want to try using different settings on your guitars from what you normally use when playing live (eg. use bridge pickup instead of neck pickup; don't roll off high frequencies with your tone control, etc.). Yeah I know that this last point is obvious, but I have found it hard to bring myself to do it, and I suspect others will find it hard too - it just isn't natural

T

Last edited by tspring; 06-08-2007 at 07:39 AM.
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Old 06-08-2007, 08:41 AM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tspring View Post
Now, in theory, all of the simulation stuff can be done as a post-recording process on a direct input guitar signal. It is probably true that I haven't given that approach a totally thorough look, but I have tried many times and I have never been happy with the result.

T
And indeed in fact ...

Whilst I totally agree about your decsription of the guitar as an instrument when it includes the Amp as well, these days as has been mentioned there is an opportunity to do much more in the DAW after the fact. I'm a great fan of Line 6 and their Amp simulations. I have a Pod XT Live. Now, you can record that, complete with Amp models and all effects, but there is also an option to record clean - really the equivalent of using just a DI box. Line 6 also have a plugin whch duplicates all the effects and amp sims in the XTL, but as a VST, meaning that you can apply any effect after the fact and get a really great guitar sound, that you can change afterwards if you don't like it. The closest traditional techniques get to this is re-amping where you record the sound clean then play the track through an amp and re-record it.

Overall this gives you the best of all possible worlds IMO - you record a clean sound, but monitor an effected sound through the pod as you record it. You can then apply that exact sound as a VST, and then later change the effect if you don;t like it.

Native Instruments also do a similar software package called Guitar Rig, and there are others.

In general, I am a fan of recording as un-affected a sound as possible - its harder to take effects off than it is to add them, and this fits that theory well.

Last edited by Andrew Cockburn; 06-08-2007 at 08:43 AM.
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Old 06-08-2007, 10:12 AM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Cockburn View Post
And indeed in fact ...

Whilst I totally agree about your decsription of the guitar as an instrument when it includes the Amp as well, these days as has been mentioned there is an opportunity to do much more in the DAW after the fact. I'm a great fan of Line 6 and their Amp simulations. I have a Pod XT Live. Now, you can record that, complete with Amp models and all effects, but there is also an option to record clean - really the equivalent of using just a DI box. Line 6 also have a plugin whch duplicates all the effects and amp sims in the XTL, but as a VST, meaning that you can apply any effect after the fact and get a really great guitar sound, that you can change afterwards if you don't like it. The closest traditional techniques get to this is re-amping where you record the sound clean then play the track through an amp and re-record it.

Overall this gives you the best of all possible worlds IMO - you record a clean sound, but monitor an effected sound through the pod as you record it. You can then apply that exact sound as a VST, and then later change the effect if you don;t like it.

Native Instruments also do a similar software package called Guitar Rig, and there are others.

In general, I am a fan of recording as un-affected a sound as possible - its harder to take effects off than it is to add them, and this fits that theory well.
Well, actually I don't disagree completely with what you are saying. You'll notice I always talked about and amp-simulator and never mentioned effects. What I meant to imply, but never said was that I didn't think it was important or even desirable to use effects like distortion, reverb, etc. on the signal being recorded. We might disagree on what kind of "clean" signal is best to record. I have never done well when "clean" meant plugging an electric guitar straight into a mixer. I've always been happiest when "clean" meant recording using the clean setting of an amp or amp simulator. On the other hand, it is hard to see why software based Line-6 models should sound any different from the physical-box Line-6 models fed into a mixer. Perhaps I've just not tried the right software...


T

Last edited by tspring; 06-08-2007 at 10:18 AM. Reason: can't write a single sentence without making an erro
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Old 06-08-2007, 11:09 AM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tspring View Post
Well, actually I don't disagree completely with what you are saying.
T
And I didn't mean to imply that you did - sorry I think we are pretty much in agreement over this - I just wanted to say that I have had a lot of success with this approach and modern amp simulators in VSTs are great
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Old 06-08-2007, 08:17 PM   #14
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frozen you might try something like this :

http://www.cockos.com/wiki/index.php..._Tricks_Part_1
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Old 06-12-2007, 01:15 AM   #15
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Thanks everybody!
I think the lack of mid control on my mixer is definately a problem. I'm going to try adding an extra EQ device of some kind to see if I can work this out a little better. I like the pipeline audio video! my DI has the same output configuration, so I'm going to try that too. Thanks again....
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Old 06-12-2007, 02:53 PM   #16
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Try to take OUT the Behringer mixer, so directly from the DI into the soundcard. They don't have good EQ. Then use one of the EQ's in reaper to cut the freq's a bit you dont like. I think there is also an amp simulator in the Jesusonic plugins. Worth checking out i would say.

Last edited by Bastiaan M; 06-12-2007 at 02:54 PM. Reason: wasnt being clear enough IMHO
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