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Old 01-11-2021, 03:08 AM   #1
jean-yves
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Default Ext guitar preamp + Pover amp Irs + Cab Irs

Hello you happy reapermen guitar players!

What do you think about recording guitars with external preamps, then mixing with a power amp and cab IR?

I have'nt seen a lot discussed about this in the forum and I'm wondering it's wether a possible improvement or not (I asked this same question in the french part of the forum, but there was no reply...).

I have a couple of guitar preamps that I use for live playing (Palmer MKII, Marshall JMP1) and I found it's difficult (but not impossible ) to make them sound good in the daw.

So I just try an experiment yesterday :
- I plugged a guitar in the Palmer Pocket MKII (a Sansamp clone), which is connected to the input of my JoeMeek 6Q preamp
- the 6Q preamp is connected by Spdif to the interface (Motu Mk3 Ultralite), wich only serves as a transport for the very good 6Q AD convertor
- on a reaper track, I put a VST Pover amp sim (Ignite TPA-1) and an IR Cab loader (Ignite Nadir) with a cab Ir I got from Seacow (https://seacowcabs.wordpress.com/201...ll-v30-custom/)

Sounds good! (at least played live out of a mixing context). I need to make more comparisons in the future, but while it seems good, it is not soooo good that I will change all my habits at once.

I found a lot of informations on this website : https://overdriven.fr/overdriven/ind...ponses-part-4/
It's mainly high gain and metal oriented, and I'm not sure it's relevant towards the sounds I'm looking for (clean, bluesy, light crunch, etc.).

It seems quite complicated et asking for a lot of tweakings, and I am asking to myself wether it worths the time spent or not.

I must precise that I am not looking for advices in recording guitars. Having doing that for more than 15 years, I'm quite satisfied with the way I do that today, either recording live my tube amp or using amp sims in Reaper.

But as I see all this IR stuff growing every day, I just wonder if it is now the time to explore new ways.

Any thought? I'd like to hear from you about your own experiments.
Cheers !
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Old 01-16-2021, 08:25 AM   #2
toleolu
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I was thinking the same thing regarding a pre-amp a little while back. After talking it over with a couple of people who really know what they're doing with all this stuff, the consensus was a pre-amp for just recording wouldn't do a lot for me. Live playing, like you do, though is another matter.

I use Ignite Amps for cabinet emulation but everything else I do when recording my guitars is done with knobs and pedals.

The VST's for amp sims and such are great, it's just that I'm old school and I've got a lot of money tied up in my gear so it seems a waste not to use it.
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Old 01-17-2021, 12:31 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by toleolu View Post
I was thinking the same thing regarding a pre-amp a little while back. After talking it over with a couple of people who really know what they're doing with all this stuff, the consensus was a pre-amp for just recording wouldn't do a lot for me. Live playing, like you do, though is another matter.

I use Ignite Amps for cabinet emulation but everything else I do when recording my guitars is done with knobs and pedals.

The VST's for amp sims and such are great, it's just that I'm old school and I've got a lot of money tied up in my gear so it seems a waste not to use it.
Quite right!
It's just that my neighbours don't share my love for tube amp sounds recorded live in my appartment...
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Old 01-24-2021, 08:50 AM   #4
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Quite right!
It's just that my neighbours don't share my love for tube amp sounds recorded live in my appartment...
My Bassbreaker amp has a mute switch on it. Kills the output to the speaker, but I still get the signal out on the XLR line.

My Marshall amp doesn't have that, I can still mic it at a low enough level to where it's not pissing off the neighbors, but my acoustics aren't very good where I record so I pretty much just go with the Fender amp.

I do occasionally take the Marshall amp to my friends place and piss off his neighbors though.
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Old 01-24-2021, 09:38 AM   #5
ggrey
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Lately I have been using my guitars direct into my pedal chain... (compressor, dbl tracker and others when I need to) then stereo line to my Mic/ line preamps running through my tube compressor, into ADC, into computer card/ Reaper.

Once in Reaper I use any one of the 5 or so amp sims/plugs I have collected (selection depending on the song, track), a bit of delay and reverb when necessary and cabinet IRs. Also a couple of my sims have Mic and Mic placement choices...which makes for a nice variety in character. And I can change amp sims at my leisure as well. There are some fine free sims out there each with their own identity

I find with tweaking a lot to find the right combination I can get very close to the mic'd "live" sound from my "real" amps. If nothing else, the ability to just plug in my guitars at any time or any later date to record or modify existing tracks with only a knob turn or two is amazing.
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Old 01-24-2021, 12:06 PM   #6
jean-yves
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Quote:
Originally Posted by toleolu View Post
My Bassbreaker amp has a mute switch on it. Kills the output to the speaker, but I still get the signal out on the XLR line.

My Marshall amp doesn't have that, I can still mic it at a low enough level to where it's not pissing off the neighbors, but my acoustics aren't very good where I record so I pretty much just go with the Fender amp.

I do occasionally take the Marshall amp to my friends place and piss off his neighbors though.
I've a Blackstar HT5-R with a similar feature + cab emulation inside. It's very easy to get good sounds out of the box without headache. I found it was more difficult to get light overdriven "clean" sounds than high gain ones when recording with the DI output (probably thanks to the HT5 circuit, which is naturally high gain oriented).
I've got also a Crate Power Block head connected to a hand made cabinet (1x12 Celestion Vintage). It sounds great with a preamp in front of it (I currently use a Palmer MK2 wich is a Sansamp clone with a Spark Treble booster). I get lovely sounds recording live with a good mic (AKG C214) at decent levels.

I wonder about your Bassbreaker, maybe as a potential replacement for the HT5. I didn't get the opportunity to try one. What does it worth ?
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Old 01-24-2021, 12:22 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ggrey View Post
Lately I have been using my guitars direct into my pedal chain... (compressor, dbl tracker and others when I need to) then stereo line to my Mic/ line preamps running through my tube compressor, into ADC, into computer card/ Reaper.

Once in Reaper I use any one of the 5 or so amp sims/plugs I have collected (selection depending on the song, track), a bit of delay and reverb when necessary and cabinet IRs. Also a couple of my sims have Mic and Mic placement choices...which makes for a nice variety in character. And I can change amp sims at my leisure as well. There are some fine free sims out there each with their own identity
I use more or less the same configuration when not using the emulated output of my amp.
I've seen myself using more and more amp sims as ACE, Lostin Tone Deluxe, and Blue Cat (and Softamp FM25 aswell).

What are your favorite amp sims ? And did you find decent cab Ir's ? I'm not quite satisfied with the ones I got.
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