GUITAR : direct recording in Live

[filter_7]

Hey, i'm struggling to get a decent tone with my guitar in Live, but every combination of eq and effects i use sounds a bit sterile and with a touch of plastic to my ears.

I use a H&K Tubeman 2 as DI box straight into the daw, with some effects, with a Terratec Phase 28 pci soundcard.

Would like to hear happier guitarists around, tell us your setup!

[Tone Deft]

put on headphones, turn off your speakers
turn on a mic for recording your voice
turn all the controls to your guitar and related hardware one way
hit record in Live
start tweaking each control, one at a time and speak out loud to what you're doing
go through all the control settings that you feel necessary
stop Live, go back and listen to what setting sounded good

[filter_7]

Good idea!

Do you have some gear advice too? I mean about good hardware for best results.

[doghouse]

It really depends on how picky you are about your guitar tone. For the best sound you just mike a good sounding amp in a good sounding room. When you don't have a good sounding amp or room, then going direct makes sense.

When going direct you need some sort of amp simulation, either external hardware (like your Tubeman) or software. The biggest advantage of software is you can tweak the tone right up to the final mixdown, which is why I like it. The main problem with getting rid of the "sterile" and "plastic" sound from going direct is getting a realistic room sound using effects.

Today I mostly use Amp and Cabinet (included in Live Suite) and get results that sound OK to my ears. I've also messed around with Peavey ReValver (like it), IK Amplitude (don't like it). For hardware I've used an H&K Crunch Master (precursor to your Tubeman) and a Behringer XVAmp (amp modeling only, the digital FX suck).

You should consider reamping, where you record the guitar clean then route that track back out to your Tubeman at mixdown time to fine tune. You are not stuck with the settings you made at record time.

[filter_7]

I used Guitar rig 4 and Amplitube. What i don't understand is they are very noisy when you start to distort the sound a little bit.
Dunno if this happens to everybody.

@doghouse: i think you're right, maybe it's impossible to have a good tone thinkin' about the real amplification, but Tubeman is quite good at least for dynamics.

Any other guitarist around here?

[doom_Oo7]

Try the LePou plugins with some impulses, it's waaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than any commercial solution.

[filter_7]

Try the LePou plugins with some impulses, it's waaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than any commercial solution.

I'll try, thanks.

[3dot...]

when recording direct with headphones...
I find that trying to emulate a room.. with a short reverb... can help..
(usually 'studio' or 'booth' kind of preset)
I feed a bit of everything to that reverb for the headphone mix when tracking..
remedies that 'sterile' feel you get when totally itb...

and agreed a good sounding amp/cab at an optimum volume even with an sm-57 beats any hw emulator..
for sonic richness.. but not for flexibility..
the trade offs are obvious... but some times there's no choice really..

[doghouse]

I used Guitar rig 4 and Amplitube. What i don't understand is they are very noisy when you start to distort the sound a little bit.

Just like real amplifiers, when you crank the gain the simulator gets noisy. Look in the simulator's FX options for a noise gate, which is best placed at the input of the simulator.

[mrobare]

hi

this is what I do

turn guitar volume almost all the way
and turn tone all the way up so you here every thing
remember you can take freqs away but you add something that's not there
then record the direct sound with nothing on it
you can apply effects while recording so it sounds OK in you headphones
just don't record them
then i use a compressor to tighten it up a bit
then eq you can roll off anything below 150hz and any thing above 10khz
depending on the rest of the mix i use eq to find the sweet spot for the guitar to fill

i use two channels 1 with guitar rig 5 on it and 1 to use as clean double

devobtch

[3dot...]

oh... and as far as emulation goes
waves gtr3 is da bomb...#1 by far imo...cpu wise too..heavy

revalver next..it's a monster.. deep...
circuitry emulation etc.
(always wanted to get it but waiting for the right time )

and then guitarig... my usual go-to for a lot of stuff..

(the list is relevant to my ears of course)

Lives' amp/cabinet is pretty decent too..
quite a wide range between 2 rather simple devices...good emulation..+extra live fx..
there's some decent free stuff too like voxengo boogex.. lepou and acmebargig plugins to name some..

[Tone Deft]

on the flip side I stuck with a Line 6 Pod. it's unnatural and total bullshit to not be able to play guitar because the goddamn computer is acting up.

tip - when building patches in the Pod or sim software keep a close ear out for clipping in the effects. it happens pretty easily and the tendency is to blame the software crapping out rather than checking their patch. another reason to use external gear, they don't act up when the load on the computer gets higher.

some people like Guitar Rig, some like Amplitube, some like the Pod, some will only use real amps and mics. they all argue about it and will insist you do that they do. so get a Pod.

good tip above about recording with the tone knob full open, you can hack out frequencies later.

[regretfullySaid]

After years of trying pretty much everything offered (I do like Waves GTR the best out of the 3 big ones) I've found this is a good default that keeps the natural character of my S-1.

The PulseTec just cleans it up a little and I always like to have some chorus and delay available.

I've had Re:Cabinet since v2 and never really used it since I ended up not caring for cabs, and while I DO like the spring verbs in Amplitube keeping it mostly Live native has been satisfying, though I don't really play much guitar anymore...

[filter_7]

Now i'm triyng some eq settings and the result is accettable.

Sometimes the plugins are heavy in modifications and the tone goes away...
The best thing seems to build the sound adding one fx after another, little by little.

The difficult part is to obtain a clear and defined tone without harshness or fizzy high frequencies.