Hello,
I'm wanting to play my electric guitar through my studio monitors and direct record into Ableton. I can play and get a clean signal from the guitar coming through the monitors and record it, but i can't hear the effects of any amps or reverbs etc. when playing live, I can only hear the effects when i put the guitar down & playback.
Is it possible to add amps & reverbs etc from ableton/plugins and play live/direct record with these? I also have Guitar Rig 5 and having same issue with that.
My setup:
-Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 into laptop
- Electric guitar into Scarlett
- Studio monitors connected to Scarlett with balanced cables
I must be missing something simple!
Any advice would be hugely appreciated
Duncan
Playing Electric Guitar through Monitors
Re: Playing Electric Guitar through Monitors
It’s very possible to do what you want.
The first thing is you need to monitor your guitar (or other instrument) just through the software, not directly through the interface - which from what you say it sounds like you are doing at the moment. So first make sure the interface is getting a signal from the guitar but isn’t passing it straight through to the interface speaker outputs.
Then:
Step 1. Create an audio track with its input set to whichever interface socket the guitar is plugged into.
Step 2. Set that track’s monitoring pulldown to “in”. Check it is receiving the guitar signal when you play.
Step 3. Put the plugin on the track.
Step 4. That should now let you hear the guitar as it is affected by the plugin(s).
If you set the Live track’s monitoring to “auto” then you will only hear what you are playing when the channel is armed to record. After recording to the channel you need to set the track monitoring to “auto” to hear what haas been recorded.
Guitar Rig used stand-alone can be set up in a similar way.
You may run into latency issues - a noticeable delay between playing a note and hearing it because the software needs time to do its stuff. Latency can be reduced by using Live’s audio preferences - for most people a latency (input + output buffer size) of around 10 milliseconds or less seems to be acceptable. Some people can tolerate more, others need it set lower. Be aware some plugins can add a lot of latency because they need more time to do their sums or need to “look ahead”. If you hover over the plugin’s title bar in the plugin/rack display at the bottom of the screen Live will usually tell you how much latency that plugin is causing in the status bar underneath the main window. So long as that figure is equal to or less than the driver latency set in preferences you should be OK. This means some plugins are best added after the recording stage so they don’t cause that kind of problem.
The first thing is you need to monitor your guitar (or other instrument) just through the software, not directly through the interface - which from what you say it sounds like you are doing at the moment. So first make sure the interface is getting a signal from the guitar but isn’t passing it straight through to the interface speaker outputs.
Then:
Step 1. Create an audio track with its input set to whichever interface socket the guitar is plugged into.
Step 2. Set that track’s monitoring pulldown to “in”. Check it is receiving the guitar signal when you play.
Step 3. Put the plugin on the track.
Step 4. That should now let you hear the guitar as it is affected by the plugin(s).
If you set the Live track’s monitoring to “auto” then you will only hear what you are playing when the channel is armed to record. After recording to the channel you need to set the track monitoring to “auto” to hear what haas been recorded.
Guitar Rig used stand-alone can be set up in a similar way.
You may run into latency issues - a noticeable delay between playing a note and hearing it because the software needs time to do its stuff. Latency can be reduced by using Live’s audio preferences - for most people a latency (input + output buffer size) of around 10 milliseconds or less seems to be acceptable. Some people can tolerate more, others need it set lower. Be aware some plugins can add a lot of latency because they need more time to do their sums or need to “look ahead”. If you hover over the plugin’s title bar in the plugin/rack display at the bottom of the screen Live will usually tell you how much latency that plugin is causing in the status bar underneath the main window. So long as that figure is equal to or less than the driver latency set in preferences you should be OK. This means some plugins are best added after the recording stage so they don’t cause that kind of problem.
Live 10 Suite, 2020 27" iMac, 3.6 GHz i9, MacOS Catalina, RME UFX, assorted synths, guitars and stuff.
Re: Playing Electric Guitar through Monitors
Thank you! That's a really helpful reply.
I'll give it a try tomorrow. How would i monitor the guitar just through the software and stop the interface sending the signal straight to the speaker outputs? I think you're probably correct that that's what's happening.
I'll have a play about tomorrow with all the settings on tracks and in the preferences.
I'll give it a try tomorrow. How would i monitor the guitar just through the software and stop the interface sending the signal straight to the speaker outputs? I think you're probably correct that that's what's happening.
I'll have a play about tomorrow with all the settings on tracks and in the preferences.
Re: Playing Electric Guitar through Monitors
Routing the guitar just through Live and not straight to the interface speaker outputs will probably be done in the interface's own software, or sometimes it's a hardware control on the interface - how to do it depends on the particular interface. I could tell you how to do it on an RMEO interface using RME's Totalmix software but I doubt that would be much use for any other make of interface.
Live 10 Suite, 2020 27" iMac, 3.6 GHz i9, MacOS Catalina, RME UFX, assorted synths, guitars and stuff.