Recording Guitar in Ableton

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 4:52 pm

Timur wrote:a whole lotta the same bullshit

omfg Timur, enough, stfu. seriously, this is lame.

your understanding of electronics is astoundingly poor, stop it with the long winded fucked up advice. I keep correcting the same bullshit over and over again. the sure sign that you're totally clueless if your inability to give a short answer. I'm trying to get why this is important but you don't get it yourself.

the poster is just asking how to record guitar. look for a Hi Z input on any sound card, plug in, turn monitor to IN, record, set monitor to ON and listen.

Timur - stop it with the long winded fucked up advice, you're totally out there and clueless. every guitar player on the board is posting 'wtf is this shit?' because it's totally irrelevant to the real world. nobody asking how to record into Live needs to hear this shit and I'm tired of following you around in circles, you're not learning and still posting bullshit about how this stuff works.

check yourself, hear me? I totally appreciate the polite conversation but you're writing some shit over and over that's like saying the world is flat, you don't get it.

OvertoneZero · Post by **OvertoneZero** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 5:07 pm

Hey guys I just saw this on the HC page:

http://namm.harmony-central.com/WNAMM08 ... k-III.html

I wasn't huge into Mk 2 but I heard that a lot of people like it. Maybe I just wasn't tweaking it right or something. Looking forward to demoing this piece over the weekend.

Timur · Post by **Timur** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 5:07 pm

omfg Timur, enough, stfu. seriously, this is lame.

Agreed.

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 5:20 pm

Timur wrote:
omfg Timur, enough, stfu. seriously, this is lame.
Agreed.

I'll keep reading up starting with that page I found though, it wasn't for not.

can we just skip Monday today?

Stan_T · Post by **Stan_T** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 5:27 pm

dj superflat wrote:i also generally run through various zvex pedals which, even when off, effectively boost the signal to make up for old magnets and such. i forget the technical explanation, but believe it (because of how good guitars sound through these things).

I don't think that's correct. Many, if not all, Zvex pedals are true bypass. In other words, when they're turned off you're not running through any circuitry so the sound doesn't change.

The SHO has a very high impedance input, so it doesn't load down the pickups. That why guitars sound so sparkly through them.

OvertoneZero · Post by **OvertoneZero** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 6:02 pm

One more thing, I've been hearing some good things about the BB Preamp lately.

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 6:21 pm

Stan_T wrote:The SHO has a very high impedance input, so it doesn't load down the pickups. That why guitars sound so sparkly through them.

lmfao high five Timur.

I'll find some simple background on this.

Nod · Post by **Nod** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 6:33 pm

Stan_T wrote:I don't think that's correct. Many, if not all, Zvex pedals are true bypass. In other words, when they're turned off you're not running through any circuitry so the sound doesn't change. The SHO has a very high impedance input, so it doesn't load down the pickups. That why guitars sound so sparkly through them.

Interesting article which may just muddy the waters further I fear...

http://www.petecornish.co.uk/case_again ... ypass.html

Timur · Post by **Timur** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 7:02 pm

Timur wrote:I put together a Live 7 set that compares a guitar recording (simple strumming on E mayor) on Line Input vs. Hi-Z Input and also compares a quality 3m cable vs. a budget 5m cable on both inputs. If you don't own Live 7 you can simply play the 4 wav-files from the "Samples" directory with your favorite application.

Consider that I'm no machine so I did not strum all recordings with the same strength, but I tried to make sure that average volume and peaks are consistent. The recording begins with the neck-pickup, then switches to bridge-pickup then back to neck. I'm strumming with the rough side of a white sharkfin plek (couldn't find my yellow one, but they are both medium anyway ), going back and forth between neck and bridge with the strumming hand.

Line-In was recorded through a M-Audio Delta Audiophile 24/96, Hi-Z was recorded through a NI Kore 1. Files were saved at 32-bit and then dithered down to 16-bit using POW-R3 before putting them together into a new project. If you insist that I should be using the very same interface for both inputs I can repeat the process, but I doubt that there will be much of a difference.

This should enable you to make up your own mind of how sound is affected by the different settings.

hiz_vs_linein_vs_cables project.zip - 6.98MB

For those who failed to notice this on the last page. This is a very simple audio comparison of high impedance input versus line-input. Differences are more audible for the inputs and more subtle for the cables. This should be enough effort on this thread, I need to pin down Live's Midi bugs now.

BTW, I wouldn't say one sounds worse than the other, just different. Good to know about the differences when setting these things up, though.

dj superflat · Post by **dj superflat** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 7:08 pm

re the zvex, it's not worth my while to do the search, but somewhere on his site zvex explains why some of the others (if not all) of the pedals reduce the load on the pickups or whatever, which is particularly good for old pickups. see, most folk don't need to know the tech to get good sound (you learn certain things to do and not do over time). that's why i find this obsession with tech funny (has little to do with sound, in that even if you get the right setup, you're still going to have to use your ears to make things sound good (and people with good ears can make even crap gear sound good)).

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 7:33 pm

dj superflat wrote:most folk don't need to know the tech to get good sound (you learn certain things to do and not do over time). that's why i find this obsession with tech funny (has little to do with sound, in that even if you get the right setup, you're still going to have to use your ears to make things sound good (and people with good ears can make even crap gear sound good)).

word.

I just like to ask why. somewhere there has to be a site where they lay out "with a pickup like this that has X impedance, a cable x feet long and a DI box with X impedance, you get a frequency response like this..." Timur's been emphasizing this but his explanations aren't in the form I'm looking for. now I'm getting curious what the frequency response of a typical setup is like.

it's stuff like that always led me to my acoustic, just pick it up and play, no tripping out about pickup type or pickup selector switch or amp type or amp setting, there's got to be a million ways you can tweak an electric guitar's sound. that and I like the way heavy songs sound acoustic.

Timur · Post by **Timur** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 7:42 pm

There are even microphones with switchable impedances. Usually musicians don't have to deal with these things, they rely and depends on techs to handle their stuff.

hodai · Post by **hodai** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 8:56 pm

Here's a cool video about all of this. Curious what the other videos will be about. They seem to be all guitar related. Willits is the shit!

http://www.xlr8r.com/tv/42

Just experiment. You're not going to fuck up your sound card. So many ways to record guitar. See what you like.

Nice forum here.

knotkranky · Post by **knotkranky** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 9:04 pm

Mismatching impedances is a great way to low-fi a sound too.

If it sounds wrong, that ain't it.

If it sounds right, lay it down and move on brother.

Seyser Koze · Post by **Seyser Koze** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 9:05 pm

My guitar has a hole in it. the sound card has a hole in it.

How do I plug one into the other. One should have a sticky outy bit no?

Hi-z Fantay z