Amp sim pedal for recording

[alex.s]

Hi there, as we all know there are ltos of FET preamp designs out there that sound more than very good, especialyl as overdrives.

My question is, does anyone use these for direct recording? When demoing ideas I often plug in straight to Logic and use the amp sim for practicity, since it gives you the option to tweak later and -above all- is very fast to set up so you can work on the ideas right away. All well and good to lay down noodles etc, and these days amp sims sound better than they probably should, but I still feel they somewhat lack the responsiveness of an amp, and surely don't take pedals anywhere near as well.

Would using any of those FET pre's crack this? Perhaps only using a virtual cab sim after? What are your solutions and circuits of choice?

Any kind of input is welcome, since it's more me wondering about possibilities and alternatives rather than a straight up question I guess... How do you do it and what do you use?

Thanks!
Alex

[Beaker]

Hi Alex, I have no direct experience myself, but I built a Runoffgroove Ginger pedal for a friend of mine. He is a full time professional session bassist, working with some big name, internationally known artists. He spends an awful lot of time in recording studios.

He has told me that he has recorded many times, straight to the desk using the Ginger; so no amp at all, or split signal with one signal through the Ginger to the desk, and the other signal through an amp.

He says that he has got superb results, and that the recording engineers he works with, love the simplicity of his setup, and superb tone he is able to get with just one pedal and no amp!

[Frank_NH]

In addition to the Runoffgroove projects, the two Sansamp projects (Classic and GT2) on the main site were designed to be direct boxes, as they attempt to model the response and sound of an entire amp (preamp, power stage, speaker).  However, as long as you get a line level output from an effect or effect chain, you can pass the signal into your recording rig.  Most PC interfaces have inputs for mic and line level inputs with some preamping to boost the signal if needed.

My recording set up consist of a Yamaha 10 channel mixer connected to the sound card of my PC.  I can pass inputs from microphones, drum machines, guitars, keyboard and effects boxes and provide some EQ and mixing before going onto the PC.  There's no reason you can't just record your dry signal and put effects on later.  But like most people, I like hearing the effected signal when I play (including some delay and reverb).  So when I lay down tracks, they have the effects on them already and I use the DAW software to do some final compression and EQ if needed.

[motterpaul]

I use a JCM800 amp for my pedal testing now - usually the clean channel but I usually run it into a Rivera isolation cabinet (the Silent Sister) - miked with an SM57 and from there into a Zoom recorder (R24) which uses regular studio monitors (I have KRKs) for listening.

The point is that all of my testing is done on a recording setup first - and every pedal I make I then hear in the context of "how will it record" although it is not direct in - it is through a real speaker.

I guess you could debate the efficacy of different speaker emulators, but I find using a real speaker and mic does the job quite well. You can get some amazing guitar recording tones by using pedals - the variety is beyond what you can get by using various plug-ins in my opinion.

But I do think that some kind of speaker emulator is an improvement - the direct-in sound of most pedal could be pretty buzzy in many cases, I am guessing.

[Muadzin]

Ideally you should use both for recording, amp sim ad the traditional speaker/microphone combo. Best of both worlds really. Live you'll probably make the sound guy a lot happier if you only used amp/cab sim though. As nothing will endear you more to him then the traditional asshole guitarist with his amp cranked up to full blasting the front rows into deafness and making it impossible to create a good FOH mix.

[alex.s]

Thank you all for the input!

I probably didn't explain myself very well in the first post, I'm only looking for any potential amp sim replacement for sktching ideas, wouldn't go anywhere near an amp sim setup for a gig, nor for an actual recording (though I've found myself keeping the odd amp sim tracks mixed in for texture on a couple of occasions..!)

If anyone has any experience pluggins straight into a DAW with a Britannia, Azebache etc it'd be great to know how that works! Been meaning to build those two for a while but spare time has been something of a luxury in the past 2/3 months..!

[Frank_NH]

What about guitar-->Britannia-->mixer-->computer (w/ Audacity)?  The mixer in my setup provides an interface for getting the signal from line level  to the computer's sound card.  If that's of interest, I can check this out with my Britannia (and Thunderbird).

[alex.s]

Yes I have a couple pre's I'd probably put in between, I often run the direct guitar/bass through anyway, it does give a bit of extra life to the signal which I'm sure would help a FET pre as well!

Thanks a lot for the feedback, and if you do have a chance I'd love to know what the outcome is, don't worry if not though :)

[Frank_NH]

OK - here's a quickie slow blues demo I just did, based on the song "All Your Love" by Magic Sam.  This is a single guitar (my Fender Squire 51 Pawn Shop - bridge pickup) with some badly done bass and drums and thankfully no vocal!

I recorded the guitar track with the Britannia straight into my mixer (which is my interface to the computer, a Windows PC) and recorded using Audacity.  No amps or amp sims, just a touch of reverb from the mixer.

I did this in about 20 minutes and so this arrangement would work if you're just recording quick demos of song ideas.

One thing I discovered is that you need to make sure the levels are adjusted appropriately as it's easy to overload the input to your mixer/recording interface and have it sound bad.  So the volume and gain on the Britannia need to be adjusted along with any gain or output levels on the mixer/interface.

Any of the amp-like circuits could probably be used in place of the Britannia, and you could also certainly add other effects in the chain.  Again, you need to adjust your recording levels to accommodate whatever your output signal is.

This is an mp3 file.  Hopefully you can access it.

all_your_love.mp3