Recording pedal demos through interface?

[BurntFingers]

I've got an audient id14, I've got a bunch of pedals that's need demos.

When I put a fuzz pedal in front of the interface in the daw and record it sounds like shit, fizzy and flat, which is obviously the opposite of what we're looking for.

Even with the gain on the interface at zero it's still too much.

Is there something I'm missing? A DI box? I don't want to mic a cab and everything that entails if I can avoid it but how to get an accurate fuzz sound from pedals into an interface. Any knowledgeable folks out there with some pearls of wisdom?

 

[knucklehead]

I used to use a starved-plate ART tube DI for this kind of thing - they were cheap and worked reliably. A cab sim pedal or box might help, as would a preamp meant to send a guitar signal to a console or FOH. I am just re-venturing down this road myself, just having gotten an EVO for similar purposes.

A big part of 'the sound' is gain structure, power compression and speaker characteristics that is a rig, so anything you can do to re-introduce amplification elements can help. A direct/line feed changes the game a bit.

Thanks for asking the question - I'ma be following this conversation.

 

[Reno315]

Try a cab impulse response loader.

 

[Grubb]

Try a cab impulse response loader.

This is absolutely the answer. Any pedal or guitar signal straight into your recording software without an impulse response is going to sound like poo no matter how good the pedal is, because there's no speaker (or speaker emulation) in your guitar signal chain. NadIR and LeCab are 2 good free IR loaders I've used. There are lots of free IRs floating around too, try Ownhammer's free pack. I've paid for a few York Audio premium IRs and they are top, top quality.

 

[BurntFingers]

Try a cab impulse response loader.

Oh gotcha. Like an amp sim vst? I do have guitar rig 5 which has a plethora of stuff and the Lancaster IR pack from Glenn Fricker.

So to be clear, there's no need for anything extra 'out front' as it were, like a di box etc?

 

[BurntFingers]

update:

I plugged my pedalboard into my daw, opened reaper, played. Sounds like balls.

Opened GR5, added the cab simulator. Sounds awesome.

I'm kicking myself it was that easy all along and feel like a caveman seeing an astronaut.

Thanks guys.

For the record I'm using the Control Room pro cab sim in GR5 with the 4x12 green cab model (most related to what I actually use).

It needs a bit of EQ sculpting to remove the massive low end but compared to the fizzy mess it was before this is 1000% more usable and makes pedal demos actually feasible.

 

[SYLV9ST9R]

Oh gotcha. Like an amp sim vst? I do have guitar rig 5 which has a plethora of stuff and the Lancaster IR pack from Glenn Fricker.

So to be clear, there's no need for anything extra 'out front' as it were, like a di box etc?

You already have a [JFET] D.I. input on your interface, so you're good on that front. With a cab/amp sim, you'll be good.

 

[Grubb]

Opened GR5, added the cab simulator. Sounds awesome.

Good news.

 

[BurntFingers]

You already have a [JFET] D.I. input on your interface, so you're good on that front. With a cab/amp sim, you'll be good.

Yeah it's a big improvement. There's some issues with muddiness and cab sims though, like it's easy to get bass but not so easy to get a reliable, true-to-life high end without boosting the crap out of the high end in an EQ curve, but I guess a speaker and amp takes care of a lot of that in real-life.

 

[knucklehead]

FWIW - I came by a Mooer Radar, but I played with one of their TresCab micro pedals - it works really well; http://www.mooeraudio.com/product/TresCab--88.html

Just in case you ever want to ditch your rig when you're live - one can dream.

 

[rmfx]

Electric guitars are picky beasts. A DI'd electric guitar (nothing else, no processing) will always sound bad IMO. The coloration of the amp and speaker is almost what defines the tone of electric guitar. Most amp circuits have a pretty drastic EQ shift of the signal. I believe it's a pretty massive shelving boost of lows and highs, depending on your tone stack and other variables. The speaker is the opposite, a pretty "narrow" frequency range typically between 80hz-5k. Doesn't go very high or very low, and the EQ response of speakers is anything but smooth. That combination of amp color and speaker color (and whatever other gear you're using, duh) is what gives you that typical "electric guitar tone".

If you are going to DI an electric guitar, you absolutely need some sort of amp/cab simulator, whether it be hardware or software. I see you used Guitar Rig, happy that helped a lot.

Micing a speaker also drastically affects the tone, proximity effect will cause a massive increase in low-end. I find I high pass electric guitars somewhere between 75-200hz depending on a lot of variables to overcome close-micing. I'll using do that on amp/cab simulators, too, but a must with a mic. A little bit of room ambience on electric guitar (that aren't using a room mic or anything further away) will help it open up and sound a lot more natural, too.

 

[knucklehead]

Electric guitars are picky beasts. A DI'd electric guitar (nothing else, no processing) will always sound bad IMO. The coloration of the amp and speaker is almost what defines the tone of electric guitar. Most amp circuits have a pretty drastic EQ shift of the signal. I believe it's a pretty massive shelving boost of lows and highs, depending on your tone stack and other variables. The speaker is the opposite, a pretty "narrow" frequency range typically between 80hz-5k. Doesn't go very high or very low, and the EQ response of speakers is anything but smooth. That combination of amp color and speaker color (and whatever other gear you're using, duh) is what gives you that typical "electric guitar tone".

If you are going to DI an electric guitar, you absolutely need some sort of amp/cab simulator, whether it be hardware or software. I see you used Guitar Rig, happy that helped a lot.

Micing a speaker also drastically affects the tone, proximity effect will cause a massive increase in low-end. I find I high pass electric guitars somewhere between 75-200hz depending on a lot of variables to overcome close-micing. I'll using do that on amp/cab simulators, too, but a must with a mic. A little bit of room ambience on electric guitar (that aren't using a room mic or anything further away) will help it open up and sound a lot more natural, too.

Right there with you - across the board. It's part of the appeal to the Mooer devices; both run IR, and the Radar actually lets you import your own. There are others that get high opinion marks. The Mooer pedals are the first I have tried and purchased.

I'm looking forward to getting my Radar - my need is the same as the OP, and I am STILL not certain my existing plugin environment provides me with the solution he found for himself. I have the Evo 8 (quite similar to the id14 I believe) and no software beyond what came with the device.

Beyond sound clips - I want a solution that will let me go rig-less in performance with my pedal board with as few compromises sonically as I can come to. We shall soon see how far this gets me.

 

[BurntFingers]

Electric guitars are picky beasts. A DI'd electric guitar (nothing else, no processing) will always sound bad IMO. The coloration of the amp and speaker is almost what defines the tone of electric guitar. Most amp circuits have a pretty drastic EQ shift of the signal. I believe it's a pretty massive shelving boost of lows and highs, depending on your tone stack and other variables. The speaker is the opposite, a pretty "narrow" frequency range typically between 80hz-5k. Doesn't go very high or very low, and the EQ response of speakers is anything but smooth. That combination of amp color and speaker color (and whatever other gear you're using, duh) is what gives you that typical "electric guitar tone".

If you are going to DI an electric guitar, you absolutely need some sort of amp/cab simulator, whether it be hardware or software. I see you used Guitar Rig, happy that helped a lot.

Micing a speaker also drastically affects the tone, proximity effect will cause a massive increase in low-end. I find I high pass electric guitars somewhere between 75-200hz depending on a lot of variables to overcome close-micing. I'll using do that on amp/cab simulators, too, but a must with a mic. A little bit of room ambience on electric guitar (that aren't using a room mic or anything further away) will help it open up and sound a lot more natural, too.

The problem I now have is an obscene low end and general boominess in the sound, whatever ir loader and responses used there's an ever present boom that overwhelms.

This means a lack of high end information so tone knobs don't do a whole lot, or at least don't showcase the full range.

I get frequencies and pass filters, I've done studio stuff with bands before, it'd just be great to be able to record a pedal and have it sound semi- realistic.

Getting a fun manageable tone is dead easy by an od pedal into a cab sim but when the objective is to demonstrate the range of tones in a unit, that's proving difficult.

And if we can keep this strictly to interface/home studio recording that'd be great.

 

[Danbieranowski]

The problem I now have is an obscene low end and general boominess in the sound, whatever ir loader and responses used there's an ever present boom that overwhelms.

This means a lack of high end information so tone knobs don't do a whole lot, or at least don't showcase the full range.

I get frequencies and pass filters, I've done studio stuff with bands before, it'd just be great to be able to record a pedal and have it sound semi- realistic.

Getting a fun manageable tone is dead easy by an od pedal into a cab sim but when the objective is to demonstrate the range of tones in a unit, that's proving difficult.

And if we can keep this strictly to interface/home studio recording that'd be great.

I haven’t been happy with the amount of work it is to get decent demo videos of my pedals, so I’ve moved to using an iRig Pre ($40) and a Behringer B906 ($50) hung right on a cab. I run the iRig direct into my phone and just record directly into my iPhone camera. It’s so much faster and easier and it honestly sounds great. IR loaders and amp sims are fine, but I don’t find them to be reliable replicators of pedal tones.
Here are a few examples of this mic/iRig/iPhone setup:

 

[caiofilipini]

I'm a happy user of a Torpedo Captor X. It's not cheap, but by far the best sound I was able to get out of a cab-less home recording system. That and a couple of well chosen OwnHammer IRs and I'm good to go.

 

[caiofilipini]

Btw that's basically what you hear in this video:

 

[BurntFingers]

Btw that's basically what you hear in this video:

That's coming out of the amp right? Then into the interface?

 

[caiofilipini]

That's coming out of the amp right? Then into the interface?

That's guitar > pedal > amp > Captor X > recording interface

 

[BurntFingers]

Yeah I'm trying to remove the amp from the whole process but it's looking like the most feasible option.

 

[caiofilipini]

Yeah I'm trying to remove the amp from the whole process but it's looking like the most feasible option.

Ah, yeah, I guess amp sims are the way to go, but you gotta find the sweet spot with your rig. Good luck!