So,

I'm buying a guitar, a distortion pedal and I want to use them with my computer. Has any of you guys done that before? I'm thinking of using the basic method explained here.

Quality isn't much of my goal - the sound will always be distorted anyway

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You should always aim to record your guitars in the best possible way. The whole 'oh, it'll be distorted anyway so it wont matter' arguement wont stack up.

Why? because there is desireable sounding distortion and there is shit sounding distortion. Clipping distortion and overcompression sound shit on guitars. Guitars also sound shite when recorded without preamping the signal because the end result will be very quiet and you will have to apply massive amounts of post gain to make the signal audible. This will scale up the noise floor in proportion with the peak signal so you will get loads of horrible sounding 'hiss' and 'mud.'

Analogue distortion can be pleasant sounding though. Alot of guitars sound great distorted because they are going through several tubes or valves and accumulate all the interesting harmonics that result when you overdrive them. You can use a digital tube/valve amp simulator to achieve something close but keep this firmly in post production territory.

It is amazing how much of the tone comes from the clean guitar before distortion. Focus on getting that right first. If you overdrive a shit sounding guitar it will still sound shit. But it will simply be distorted sludgy sounding shit instead.

Derivative,

If I used a pedal such as this (which is a very simple pedal, I reckon), would I still need a pre-amp? If I do need one, what exactly should I look for?

My focus is on hardcore punk, if that helps

quote:

Originally posted by Transaholic Here's a link to the Guitar Rig home page: http://www.native-instruments.com/i...us&tsr_id=35486

Although it does sound interesing, I really can't afford that.

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Forget the distortion pedal, best thing for you to do is pick up a line6 pod or line6 guitar port. Same price, better results

quote:

Originally posted by /I\ Forget the distortion pedal, best thing for you to do is pick up a line6 pod or line6 guitar port. Same price, better results

Actually, I'm getting a pedal for U$ 90

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Congrats on the POD dewd

I have a zoom 505 and it does have a preamp on it but its not really that good in my opinion and you cant apply a hell load of pre gain.

To get real tone out of a guitar, you still need to run it through some valves though...I would go with the line 6 pod if you can afford it. Get the recording part down first with a hot, clean signal. Then think about distortion afterwards. Distortion stomboxes are a dime a dozen these days anyway

quote:

Originally posted by Derivative Get the recording part down first with a hot, clean signal. Then think about distortion afterwards. Distortion stomboxes are a dime a dozen these days anyway

You mean, these little analogic boxes? They're cheaper then? hmm... that's interesting.

So, let me check if I got this right: I'd plug the guitar into my computer directly, record the sound and, only then, I'd use the pedal to distort the sound I've already recorded, right? That's interesting. But, being the total noob that I am, I've got to ask: That would also work if I used a software rather than a stompbox/pedal, wouldn't it?

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No.

You need to run the guitar into a pre amp or DI box first. Add pregain on the preamp. You can also use some amplifiers that have an output like the Roland Cube-60. Then the output on the preamp/amplifier goes into the input on your audio interface. If you can run a balanced line from the preamp then all the better.

You can then put the stomp box after the preamp/amplifier but before the the audio interface input. Or you can record the clean guitar signal and distort it using amp overdrive simulators in your DAW.

You will get different results either way so its worth experimenting. If you have a long chain I would still use a valve amp with an output. I dont know why, but my guitar needs to go through some valves to get real tone out of it .

Its easier to pick up hiss/humm and other unwanted aspects to the sound when you are recording a clean guitar. Once you have gotten that part down you can stick a stompbox into the chain and start wrecking things up.

Its better to build on a solid foundation and work out all the recording kinks before piling on the effects. Its harder to tell whats wrong with the physical recording process if it has the living shite overdriven out of it.

Bit of a valve purist myself and will DI record straight from my rig of doom, but its giving me headaches too. Even though a jmp1 preamp has speaker emulation as an option for di-ing it still sounds a lot better when running it through a poweramp and cab, but miking and cranking out stuff in a bedroom environment is really uncool. Hence, looking at other options because the overall sound of DIing a preamp with 'fuzz on' really stops me recording guitar stuff to DAW. Using a POD is one option although it does sound clinical but the arguement for that is you dont notice the difference when its in the mix. Also tried the idea of guitar -> BOSS compression/distortion pedal -> PC just for kicks and it sounded very unnatural for a guitar type of sound (best described as a chainsaw having a bad day).

Maybe running a clean signal and adding vst based effects later would be the best option because DIing (well .. clean signal from preamp here ) and using VST effect while recording adds a delay between what you play and hear and its really annoying.

Last edited by /I\ on May-21-2006 at 11:14

As you can see, still searching for the holy grail of DIing guitar here

so hope you dont mind if I ask, what kind of daw plugin are you using to process your valvetastic preamp sound ?

Not the DAW. There are a number of valve/tube amp simulator plugins around if you cant afford a valve amp. Of those, stereo greasetube is one of my favourites from the freeware department. Saturated Driver is also pretty good and free. If you are paying money then Voxengo Warmifier is amazing.

Amp simulation wont beat the real thing though. But if you want to go the valve amp route and mic it, you need to have a really good recording environment that has been acoustically treated. And you obviously need a really good mic, pre and balanced lines.