Guitar Players are TOO STUPID to Record at Home!
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- čas přidán 6. 05. 2024
- After years of recieving HORRIBLY RECORDED DI tracks from guitar players, somone FINALLY fixed the problem. Get it here: www.lewitt-audio.com/connect-2
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About Spectre Sound Studios:
I'm Glenn Fricker, engineer here at Spectre Sound Studios. I love making records, and after doing it for sixteen years, I want to pass on what I've learned. On my channel you can find tutorials on how to record guitar, bass, real drums and vocals. There's reviews and demos of tube amps, amp sims, drums, mics, preamps, outboard gear, Electric Guitar, Bass Guitar, and plugin effects.
We've covered Moon on the Water, played Bias FX, given you the absolute best in Stupid Musician Texts, ranted & raved about bass guitar, and this channel is where The Eagle has Landed.
Everything you've wanted to learn about recording Hard Rock & Heavy Metal can be found right here on this channel!
I also respond to your comments & questions: The best make it into the SMG Viewer's Comments series of videos. Loads of fun, lots of laughs.
Thanks for checking out my channel & please subscribe!
I'm hunting for Stevie T's comment.
Having Stevie in the thumbnail brought me here
Same here 😂
As a guitar play who records at home, I fully agree, I could never quite put my finger on why nothing ever sounds right when I play my recordings on someone else's stereo. You've helped me figure it out. The problem is I'm an idiot.
Some led indicator turning red doesnt warned you that something is wrong?
Self-awareness is the first step. 🙂
You're trying to ruin my 20 minute epic shred track!
Yo I totally wanna hear that! Said no one ever... 😂
@@AffectionateBrain-yf4sqlmao, hahaha. But to be fair, there is that 12-16min shred track from Buckethead (dont remember the name, something to do with shape or shade) where the shred feels endless but it's still really enjoyable. At least it was for me. So, there's that
@velyurong9513 I can listen to Jordan by Buckethead endlessly, that's a badass song.
@@Kaz999998Dude, I love that one, too! Honestly, he's got so many great tracks. My personal favorite is probably either 'Look Up There' or 'Goblin Shark' (very different vibes, I know 😅)
@velyurong9513 Hell yeah. I remember when I first heard Soothsayer. I never heard of players like Vai, Satriani, etc. So the first time I heard that it blew my mind.
Hi Glenn, thanks again for checking it out CONNECT 2. If there are any further questions from you guys, as always, we are happy to help.
You make GREAT mics! We used to sell a lot in my shop!
this has to be the most condescending product video that I've ever seen.
@@pgon9097 LOL! Sarcasm went over YOUR head!
In school, we all learned that when we have to cross the street, green means go and red means stop. SAME PRINCIPLE APPLIES TO RECORDING! Pay attention to the interface lights, guys and gals, or your signal is going to get hit by a car and produce all kinds of ugly noises! 😉👍🏻🤘🏻🎸❤️🔥😎
BUT I'M THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN THE UNIVERSE, AND IF I WANNA CROSS WHEN IT'S RED, I WILL!
I had a 20dB sensitivity button on my VU meters in my mastering studio. (For use when the signal was spending a lot of time at very low levels - it just meant the meters were reading 20dB more than the actual signal when it was engaged). I had a bunch of 'artistes' in one day who complained that my careful adjustments in level were pointless because everything sounded better when the meters were in the red. So when no-one was looking, I hit the sensitivity button and the meters were glued to full scale. They were happy then.
*facepalms* Ahh, the beauty of the human mind...
Sounds beautiful! You got yourself a deal!
omfg how many times did I have to tell the guitarist not to send clipped guitar stems? I still get clipped guitar stems from him... every single time
LOUDNESS GOOD! SILENCE BAD!
Convincing him to also send the DI is even harder. The DI track is just so unnecessary in his eyes, because he already has the perfect mix-ready sound, teeheee...
Get another guitarist. No, really.
"My guitar amp sounds good being pushed into overdrive so my interface should sound good to when I push it..."
On behalf of all bass players I have to issue a correction: Our average IQ is 69, not 62!
68. My gf is really short
Nice
69! 😄
Me laugh, play bass.
@@Dave-Rough-Diamond-Dunn 6!9, sorry, I'm a little gassy
Pro tip: to get the least amount of clipping and still a loud signal with your Scarlett change your LED color to blue or pink
LOL!
This
Can confirm, was troubleshooting for over an hour until I remembered to change the batteries in my EMGs…
Spent an hour fiddling with cables in my pedal board one time trying to figure out why I wasn't get any sound. Then I stepped on my volume pedal 😂
Warranteed my strobostomp tuner because I forgot plugging the instrument cable in powered it on 😂
I felt that so hard…
@@stevescott7002 Spent 45 minutes fiddling with my cable and even took off the guitar scratch plate to check the pick ups etc and still wasn't getting any sound...then genius here realised she hadn't plugged in her headphones.
@@joolz666Women, amirite? 😂
Last time I was this early, the vocalist was still hungover, asleep in the van
Hey, when the sun comes up, that means it’s time to go to bed
Imagine Glenn comes back home and finds out that his 100k console is gone . . . .
Sounds like time to invest in an air horn
Cringe
That's funny - the only one in my old band who ever missed a recording session because he was hungover was our rhythm guitarist...
It is not just guitar players. I haven't met a DJ yet who didn't think that running iPod output into the red was not a cool thing.
“DJ” literally means “Dumb Jerkoff”.
I started out as a drummer in a couple of bands with egotistical guitarists who always pushed their instruments up in the mix - to the point where signal clipping was an issue. So, now that Ive been playing guitar for 20 years, I try to not let it go to my head. 😅
my current band is like that. both guitar players like to slam their knobs all the way up at practice... i started wearing ear plugs it was so loud lol
@FirstNameLastName-kp9Hell Yeah. I've been gigging for 35 years and some of those f**kers will peg the amps, then stand two feet in front of them, and they care less about your hearing than theirs. I've been paying the price for my early negligence, but I consider myself lucky for the part because my hearing is still pretty good for a 57 y.o. geezer.
Genius opening Glenn. I was literally laughing out loud during that intro. Astute observations btw. When I record others I’m continually amazed by the lack of attention put to “hey, let’s just check levels…”. Well done. Love your vids. (Cheers from Toronto)
The issue guitarists are having with interfaces is they are not leaving the channel gain knob at ZERO.
Loads of people have covered this already in videos.
The issue stems from the decades advice where "turn the gain up until it starts to clip and then back it off a little"
This advice is for microphones, not guitars.
The gain knob on an interface is a Pre amp, if you want the raw guitar signal so your guitar plugins sound accurate, the gain knob needs to be OFF/ZERO.
Really good coverage of this issue:
czcams.com/video/KCLQp4R0ahs/video.html
Rabea Massaad covers it as well:
czcams.com/video/qAaHTqVG2Go/video.html
It's why loads of people are complaining their plugins which emulate known amps etc sound over saturated, it's because you've added a Pre amp in front of it!!
Turn your gain knob all the way down!!
GAIN GOOD! SILENCE BAD!
Mucho Gratio for this. I have Focus 212, I didn't know this. Had horrible noises trying to D.I. bass through a plugin............................YAY! Fixed!
Now the horrible noises are my singing.
Hey, what if my instrument level clip but when I hit the Pad - 10dB I don't get enough sound detected through the interface? What I've done is I let the pad activated to avoid clipping and raised a bit the gain knob so it always detect signal, I raise also the noise gate to - 60dB. Is this wrong?
It is more complicated than turn your gain knob to zero. Interfaces don't have a standard level and neither does software... They are all different. The only universal truth here is to not clip the DI, all bets are off for levels unless you calculate and experiment with your hardware/software
@@bassgoul agreed and the video I added to my original comment covers this, but zero is the best place to start (not the received wisdom related to mic's which is decades old)
Hi, Glenn! Thank you for the video!
As an idea for a future video, would you consider giving us a manual for in-ear monitoring set-up, particularly for live performance siruations?
Best regards!
I must be a genius for always recording at *instrument level* (around -12dB).
What’s even cooler even with the focus rite if you are using sims you don’t need to use the gain knob at all on the interface. That will only boost your sims. Just learned that recently
According to Glen, not only am I not a bassist, I can't qualify for any band member position😢
@@brianburch120 thats true ... though there are variations in the way different amp sims react to your signal ... so always double check when you use a different amp sim
@@brianburch120 What does this mean? The knob in mine is always in the middle and it sounds fine.
@@bartholomeusclevergood advice
I think you totally correct and it was like this ever since the beginning of guitar recordings, the only thing that changed is that now guitarist have the tolls to do everything they desire and that’s why you we have the most boring and bad sounding metal that we ever had, guitarist record at home without a professional that can guide them with the process of bringing a song together, nowadays the guitarists usually taking upon themselves writing the roles for the whole band and that causes nothing but boring music that was created by a boring guitarist who wanna sound exactly the same as the other boring people in the genre
This video about making a travel recording rig is great, Glenn! Thing is, I can never find videos about setting up mobile phone rigs and recording apps. I’d love to see how you’d approach setting up a mobile recording rig for both mobile platforms, what apps you’d recommend for recording guitar audio, as well as video, and how you’d use them effectively - preferably with just one device or two separate ones at the maximum. In today’s world, lots of people want to be able to travel as light as possible while others don’t even own a computer with the advances and power of smartphones. A video like this would be super useful for people who need a solid, ultra light live rig, for people who want to record on the go, and/or for home-based musicians who don’t want to be tethered to a computer or don’t own a laptop. I’m sure lots of people would appreciate this sort of advice, myself included. Thanks so much for always trying to help people see the green light! Love your passion, enthusiasm, and abrasive humor! You rock!
I’d love to see Glenn have some fun with GarageBand. I’m old now, with a wife and kids.
No more 4x12’s for me, can’t wake up the whole family at 2 AM before going work so I use my iPhone to make simple jam tracks or to get an idea down before my old brain forgets it.
I know it’s not gonna produce professional sounding stuff but in the right hands it’s more powerful than what we had for home stuff in the 80’s.
I record on android using audio evolution mobile, and a zoom u44 interface (wasn't happy with the sound from the scarlett solo) although the zoom u22 would be more portable and it can run off AA batteries so it doesn't need to run down your phone/tablet when there's no power supply.
The U44 has enough channels to record dry/wet and reamp and play the mix.
I'm not doing anything serious with it and it's more than adequate for me.
It'd be good to see what other options there are for that kind of setup though.
@@coastalgenetics6512
"What we had for home stuff in the 80s..." Ho-ly crap, my head went spinning, contemplating that statement
Hey Glenn, great video, and honestly, It makes me want to get one of these myself. Also, I've been having two problems with some of your plug-ins, and I've contacted customer support, but no one has responded to help. This was about I'd say 1 or 2 months ago.
My first problem is that ELE's update to the newest version has never appeared, and I still haven't gotten the update. I've refreshed through Native Instruments and even got an entirely different product registration serial, but still nothing.
The second problem, that I also contacted the support team, but still nothing, I use FL Studio, and when I use Elemental Bass it isn't routed correctly, and doesn't save presets through the DAW either.
I'm not sure what's going on with both of these, but I've loved them since release, yet having both of these issues is something I have to ask here. They are great products, but support issues where you don't even get a response. If there is anything that can be done I'd appreciate it.
Glen, you have inspired me to form a four-piece, all-bass player band. I'm gonna call it: Oops! All Dipshits
lewitt is doing a lot of cool stuff lately. Kind of unrelated, what do you think of Neve's USB interface? Any other recommendations at the same price? Honestly, I'd be interested in your thoughts on small mixers for home recording too, especially what to avoid.
I made a setup for practice at home with old Mac and TC Konfekt 6 interface.
Main benefit of this setup:
- it has hi res input indicator with 3dB step
- it has crazy powerful head amp which can push my 250 Ohm headphones hard at -18 DB of output level.
And now it runs OK.
Because in digital world -18=0 in average.
It was hard to achieve similar result with old sound card.
You are so right. I work full time in the Government IT arena and I have to stay relevant in the latest business intelligence, Power Apps, Power BI, Power Automate, etc..., so when I go home, I don't have the time or motivation to learn something else. I just want to plug in and record. This has been an issue for a long time and I've probably let so many cool riffs be forgotten forever because of my "laziness". A while back I started using the sound recorder on my phone to record riffs or lyrics just so I wouldn't forget them. I really need to set up a small recording system like you did in this video. It's time to take the Line 6 / Marshall stack out to the storage shed and focus on getting a studio sound system set up since I haven't played live in a band for many years.
Intersting product. seems very intuitive. Hey Glen, I would like to request if you can review the Zoom UAC-232. 32bit float recording (kinda like bitrate for video recording? idk if i'm correct), and it doesn't have gain knobs! supposedly can adjust volume on its own as needed.
Glen: "Don't clip your DI signal!"
Also Glen: Reaper meters are clipping behind him....
How about a review of the Tonex One pedal? I hope that is coming because I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. The concept is cool as hell, saves space on the board for those of us who love to use pedals, and the price is pretty incredible for an amp profiler in such a tiny package.
Cool device, comes with a platform to put your beer on, and you even get to pick which color it lights up. I'm a guitar player, suffering from clipping signal, (and 127 drums, GUITARS TOO LOUD IN THE MIX), but thanks to Glenn there still may be hope for me. Love your channel man, keep doing what you're doing!
Woah, that is some NICE editing/camera angles!
I've set up 3 dots with markers in various fun colors to set my input gain on my Focusrite so I know where to set it for my various instruments. Big brain bassist.
I gotta create a damn legend for my interface instead of faffing around. Thanks for the tip!
Hi Glen! thank you so much for the video. been subscribed to you channel for years now.
Which interface do you prefere?
Universal Audio Volt 176 USB Audio Interface (you alse reviewed this)
OR
Lewott connect 2
Thanks again.
get the UAD. The vintage mode on it sounds awesome and it has the 1176 emulation on it. Get the 4 channel version so you can record mics and a DI at the same time. Even if you don't always record mics, get the 4 channel so you have the flexibility
@@pgon9097 Thanks for the reply!!! I would love to buy the 4 channel one but my budget dictates more something like the single channel one with the compressor Lol
Noise reduction, compression, and clip reduction might be a good combo for a live streamer starting out. Adding filters to OBS can introduce latency
Another thing about using audio interfaces you can clip your signal even if the light is green and not red, this is why it’s recommended to record guitar through a DI box for the cleanest signal possible, you could also just check wav file shapes on your guitar tracks, if it looks squared a bit and shaved off the top then it’s clipping, doesn’t matter if your daw and interface say it’s not clipping in this instance use your eyes, if it looks like a brick lower the input slightly until the recording looks normal, as in the peaks aren’t being shaved off the top.
At the end of an already proper video you top it off with "Make sound gooder!!". You're killing me ;-)
I'm not sure I'd even register on that bell curve thingy but you make this interesting anyway. A bit like Rick Beato obsessing about microphone setups for drums. 👍
I'm really tempted to get that Lewitt mic....that thing blows my mind from what you've been doing with it
...doesn't the current gen of Scarlett interfaces have their own version of "clipguard"?
So, for the same price ($199), you're getting an extra input with a Scarlett 2i2, right?
(Along with some extra features like the 'warm' and 'air' circuits/pre-amps...)
As a now fulltime live sound engineer, you are basically my therapist. To their defense, what I don't like about the Scarlet is the Hi-Z switch on a circuit with a combi jack; in practice on a combi jack it's not gonna 100% isolate the two switchable impendances and will gives something a little too sensitive that isn't a proper Hi-Z gain curve. This is why I recommend the ESI amber instead. Very little known interface, it's a 3 in, 2 balanced out with a separate Hi-Z and RCA line input for a little bit more than the Scarlet it's really excellent!!! VU Meters and input selector included. I rock it at home!
As a bassist who does vocals and also plays guitar thnk you for the review always looking to learn how to use the gear and find dope gear
Have you thought about doing a video about different home recording setups at different budgets? I'm thinking an interface, DI, reamp box, monitors and at least one mic and go through options from a low budget to a high budget.
I put down the bong, grabbed a bowl instead and now I'm listening! 😂
As a guitar player I have to say you made me laugh pretty hard Glen. Thank you. I don’t think I’m an idiot but I’ll leave that for others to decide.
Glenn! great video as always... That shirt is sick though, where do I get one??
I have the Scarlett and set my input as I would do on a mixing console, get it to just below clipping.
My guitars always sounded muddy and I couldn't figure out why.
Turns out with the instrument button you don't need to turn the gain up on the interface at all. I've been out of the game for about 10 years so never realised this was a thing until a few weeks back so now I'm going through everything I've done and recording it all.
One trick for recording demo vocals in an untreated room:
1 cardioid microphone (try it with an sm57 for budgeting)
Try recording the levels between -15 db to -18 db instead of -10db
The 5 to 8 db headroom you give yourself will allow you to pump more gain post. There should be less noise since you recorded at a lower level.
I'm not saying it's NOT going to sound like an untreated room, but it will make it sound a bit better than if you did it at -10 db.
What are your thoughts on combo amps with simulators like the positive grid spark amp or the fender mustang amp series?
Would this setup work with those mixing headphones you reviewed a few weeks back?
Hi Glen. I was wondering what are your thoughts on using an eq pedal vs switching out speakers in a cab.
Just pretend Glenn said this: An EQ adds noise, it’s always preferable to get a balanced performance recording with as little processing as possible, then fix any problems if needed. EQ can be a decent fix in post, but is not a replacement for a speaker swap by any means. Use a plugin EQ on the computer, unless you have an obscenely expensive studio rack EQ.
@@JeremyAndersonBoise wait, didn't he actually say that? :)
I appreciated the Lewitt Ray demo portion more than the guitar portion, mainly since I have a need for that as a podcasting mic. Still, I like what the interface brings as far as helping getting things up and running fast. It's ALMOST easy enough for a bass player to understand.
Hey Glenn! Really had a blast here. I love you ranting and shouting and bitching about everyone and everything. Thanks for the content as well!
Sounds great, minus all the plosives. Why were the plosives so forward? It's not like you were eating the mic and you were using the foam that should have killed the plosives. Did the mic come with a pop guard you weren't using?
Do pickup volume knobs for active pick ups effect the input results? say you have an 81 60 setup, can you tune the volume with the knobs to get a good input signal or do they have to be at 100 percent?
better is to reduce noisefloor as much as it can be, so greater input signal with less gain on interface is better than weak signal and cranked interface gain. unless it's necessary, when signal at lowest gain setting is clipping
@@kaazik420 Interesting thanks for your response. having a hell of a time getting things to sound good. Seems with a strong input signal the focusrite and others can only be turned up the smallest amount, im talking small. not sure if im doing something wrong and i guess not typing the right things into google. just get a dull sound.
Most of the time you want guitar knob maxed unless you are going for a specific tone from an amp. Same with tone. Also make sure battery's are good , active pickup will lose power and clarity when battery runs low
@@krustdogg131 thanks for this krusty!
learned audio engineering before i picked up guitar thx for the advice and tips boss man now i know how to set this joint up
Stevie T is actually a good guitar player !! 😂
Don’t know if he clips his recording or not though 😂
Our man Stevie T got a bad hand on that thumbnail 😂😂
On the serious side though: stop tracking with 1/4 inputs, get a di box to transform 1/4 to xlr. More headroom less noise (THANK ME LATER). And for a clip guard I actually use an onboard compressor on my interface, it compresses before hitting the analog to digital recording circuit! It’s a Universal Audio Volt.
Always adjust the input gain, every guitar pickup is different, specially actives versus passive
Glenn, you should use this for your VO input device on the VC videos as you really need that clipguard at times.
Love the features of that mic, a few pops comming through though.
As for the soundcard, those features with exception of the clipguard have been available on gaming grade soundcards for ages, nice to see them for an Asio card, question is if it’s done via software or the hardware itself, the latter will make the interface useful for weaker laptops.
Personally I think it’s still better to use eyes and ears for propper tracking, always nice to know what and what doesn’t give issues, especially when moving to a mixer.
Also have to add, occasional clipping doesn’t harm, as long as it isn’t to frequent and with to much dB the mix will be fine in most circumstances.
Got a few live engineers that tour with some of the big names to backup that claim.
Same goes for EQ’ing, setting low/high pass filters etc., if the mix sounds good there is no need to, nor are there any golden rules that should be used over the ears, with exception of bass and guitar player ears that want to hear most of themself ofc. 😂
Just watched Hennings demo, the Denoise feature is actually very good, not a gate but a real denoiser it seems, I wonder if it can remove power amp hum, that little hum that is there after the master volume reaches the sweetspot for the lowend thumb/oomph for the connected speakers, basically that is where one starts to feel the air getting moved from the cab, unfortunately that is also where power amp hum is introduced or more pronounced.
Can confirm. I recently learned to make the mix not so bass heavy, just turn the volume down. Now my guitars are louder than thr whole mix. What every guitarist wants.
love it when my waveforms look like a rectangle
2:20 Laney Ironheart Loudpedal user here. Plugged it into my Presonus interface. XLR out from the Laney and it was on the Clean channel. Fired up the Yamaha studio monitors, fired up my interface….sounded like SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT. Like the accidental distortion on a 1930s jazz record. Ableton Live just like I always have. Relatively new Kiesel 7 string guitar with humbuckers. Turned every volume and gain knob on every device I have. Including Ableton. Still didn’t fix the problem. Patch cables are fine. They work no problem at my drummer’s place. I get a nice clean sound there no problem. Not sure what to try next.
I love those red halo lights on my Focusrite. Even as a guitarist myself I have managed to figure out what’s they are for. Really useful. It turns out even acoustics guitars will clip if you try to record them too hot. Who knew? Phew! That Lewitt looks awful fiddly. I’m staying with my red halos and nice tactile rotary knobs thanks.
As a guitarist myself I totally enjoyed this video (propably more than I sould) - I was literally rolling on the floor, laughing my ass off. And there are some sins mentioned here of which I am definitely guilty. I subscribed to the channel long time ago, and learned a lot from Glenn. Overdue to say: Thank you, Glenn - and this really comes from the bottom of my heart!
I'm a guitar player Glenn..... I've learned a TON of stuff from you over the years and try to remain humble. Though I did know about both clipping and the speakers being the main factor in creating the tone before ever seeing your channel. lol Love ya man, keep up the great work! (and take it easy on us Kemper owners)
This is very usefull to me, i have these problems but i dont know how to search a solitution for this in english because I dont know the exact name of the problem, and it is hard to find in my language.
Thank you veyr much for this
(sorry for any mistake)
Just picked up the LP-UNFs at your recommendation. Super happy with them. Just did my first mix on them and they're absolutely killer.
I recently saw a video that blew my mind. I had the best results by lowering the interface gain to 0. It makes a lot of sense if you're working with IR/Neural, using the interface gain works like a boost pedal always on. Using on 0 has been a game changer for me
My rule of thumb has always been to set my input gain so the peaks during typical playing are around -6dB, maybe a bit lower on clean guitars. I apply this basic principle to my drums, guitars, and voice. Experience has taught me that this leaves headroom for almost all excursions. I guess it just seemed intuitive to me from the get go?
hi Glenn. Is it possible that you do something in deot like this about tube amp maintenance?
That headphone inputs are a really good idea for and gear. I really like that. 🤘🏼👽
What Do you think about the monitors Yamha HS-5, HS-7?
Jajaj I’m enjoying this!! I admit I have two focusrite scarlets, seldomly use them!😂
I have the opposite problem. I can hardly get that ring to light up with one of my basses. The Bass Recorder in C is just that quiet.
I need to get one of those microphones.When i'm doing a livestream. You wouldn't believe how people get annoyed that they're watching your stream and you're quit's like they don't get that you're focused on what you're doing.
I learned back in the analogue days, and hitting the pre-amp hard was a thing. Took me ages to figure out why my recordings sounded like arse when I moved to digital. Digital stuff doesn’t like a lot of input.
Not just the preamps, but tape saturation as well.
But Glenn, clipping is part of my sound, it gives warmth and growl to my tone
I feel clipping really brings out the best of my guitar's tonewood. 😉
I knew that the red light was bad before I even started playing guitar. Of course my grandfather was a audio engineer and system designer. So I kind of got a little heads up. Trim pots on the back of your mixer work wonders
Should have added a tip to record and export tracks at the same bitrate. Took me a while to figure out why my renders had issues
Saved to my “Music Production” YT playlist. Thank you Glenn!
I was recording my vocals and the waveform was around the middle, but sounded bad. Turns out that I have hardware that would have the red warning light and didn't know of its existence. So, the interface was at a good level, but part of what was feeding it was clipping. An adjustment later and it sounded much better
Im super picky about how my guitar tone/volume sounds. I dont like seeing the red light on my interface, I just play around with volume and settings until I like the results.
Hmm, I realized that the red clipping light was bad and on my audio track warning too. So I rolled
Back the volume. I guess my IT smarts pay off in more ways than one.
OMG Glenn! I just spent the first 2 mins of the video LMAO! Great stuff.
*The input (on the interface) should be set at 0 or very near, not just "down". The programs guitar players are using already have a baseline gain setting and being anything above 0 just adds to that. That's likely why it was still clipping. John Nathan Cordy did a video on this, i believe.*
LOL Stevie T cameo in thumbnail! You guys rock!
It seems that there is no unanimous consensus on where to dial in the input gain. Some say -12db, others say it doesn't matter so long as you dont clip the signal. Does this mean that low or hot pickup output doesn't really matter much? It seems that you can drive the input of amp sims exactly the same, with any pickup output, just raise or lower the input gain.
Well I have a guitar where I have to turn the volume knob to 8-9 when I record because chugs clip the input with the input volume turned all the way down…of course it matters what pickups you are using, just like with a real amp.
Stevie in the thumbnail!! aaaaahahahahahahaha!! I'm dying!!
Lmao I love the way every time I get an email of something I want releasing, you have a video 5 minutes later
Gonna admit it here, I clipped my signal last week. Couldn't figure out why it kept sounding like shit. Turns out my son had messed with the db pad on the di box and put it back to 0. 😅
Man this Jedi Priest shirt is very cool!
This is super important. I bought a Klone kit from StewMac because I wanted to get into building guitar-related things, and I saw that one of the most common ways to use a Klon is as a boost. But when you're going direct from the guitar into the interface you're just going to clip. Which means for me it's not the most useful pedal for my own home recording.
So basically Glenn we need a video of what hardware pedals WILL and WILL NOT work in front of an interface. It isn't a real amp where you can get saturations that sound good by driving harder.
The great thing about digital sound is that, if you want a boost, you just turn up the volume in the DAW or add a simple volume adjustment plugin. Not only that, but the drive option on amp sims is also doing the same thing and effectively boosting the signal going into the amp. Some amp sims like the Ignite Amps Emissary also have an input adjuster in case the signal is still too quiet or too loud.
If you really want to, there are some great (free) pedal emulations like the TSE808, which, iirc, also filters the sound before it goes into the ampsim.
You probably don't want to put any pedals before an interface and just handle the FX digitally. (Wah pedal is an exception, you could put compression or anything before the interface if you really like the way a pedal works, just don't use it to boost the output. Boosting can be done digitally after the interface.)
Exactly, and a lot of other guitarists don't know this. I'm sure a chorus, reverb, delay, or even an octave pedal would also be fine before the interface, but things related to gain should be handled in the DAW.
Zero. Do not put pedals in front of the interface. You want the cleanest DI track you can get. Then you can re-amp into any pedals you want.
I thought Lewitt invented a device that when a stup*d guitar player clips his signal to the audio interface, a hand will appear and grabs his guitar, and smash it to pieces.
"Dont bring your beer near the $100,000 mixing console!"
Saw an interview with Lita Ford where she mentioned spilling a Heineken on one back with the Runaways and that being where her royalties went... to pay off that little mishap. That definitely got my attention with regards to that.
I'm a guitarist. When I first bought a Scarlett 4i4 I didn't own a computer. All everyone told me was to buy one and that's it.
Ended up buying a Lenovo Yoga C9.
It's videos like this that make me glad that I'm a keyboard player first and a guitarist second. I DO know how to record. I do it all the time and as far as I can tell, and the responses form listeners say, my guitars sound pretty damned good. Of course friends lie too though. The thing is, it can be done. I don't use real amps. To much trouble and BS. I use amp sims and I.R.s. My interface is a 32 channel Presonus StudioLive mixer. I have a crap ton of gear and I hate plugging and unplugging shit in. This just works!
Thanks a lot Glen. Why do I want more stuff again?
Kudos to Lewitt for this no-BS approach! Zoom actually makes a two channel 32-bit float audio interface for about the same money, too. I wish more companies would finally give us 32-bit float ADCs and never had to see a gain knob again!
Automatic gain/leveling seems to work pretty nice on the video. That's a great feature.
in the defence of guitarists, there has been a lot of misinformation out there about recording direct that would come up in searches, mainly "set the input gain to just below clipping", even ampsim companies said this. then at the tail end of last year there was a proper investigation done across various interfaces and amp sims and a series of videos across multiple youtube channels to dispel that myth.
on the other hand, I had a 3rd gen 4i4 for a few years and it sucked, partly because it was faulty, partly because there wasn't enough headroom on it. after getting tired of focusrite's BS I got a Volt 476P and I couldn't be happier, tons of headroom and everything just sounds better. literally doing an A\B test with the volt and 4i4 with the same source and monitors, the output of the volt was cleaner & had more detail. a couple friends were convinced and also bought a Volt, finding the same results. the 2i2 and 4i4 are trash.
Plastic and hard anodised aluminium? How will that be any good if it isn’t made of tonewood and covered in nitro lacquer?
things don't work like that.
guitar players want "plug and play" not clicking options and waiting for calibration. most of their pedals have one button only.
(no. seriously. fighting clipping with Scarlett is just "turn the knob down if it's red". but with this thing it's a quite a setting procedure.)
It is not clipping, it is digital distortion. The analog amps go to eleven, 11 in digitalspeak is 17 so you can turn it up a little more.