Recording guitar at home

[mrpupkin]

i unplugged my behringer today because I'm going to be lecturing online away from home, and lo, my onboard laptop speakers have no drivers! I spent ages trying to download them but no dice. fucking hell I hate windows 10 audio. i got the onboard mic working though, so I'll just do it with headphones on.

I also have terrible problems with update changing drivers so the input shifts from mono to one stereo channel. i just do some things for fun, god knows how you handle this shit professionally with windows. i guess you dont

Not a professional by any means but I jumped ship to a Macbook Air after tiring of having endless issues with making music on Windows laptops (ever heard of DPC latency? Fucking hell). Honestly haven't had a single problem or even minor inconvenience since.

[drummersaredeaf]

Any reaper/latency experts help with this?

I have been recording using a Line 6 gx into amplitube. While my monitoring latency is absolutely fine, I had an issue getting the parts to play back in sync. Played to a click and midi/sampled parts that are totally rigid, but on playback I lose a little at the beginning of the clip and sound about 0.1 of a second early compared to the other tracks. I wondered if I'm a dreadfully shite guitarist for a while, but I'm able to replicate it, and have been able to sort the problem by nudging, though this creates problems with punching in, and I'm often forced to start tracks a bar or two early so I can play notes on the click to sync to after (Action! etc). Any ideas?

[BeardFaceMan]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lKKDuPhaLlfXzVeJ2MZViVkkplG3JnkY/view?usp=sharing

There's a short mp3 to show you what I was working with, the first half of the clip is using my bass guitar through the UM2, the 2nd half of the clip is what it sounded like using the Rocksmith cable using the same bass amp vst settings. There's not as noticeable a difference with the electric guitar but it definitely sounds better too.

[chutnut]

Any reaper/latency experts help with this?

I have been recording using a Line 6 gx into amplitube. While my monitoring latency is absolutely fine, I had an issue getting the parts to play back in sync. Played to a click and midi/sampled parts that are totally rigid, but on playback I lose a little at the beginning of the clip and sound about 0.1 of a second early compared to the other tracks. I wondered if I'm a dreadfully shite guitarist for a while, but I'm able to replicate it, and have been able to sort the problem by nudging, though this creates problems with punching in, and I'm often forced to start tracks a bar or two early so I can play notes on the click to sync to after (Action! etc). Any ideas?

It sounds like something's trying to over-compensate for latency somewhere, I'm not familiar with that interface so I don't know what sort of latency options it has. It might be worth trying different buffer sizes/sample rates as well if you haven't already.
Sorry not particularly helpful!

[Sherman Krank]

Any reaper/latency experts help with this?

I have been recording using a Line 6 gx into amplitube. While my monitoring latency is absolutely fine, I had an issue getting the parts to play back in sync. Played to a click and midi/sampled parts that are totally rigid, but on playback I lose a little at the beginning of the clip and sound about 0.1 of a second early compared to the other tracks. I wondered if I'm a dreadfully shite guitarist for a while, but I'm able to replicate it, and have been able to sort the problem by nudging, though this creates problems with punching in, and I'm often forced to start tracks a bar or two early so I can play notes on the click to sync to after (Action! etc). Any ideas?

I had a very similar issue a few years back where anything I recorded through the interface was being rendered in the DAW (Reaper) just enough out of time to make it sound shit. Though in my case it was being rendered behind the beat, if I zoomed right in on the track there would be a little gap between the start of the measure and the start of the file. The latency was fine in monitoring and any changes I made to latency wouldn't affect the size of the gap so I thought it probably wasn't that.

I borrowed a couple of different interfaces and tried a couple of trial versions of different DAWs but the issue remained.

In all the googling I did at the time I never found anyone with the same issue.
Some tangential research I did suggested it might have been the particular CPU I was using which was more intended for business use (my brother liberated it from a broken PC at his work) but I wasn't able to confirm that was definitely the cause.

I never managed to fix the problem and like you would just drag the file back into time.

[BeardFaceMan]

Quick question, I have a Behringer FX600 effects pedal, can I use this in conjunction with the UM2? Where would I put it in the chain, would it be guitar plugged into the pedal, pedal into the UM2 (in the input where I usually plug the guitar in), UM2 connected to PC? Or do I somehow have to put the UM2 before the FX pedal?

[Sherman Krank]

Guitar into pedal into UM2, don't know how it'll sound without a preamp in the chain though as I've never tried that.
I used to plug the guitar straight in to the interface and all the amps and effects were added virtually with VSTs.
Now the guitar goes through a pedal chain into an amp then through a speaker cab emulator then into the interface (and I have an ABY pedal at the start of the chain with one output going through the pedals etc. and the other going straight into the second input of the interface so I have a second clean unamplified recording if I need to re-amp).

[BeardFaceMan]

I've got VSTs for most of the effects the pedal has like flanger, chorus etc, I only really bought it for the pitchshifter, I wasn't able to find a good vst that pitchshifts in real-time. And as a bonus, I can use the pedal with Rocksmith to play drop tuning songs without having to retune my guitar all the time. Would be nice to have a way to do it in my DAW, though.

[BeardFaceMan]

For another £20 you could add one of these Tube Amp Modeller.
It's a knockoff of a Sansamp GT2, not in the same league but it's around a tenth of the price.
It's basically an overdrive pedal with a pre-amp chip in it with digital simulation of three popular tube amp types (Fender Tweed/Marshall Plexi/Mesa Boogie Dual Rec).

I was having trouble with the UM2, for some reason my DAW started saying that I needed to update the drivers, tried reinstalling everything, couldn't get it to work properly so I bought one of these TM300's. Holy shit, this is what I've been looking for, nothing to install, no drivers to worry about and now I don't need to mess around with IR loaders and pre-amp VSTs to try and get a decent guitar sound, it even works with bass. I'm probably going to end up binning the IR loaders altogether and just stick with this bad boy.

So would I now be able to use the TM300 and the FX600 together in a chain?

[Sherman Krank]

Yes, the TM300 is just a pedal even though it functions as a preamp.
You can think of the FX600 as your pedalboard and the TM300 as your amp so the FX600 would be first in the chain, though being that they're just pedals you could try switching the order which should change the sounds (the first pedal in a chain can alter the sound of the next and so on, for example a wah placed before a fuzz will give you a different sound to a wah placed after a fuzz).
Ideally both pedals should then go into the UM2 but if you're happy enough with the sound you're getting then go with it. 

The FX600 is adding modulation to the signal, the TM300 is adding gain (volume) and the UM2 is converting the signal from analog into digital more efficiently than the computer can do it.

[BeardFaceMan]

OK, thanks for that. I'll try those two pedals together and see what happens, no idea what's going on with the UM2 or why it suddenly stopped working.

[BeardFaceMan]

So I've been having fun with that guitar pedal, now it's time to take care of the bass. I'm going for a rock/punk type sound for the bass, would something like this do the job? - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Behringer-BOD400-Overdrive-Effects-Pedal/dp/B002EWPX54/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2SLU7K96A93LF&keywords=behringer+bass&qid=1652450246&sprefix=behringer+bass%2Caps%2C98&sr=8-3 Not quite getting the sound I want by plugging it into the TM300.

Have to say I've been pretty pleased with the Behringer stuff I've tried so far.

[Sherman Krank]

That's an overdrive/distortion pedal designed to handle bass frequencies. Unlike the TM300 it doesn't have a built in pre-amp as it's meant to go into a bass amp. Running it straight into a computer it's likely to sound a bit weak and farty.
You could put it in front of the TM300 then try to set that up to mimic a bass amp (ie. set the TM300 so you have a decent clean bass sound then use the BOD400 to dirty it up).

Behringer also do the BDI21 which is basically the bass version of the TM300.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Behringer-Modeler-Guitar-Effects-Pedal/dp/B000KIPUQG
Amazon seem to be sold out of them just now but they're usually around £18-25.
It's an amp modeler and DI box designed for direct recording, you'll be able to get an overdriven sound out of it but not full on distortion.

There's also the Caline CP-60 Wine Cellar which does the same thing as the BDI21 but in a metal enclosure so a bit more expensive.

[BeardFaceMan]

That's an overdrive/distortion pedal designed to handle bass frequencies. Unlike the TM300 it doesn't have a built in pre-amp as it's meant to go into a bass amp. Running it straight into a computer it's likely to sound a bit weak and farty.
You could put it in front of the TM300 then try to set that up to mimic a bass amp (ie. set the TM300 so you have a decent clean bass sound then use the BOD400 to dirty it up).

Behringer also do the BDI21 which is basically the bass version of the TM300.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Behringer-Modeler-Guitar-Effects-Pedal/dp/B000KIPUQG
Amazon seem to be sold out of them just now but they're usually around £18-25.
It's an amp modeler and DI box designed for direct recording, you'll be able to get an overdriven sound out of it but not full on distortion.

There's also the Caline CP-60 Wine Cellar which does the same thing as the BDI21 but in a metal enclosure so a bit more expensive.

Lovely, that BDI21 looks just the job, its just for use in my house so it doesnt matter its not metal.

[BeardFaceMan]

OK so now that I have a bit of gear it's mixing time, hooray! Are there any good resources out there for the complete beginner? I know nothing of low pass filters or frequencies or compression or eq or anything, I don't want to overload myself with information so are there any good guides just for the basics of mixing together bass, drums and guitar? I think I've got to the point where I'm happy with the tones for my guitar and bass but when I try and play them together it sounds shit, especially if I'm trying to mix 2 guitars and bass.

[Sherman Krank]

Youtube is your friend, there's tons of great tutorials for all knowledge levels.
Start by searching something like 'beginners guide to mixing' and go from there.

Unfortunately getting a good mix will require a set of flat response monitor speakers or headphones which aren't cheap. Your average speakers and headphones 'colour' the sound and can have vastly different frequency responses. For example if you were using a cheap set of PC speakers you could get your track sounding good on those but when you play it in your car or on a stereo all the bass is gone and you can now hear artifacts and other unpleasant things you couldn't hear before.

Also after mixing there's mastering which seems like it should be easy but isn't (which is why mastering engineers are so well paid).   

[BeardFaceMan]

Yeah I've had a bit of that kind of thing already, the song sounds one way in my DAW, another on my desktop music player and different again on my portable player. I'm not trying to get up to professional standard or anything, just being able to hear what the instruments are playing is what I'm going for. Everything just tends to mush together at the moment.

[drummersaredeaf]

Try the pink noise method.

There's also a plug-in that's free that auto EQs your tracks to presets like 'grand piano', 'tight kick'.

Remind me and I'll look it up next time I'm in my DAW

[Sherman Krank]

To fix the mush you'll need to learn the basics of EQ, compression and panning.

Then you can use the pink noise thing as a shortcut for mixing.

Quick explanation and downloadable pink noise wav to use.

[BeardFaceMan]

Try the pink noise method.

There's also a plug-in that's free that auto EQs your tracks to presets like 'grand piano', 'tight kick'.

Remind me and I'll look it up next time I'm in my DAW

To fix the mush you'll need to learn the basics of EQ, compression and panning.

Then you can use the pink noise thing as a shortcut for mixing.

Quick explanation and downloadable pink noise wav to use.

I shall try that out, ta muchly.

[drummersaredeaf]

I shall try that out, ta muchly.

Plugin is called neutron.

[surreal]

To fix the mush you'll need to learn the basics of EQ, compression and panning.

Then you can use the pink noise thing as a shortcut for mixing.

Quick explanation and downloadable pink noise wav to use.

That's great - thanks for the link!! 

[BeardFaceMan]

Plugin is called neutron.

From Izoptope? That's a bit pricy for me, the cheapest version is 129 bucks and it doesn't look like it comes with the mix assistant, that one is 399 bucks. They have the basic Neutron Elements for offer in a bundle for 50 bucks, is that version worth getting?

[drummersaredeaf]

From Izoptope? That's a bit pricy for me, the cheapest version is 129 bucks and it doesn't look like it comes with the mix assistant, that one is 399 bucks. They have the basic Neutron Elements for offer in a bundle for 50 bucks, is that version worth getting?

It was free very recently. Either I got lucky when they were on offer or you're looking at the wrong thing.

I use it sparingly to compare to my own EQing, or if I'm using an instrument I don't usually. As a shortcut otherwise I tend to bump and cut frequencies where there's an overlap, and try to find the 'natural' prominent EQ points for a given instrument. That's essentially how mixing works really. The presets are nice for when you want to find one to make your kick punch hard or don't know what to do with a grand piano or something.

Hopefully someone will be along to tell a free alternative cause I'd advise a bit of research and some dabbling rather than throwing money at it.

[BeardFaceMan]

It was free very recently. Either I got lucky when they were on offer or you're looking at the wrong thing.

I use it sparingly to compare to my own EQing, or if I'm using an instrument I don't usually. As a shortcut otherwise I tend to bump and cut frequencies where there's an overlap, and try to find the 'natural' prominent EQ points for a given instrument. That's essentially how mixing works really. The presets are nice for when you want to find one to make your kick punch hard or don't know what to do with a grand piano or something.

Hopefully someone will be along to tell a free alternative cause I'd advise a bit of research and some dabbling rather than throwing money at it.

Yeah they have a trial version I was going to try before buying it. I think it's the same one, it looks like it was made free as part of an offer recently and now it's back to being priced again.

[Ferris]

I am also a Behringer UM2 + Reaper user.

Also started recording onto a cheap cassette tape dictaphone thing which is great for acoustic stuff (and then you can use the headphone jack into the Behringer to get it on yer laptop).

It has the warbles and occasional speed up/slow down and crackle/skip type effects. Sounds like it's being beamed in from 1972. Piano sounds gash on it though, have to figure out a way to do that.