Audio Interface for Guitar

A

andyg_prs

New member
Hi,

I hope I'm posting in the right place. I'm trying to record some guitars for our band's EP and I've borrowed a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2. There are two issues with it.

1. Even with the gain on minimum the input level is too high. The chain is guitar (PRS, passive humbuckers) direct into 2i2, usb to PC. Now the 2i2 has halos around the gain pots, and goes green/orange/red according to the input. On humbuckers with gain at zero, when strumming the halo goes red......it's ok if I coil tap, and if I change the input selection from 'instrument' to 'line' then I have to lift the gain to about 11 o' clock to have enough signal......but the guitar sounds flat and horrible using the 'line' setting.

A friend who helped me had a large complicated audio interface (I can check what it was) - he also had to turn the gain way down when using the instrument setting, but he could get the capture level of the guitar within the appropriate limits.....which I couldn't on the 2i2.

2. Monitoring. I use direct monitor.......but it's hard to get the guitar being recorded loud enough against the guide track I'm recording against. Particularly considering my comments above, that I seem to have a really hot signal. I can turn the volume of the guide track down in the DAW but it's not ideal. And then when I playback, the volume of my guitar track is really very loud against the backing track.....so it seems odd that I can't monitor at the same level that it is being captured....

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Andy
 
I'm not sure about the monitoring question, but the 2i2 doesn't have the ability to "pad" the input and it can result in a very "hot" signal. My Presonus Audiobox USB had the same issue. I've since upgraded my interface ( which from the sounds of it is not an option for you) and it's working much better. The Scarlet 2i4 has pad buttons that should fix the issue you're having. You might need a DI box to lessen the signal before going into the 2i2. Not sure if you have access to one of those tough.

Good luck.
 
I know guitarist don't like turning down the volume pots on their guitars, especially hot humbuckers because of the dreaded "tone suck"
In practice any "sucking" is due to the guitar cable and for home recording you can usually use a very short lead. I have a 1.5mtr jobbie to hand and that easily gets me to amp input. The capacitance of sub 2mtrs is going to do diddly to the response.

Or! If you are really worried, a 1 meg Ohm pot in a tin, 2 jacks and a VERY short lead, ~300mm to the amp.

Headroom, well lack of it, is an unavoidable compromise of much budget audio gear. These days, if you are very rich you can buy virtually perfect kit. 40 years ago, no amount of money could get you out of a noise/overload hole so you had to be smarter!

I can't help with the monitoring problem either. Don't do it so I won't comment except to say...."We all has all our tracks running at neg 18ish don't we?"

Dave.
 
I have a 2i2 and hot guitars it doesnt do well at all. I got a DI box to fix the problem. The 2i2 does mic level signals very well...
 
These are what we're talking about when we say "DI boxes". There are a bunch in a wide range of prices. I can't recommend one because I've never used one, but maybe someone else can comment on a good one for you.

Direct Boxes | Sweetwater.com

As for the monitoring question, which DAW are you using?
 
Xcaliber said:
These are what we're talking about when we say "DI boxes". There are a bunch in a wide range of prices. I can't recommend one because I've never used one, but maybe someone else can comment on a good one for you.

Direct Boxes | Sweetwater.com

As for the monitoring question, which DAW are you using?
Click to expand...

DI boxes fall rather neatly into two camps. Active and passive.
The active types should have a high input impedance, the magic 1 meg, whereas the input "Z" for passives will be dependent upon the Z of the particular microphone amplifier it mates with but is unlikely to be above 200,000 Ohms (200k Ohms) but this lower Zin rarely makes much difference except for the other "disadvantage" of passives, insertion loss, i.e. you would expect the guitar's signal to be attenuated by the transformer ratio, very often 10:1 but in practice the loss is some 6 to 10dB greater than this. However, in the context of this thread, this loss might actually be an advantage and there should be easily enough gain in the pre amp to make it up.

Other facilities you should expect on a DI are a ground/earth lift switch and a second "slave" jack so that the guitar signal can go two ways. Amp and mixer/AI.

Build quality might be important to you. If the box is being crashed around the country 6 nights a week go for a rugged Radial. If it will forever sit on the bedroom carpet a wee Berry passive could be all you need.

As for sound quality, bit like pups' and amps. Get 3 guitarist together and you will get 5 (usually loud!) opinions!
AKAIK there has not been a well run, blind, magazine "shoot out" of DI boxes? Might mention that elsewhere.

Dave.
 
As for the monitoring problem, there has to be a way to mix the direct signal to the playback. Usually there is a knob to do this, but it might be a software mixer. I've never used that interface, so I don't know, but the manual should have the answer.

The level of the recorded guotar on playback is adjusted in your daw's mixer.
 
I've used one of these for decades. They work SWEET! Still out there at GC vintage and eBay for $80-100. Have used this on guitar and bass.
 
Got any pedals laying around? Take any pedal that doesn't say "True Bypass" on it and put it between your guitar and the interface - powered but bypassed. Flip the switch to "Line" and you're done.

For the monitoring - do you really need direct monitoring for this? Is your latency really that bad? I personally can't stand to listen to the raw signal right off the pickups without at least some sort of amp sim inserted, and you can't do that with direct monitoring.
 
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