Miking or DI?

Chili said:
Dave, I have mentioned this to you several times over the year, you never responded back. Yes, I have had problems with IE11 and this site. The same problems you are encountering. I switched to Firefox for this very reason.

Back on topic. I have always recorded DI through an amp sim pedal. Recently bought an amp sim plug for my UAD interface and now I use the sim pedal for only stompboxes.
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My apologies. Yes I recall you saying that now. I thought I HAD replied that this old numpty has enough trouble with IE and cannot envisage a fresh start! Mind you, this EM laptop is the wife's that she never uses so I could try Firefox on this.

Dave.
 
ecc83 said:
My apologies. Yes I recall you saying that now. I thought I HAD replied that this old numpty has enough trouble with IE and cannot envisage a fresh start! Mind you, this EM laptop is the wife's that she never uses so I could try Firefox on this.

Dave.
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Honestly, I don't like Firefox at all, but I like Chrome even less. So, Firefox it is to get this site to work. Hope you find success, Dave.
 
Another "noob" question: when one talks about a good impedance or a desireable one, is that referring to a low impedance? My understanding is that a low impedance generally allows for a stronger signal. I'm sure that I'm grossly oversimplifying it, but is this correct?
 
Grant Reskey said:
Another "noob" question: when one talks about a good impedance or a desireable one, is that referring to a low impedance? My understanding is that a low impedance generally allows for a stronger signal. I'm sure that I'm grossly oversimplifying it, but is this correct?
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That gets deep fast. As simply as possible, and in general, you want the source impedance (output impedance on most specs, the only impedance listed for things that are only sources) to be much lower than the load impedance (input impedance...). That (at least) 10:1 rule (of thumb) that Chili talks about is a good one for most things we work with, but passive guitars are special.

Without getting too far into that, recall that impedance is almost never actually just one number, but can and often is different at different frequencies. In a guitar pickup (a source), this gets bigger (like really big) with higher frequencies, so we want the load impedance to be really big in order to have any chance of getting anything approaching treble out of the thing.

I think that Sound on Sound link is pretty good in general, but I don't think it addresses the special case of passive guitars.
 
Call me old fashioned but I dont like artificial guitar tones.

Amp sims. Yeah there's decent stuff, but.....

A sim will never capture the interaction of a player wirh the amp, or the interaction of the air coming out of the speaker and hitting the pickup coils.

An electric guitar is not complete without the other component, the amp.
The 2 combined are the instrument.

A good player 'plays' his amp as much as he plays his guitar. The dynamics, the tone, the expressiveness, the feedback, the swelling of the tone as you face the guitar into the cabinet, the transients, etc, etc.
This doesn't happen with sims and headphones.

I guess since this is "home recording" there are those who's playing is hampered by fear of eviction, or cops showing up, or waking up the wife and babies, etc

That being said, the fear of the repercussions of bothering others could negatively impact your playing and you'd get a better performance with a set of headphones and an amp sim.

So I'd say;
Mic if you can. (and it doesn't have to be at stadium levels)

If using a sim, monitor through speakers so you get at least 'some' feel of playing an amp.

And if those aren't options, well......
Get out your guitar, headphones and load up amp farm or something.

:D
 
Ah! Impedance. Some of what has just been said is a bit wrong but yes, BIG! subject.

I shall have a bash at it post brekky and meds!

Dave.
 
Right! I am now using Firefox and so shall expect FLAWLESS forum operation from now on!

I hear what you say RFR but there is no such thing as a "non artificial electric guitar sound"!

PuPs differ enormously in inductance, resistance, capacitance, magnet strength and string clearance (and we won't get into eddy current loss!). Amplifiers are hugely variable of course as are speakers, even the 4 in your 4x12 will sound different from each other and were probably made on the same day!
Even the capacitance of the cable you connect to the amp/pedal/AI will have an effect as will the input Z, a matter I shall drone on about later.

Bottom line. There is no such thing as a "natural" electric guitar tone. Ya do what ya do.

Dave. (was about to say, "no posting problem" then the screen greyed out. It seems Ms were trying to update/close me down and stopped FF? )
 
LOL at this thought that there's a "sim" sound and an "amp" sound and that one is intrinsically better or worse than the other.

Context is everything in that discussion, and the answer is "it depends."

To the OP - you have a class amp. Learn to mic it and get a good sound that way, so that you will have more information and experience to take into any future amp v. "sim" decision.

As a noob, you probably have no idea yet how to get a usable recorded sound so it would serve you well to learn this skill before dealing with amp sim programs and spending hours tweaking virtual knobs trying to achieve a sound you probably won't recognise when you reach.

Learn the basics first.
 
Hmm? Tried to attach a .png pic of the Yahoo login page "not a valid file" . I thought FF was the fix for that?

OT I know but can anyone tell me how and why Yahoo takes over my home page setting? This happened in IE11 and now in FF.

Dave.
 
Cuz Yahoo are yahoos!

Open the menu in FF and under 'Options'>'General' set your home page then under 'Search' set your default search engine. That should lock them in. Well until a yahoo comes around and jacks it up again.
 
ecc83 said:
OT I know but can anyone tell me how and why Yahoo takes over my home page setting? This happened in IE11 and now in FF.

Dave.
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Last time I ran a Java update for a customer one of the things during the install was setting Yahoo as a default homepage (and possibly search engine). Obviously they get people to do this a lot, since most just click Next and don't deselect the option.
 
ashcat_lt said:
Pinky - IDK what you were doing or how, but if there was really no way to record the moves from your expression pedal, it's a failure in your DAW. There are at least a couple of ways to do it in Reaper. ;)
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Yeah, none of it matters now. I'm glad it's not an issue for everyone. I recall having the expression pedal's automation work within Amplitube (so I can hear the effect as it's being applied) required routing it in such a way the automation wasn't available to be captured during the track recording. Whether it was the fault of Amplitube or Sonar I don't 'member. It pushed me into a better IMO direction getting nice Crybaby Wah and Dunlop Volume pedals.
 
Pinky said:
Last time I ran a Java update for a customer one of the things during the install was setting Yahoo as a default homepage (and possibly search engine). Obviously they get people to do this a lot, since most just click Next and don't deselect the option.
Click to expand...

I am generally careful with the Java update but might have dropped the ball. If I uninstall Java then carefully put it back, fixit?

Dave.
 
ecc83 said:
I am generally careful with the Java update but might have dropped the ball. If I uninstall Java then carefully put it back, fixit?

Dave.
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Probably not because the Yahoo thing is not actually part of the Java install. It's just that Java is "kind enough" to "suggest" you also install that other software. You know...while you're at it... ;)


SPLs is SPLs. If you can't get loud enough in the real open air to shake the guitar, then it kind of doesn't matter if you're playing through an amp or not. There are actually ways to fake that which can work well, but it's generally not quite as much fun as standing in front of a reasonably loud amp.
 
Impedance: as the word suggests, it is the property of an electrical circuit to retrict, limit, “impede” the flow of electricity. When we are dealing with DC we talk of “resistance” and components are often specified as having a “dc resistance” to differentiate the quality from impedance (hereinafter called “Z”)
Z only applies to Alternating Current signals and comes in two flavours.
Inductance. This is most commonly seen in guitar pickups, coils of wire. The property of inductance (“L”) is that for a fixed applied AC signal the current through the inductance falls, that is inductive impedance (called inductive “reactance”) INCREASES with frequency.
Capacitance. For this component as frequency rises impedance falls (You might consider that for some combination of capacitance (“C”) and L there is a frequency where impedance Z is the same? There always is and AT that frequency some very weird things happen but, with one exception, we won’t go into that.)
For any cable of sensible length we can ignore its inductance for audio signals. The DC resistance of even quite long, 100mtrs, of mic cable say, is also very low and rarely of any concern. The capacitance of a cable, especially SCREENED cable might be an issue but is generally again too low to worry us at audio frequencies. There is however one place where cable C has an effect and that is between a passive electric guitar and an amp. The pups are inductive (but this is greatly affected by volume and tone pots) and the cable + pup can “resonate” and cause a peak in the response at some audio frequency. Thus the guitar/cable/amp combination is about the ONLY time that cable type can have an effect. N.B. an “effect” a low C cable will cause a higher resonant point than a high C one. That does not make a cable “good” or “bad” just different. Note too that turning the volume pot even a few dB off max effectively make the guitar an almost DC resistance source and cable cap’ will just cause HF loss (aka “tone suck”).
Now, since “impedance” is an AC thing and borks frequency responses you would think gear designers would avoid it? You are right, they do! Take the line output of a mixer or AI. This will be an Operational Amplifier (“chip” / “IC”) and these devices have an effectively ZERO op Z at all audio Fs. We should therefore really speak of “output RESISTANCE” and some folks do. Generally a physical resistor, often around 100 Ohms is inserted in the OP’s output for stability reasons and so output R is in fact 100 Ohms.
Similarly, a mic amp will be said to have an input “impedance” of say 1,500 Ohms (1k5) but again that 1k5 will be a physical resistor and again the input “looks like a DC resistance.
Banged on enough methinks but just one more thing for now? Matching: we never do it* Even speakers to guitar amps are not “matched” except for the words. We connect nominally 16R speakers to the 16R tap on the amp. In fact valve amplifiers have internal resistances of much more than 16Ohms (gitamps anyway) often as high as 60 Ohms. Transistor amps are inherently very low Z, well under one Ohm but this is often artificially made higher for guitar use.
*Video and digital signals must be matched. 75 to 100 Ohms as a rule.
Dave.
 
Apologies, pasting from Word did not preserve the spacing.

I DO know a bit about electronics but pretty naff all about computers!

Dave.
 
Hi Dave,

Yahoo targets you during the "Yes I'm sure I'm sure!" phase of some other installations. ;)

You should be able to uninstall anything Yahoo related via add/remove software in control panel.
You'll still need to manually reset your homepage in FF or IE, though.
 
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