two identical guitar signals without a splitter? (using my audio interface?)

[gd1570]

I would like to record two guitar signals at the same time, one from a mic'd amp and one DI signal for reamping/virtual amps. Unfortunately I don't have a signal splitter or a mixer, and I heard that using a simply y-splitter plug coud cause tone loss, so I'm looking for another solution.

I'm thinking about plugging the guitar into the first input on my audio interface (Focusrite Scarlett 2i2), so I can record this signal in the DAW and also send it ( without any processing and at a low level) to one of the outputs, wich connects to the main input of a guitar amp (Marshall AVT100).
I guess the phase problems could be fixed by slightly delaying the DI signal, but what about impedance? The output impedace of my interface is <10 Ohms and the input impedance of the amp is 10M Ohms. Is this a problem? Or would it be better to use the FX Return of the amp? ( I don't know it's impedance, but at least it works with line level signals)

Have anyone tried something like this before? what do you think, could it work? If you have any other idea / solution please let me know!


Thanks!

 

[minerman]

I do this on every guitar track I record, using a Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6 & a Radial RMP re-amp box....

My guitar goes into input 1 on the interface, recording the di, in Reaper, I set up an extra hardware output going to the re-amp box, & then input 2 records the amp'd track....

Hope this helps...

 

[miroslav]

You can't run Line outs from the Scarlett into the guitar amp.....

Step up and either....get a splitter box....or make an instrument "Y" cable and see how it sounds.
If you have a remap box...do what Minerman said.

 

[grimtraveller]

Unfortunately I don't have a signal splitter or a mixer

Then get one. A splitter box here in London is £30 which, even if you're on low wages is next to nothing, even if you have to save two months for it. A splitter cable is even cheaper.
Often when I record electric guitar, I use two simultaneous signals and using the splitter box just makes life so much easier because you can concentrate on getting the sounds you want instead of having to play "60s engineer recording through the night" technical whizz kid. Unless, of course, you like that kind of thing.

 

[ashcat_lt]

You can't run Line outs from the Scarlett into the guitar amp.....

Why? I agree it's not necessary in this case, but...

Any buffered bypass pedal (not true bypass, believe me they'll tell you if it's true bypass) powered but bypassed and plugged between the guitar and the Y-cable will save you any tone loss from loading. In fact, if it's a stereo pedal, then you don't need the Y-cable!

OTOH - if you're splitting between a 10M (!!! Really?) input on the amp and a 1M instrument in on the interface, you're not gonna get any noticeable loss even straight off the pickups.

 

[mixsit]

No oppinioin just a question, How about a Y' split after a good buffered pedal out? Any downsides going that route? (The 'sound change of having the buffer between guitar and amp perhaps?

 

[ashcat_lt]

ninja'd by mixit!

A good enough buffered pedal will be about the same thing as the DI input on the interface.

Edit -
...except that the DI on the interface probably adds gain. Otherwise, it's likely that circuits are pretty close to identical. If it was me, and I was shooting to reamp out of the box, I'd probably run that buffered signal into the line in to try to maintain unity throughput.

 

[mixsit]

I hope ..ninja'd.. 'E'zat ..goot?

As in a good buffer' is ok' going to the amp too? (or +/- pureist stuff aside?

Never mind. I forget kids these day put eleventeen pedals in front of their amps

 

[ashcat_lt]

I hope ..ninja'd.. 'E'zat ..goot?

Not sure if you're serious. Means you posted while I was posting. Except your post comes second, so I guess I ninja'd you!

As in a good buffer' is ok' going to the amp too? (or +/- pureist stuff aside?

Yeah. Works well enough for most folks! Kinda leads back to that question of why we can't just come out of the line out to the amp. The output circuit looks quite a bit like the buffer in the pedal, and nobody really thinks twice...

Never mind. I forget kids these day put eleventeen pedals in front of their amps

Yeah, that's where the bad rep comes from. One, even two decent buffers aren't going to do any damage. Assuming, of course, that you actually like the way your guitar sounds running into whatever impedance that buffer gives it. The OP has a 10M amp input, which will give him just a touch more at the very top of the frequency range than a 1M buffered pedal, which will give a touch more than the ~500K of a "typical" tube amp.

 

[gd1570]

I didn't think about using a buffered pedal before, but now i realized that I can use my NUX Time Force as a splitter. I set it to buffered bypass mode, powered and bypassed as it was mentioned and I don't even need a Y cable since it is a stereo pedal, so I connected one of the outputs to the Scarlett interface, and the other to the guitar amp input.
Based on a short test it seems to work really well

This was really helpful! Thank you!

 

[miroslav]

Kinda leads back to that question of why we can't just come out of the line out to the amp.

Well...I think the point is that the OP said he was concerned about "tone loss"....so now, you wanna stick all kinds of other shit between the interface line output and the amp input JUST to make it work....
....ahhhhh....OK.

What's the real goal here....just to "make it work" or do it the best way so as to keep it simple and also preserve signal...?
I mean....for all that jury-rigging, just get a guitar signal splitter and move on.

Morley aby Selector Combiner Pedal A B Box New | eBay

It's not just about some guitar purist voodoo....it's about using the right tool, and a guitar signal splitter is almost a must-have if you are doing dual amps or wanting to record amp & DI at the same time...etc.

 

[mixsit]

Well...I think the point is that the OP said he was concerned about "tone loss"....so now, you wanna stick all kinds of other shit between the interface line output and the amp input JUST to make it work....
....ahhhhh....OK.

What's the real goal here....just to "make it work" or do it the best way so as to keep it simple and also preserve signal...?
I mean....for all that jury-rigging, just get a guitar signal splitter and move on.

Morley aby Selector Combiner Pedal A B Box New | eBay

It's not just about some guitar purist voodoo....it's about using the right tool, and a guitar signal splitter is almost a must-have if you are doing dual amps or wanting to record amp & DI at the same time...etc.

So if this one's passive.. as far a tone/load,, same same as a y-cable?

 

[miroslav]

So if this one's passive.. as far a tone/load,, same same as a y-cable?

Step up and either....get a splitter box....or make an instrument "Y" cable and see how it sounds.
If you have a remap box...do what Minerman said.

If he wants to do it with a pedal between the Line Outs and the amp input....whatever, either that or make a Y cable for the guitar output and go that route.
I would still just get a splitter box and split the guitar output....which IMO is the best way.

This is what I have and use if I need to do what the OP wants to do.
Radial BigShot AB-Y true bypass switcher
"This assures the guitar signal is routed directly to the amp without any buffering, loading or tone altering circuits."

 

[ashcat_lt]

Nope. Pedal goes between the guitar and the inputs and in more normal circumstances (his is a super high-Z amp input) would be nominally better than a straight wire split. I did mention that the OP's case would probably be fine with straight wire.

He was originally talking about going straight from the interface to the amp, and there's no good reason that can't work.

 

[miroslav]

Oh whatever, I wasn't really paying attention to all that buffered pedal stuff...I responding to what the OP was thinking of doing.

Either way, it's still going to be a jury-rigged pile of shit.....but I'm starting to think you like to work that way as opposed to doing it the simple, right way.
You seem to always look at how to take 3 steps to "make it work" VS 1 step and do it right....which are two different things.

Maybe you just like being the experimenter....and I don't look down on that, as I've done it myself many times, and I've tried ALL kinds of gear hook-ups in the studio.....but somehow, the simplest approach always seems to be the best one in the end.......YMMV.

 

[Seafroggys]

I built a splitter for dirt cheap. Bought a wooden box from a craft store, bought 3 1/4" input jacks online, drilled the holes, put the jacks in, wire them up, and bam. Works remarkably well, and cost me less than $10.

 

[miroslav]

I built a splitter for dirt cheap. Bought a wooden box from a craft store, bought 3 1/4" input jacks online, drilled the holes, put the jacks in, wire them up, and bam. Works remarkably well, and cost me less than $10.

Yeah....it's a more slicker way than just making a "Y" cable, though both will work without killing your tone if the runs are short.
I mean, if I wasn't going to buy a splitter box, I would try that before all the other approaches....but a decent splitter box, or something like an active DI with Thru (Radial J48), and then a proper reamp box...are necessary tools that will do the job and provide other options, while maintaining your tone.

Sounds to me like the OP wants to do the DI/reamp thing more than once....so might as well have the best tools.

 

[ashcat_lt]

Oh whatever, I wasn't really paying attention...

...to the part where I agreed with you?

I'm not understanding where the problem is.

Can we all agree that the frequency response of a passive guitar is extremely sensitive to its load? It is very sensitive to the total (mostly resistive) impedance that it finds at whatever input(s) it gets to. It is very sensitive to the total capacitance of any cable that gets it there. If you want to make fuck sure that you get the same thing out of the guitar every time then you have to plug it into the same thing - with the same cables - every time. The pickups and all of its electronics and the inputs of whatever it's plugged into make one big circuit. Anything you change in that circuit will change the tone.

Your passive splitter could change the tone in one or more likely both ways.

The parallel total of the two inputs must be smaller than the smallest one. In the OP's case, the difference in tone between 10M and 1M is miniscule, and the difference between 1M and .9M is also not likely to be noticed. So he's fine there. Other folks might not be so lucky. The loss of tone paralleling two 500K inputs could be enough that somebody else reading this thread would come back complaining on the reamp end that they're not getting as much sparkle as they would get with the guitar plugged straight in.

There likely will be more cable capacitance, since there will be more cable. That's where the thing about keeping your runs short comes in. You mentioned that later, but it's pretty important. If you take the same cable you normally plug into the amp, plug it into splitter, and then run another cable to the amp, you've already increased cable capacitance. Add another cable to the interface and you're will start to hear a loss at the top edge of the signal. It is possible to shorten all of these runs to minimize the damage.

Or you can just answer the question. Buffer the thing so that you know the in-Z and the cable capacitance. Now you can split the very low, purely resistive output from the buffer much more freely. You still have to keep within sane bounds, but you can get away with a lot more before tone suck starts to set in.

The active DI doesn't do any better than the passive split. In fact, it is a passive split, and then some attenuation on the "DI" side, which would need to be made up at the other end, after adding noise.

Where's this "jury-rigged pile of shit"? I say rather than buy a (probably very durable and well-built) box that might not help, or might help in one or two situations, use the thing you've got right there that works more consistently in more situations. More importantly I say understand the concepts so that you can tell the salesman what you need, rather than the other way around.

 

[miroslav]

...to the part where I agreed with you?

You did?

You said "Nope".

Where's this "jury-rigged pile of shit"?

See below.......

I'm not understanding where the problem is.

Can we all agree that the frequency response of a passive guitar is extremely sensitive to its load? It is very sensitive to the total (mostly resistive) impedance that it finds at whatever input(s) it gets to. It is very sensitive to the total capacitance of any cable that gets it there. If you want to make fuck sure that you get the same thing out of the guitar every time then you have to plug it into the same thing - with the same cables - every time. The pickups and all of its electronics and the inputs of whatever it's plugged into make one big circuit. Anything you change in that circuit will change the tone.

Your passive splitter could change the tone in one or more likely both ways.

The parallel total of the two inputs must be smaller than the smallest one. In the OP's case, the difference in tone between 10M and 1M is miniscule, and the difference between 1M and .9M is also not likely to be noticed. So he's fine there. Other folks might not be so lucky. The loss of tone paralleling two 500K inputs could be enough that somebody else reading this thread would come back complaining on the reamp end that they're not getting as much sparkle as they would get with the guitar plugged straight in.

There likely will be more cable capacitance, since there will be more cable. That's where the thing about keeping your runs short comes in. You mentioned that later, but it's pretty important. If you take the same cable you normally plug into the amp, plug it into splitter, and then run another cable to the amp, you've already increased cable capacitance. Add another cable to the interface and you're will start to hear a loss at the top edge of the signal. It is possible to shorten all of these runs to minimize the damage.

Or you can just answer the question. Buffer the thing so that you know the in-Z and the cable capacitance. Now you can split the very low, purely resistive output from the buffer much more freely. You still have to keep within sane bounds, but you can get away with a lot more before tone suck starts to set in.

The active DI doesn't do any better than the passive split. In fact, it is a passive split, and then some attenuation on the "DI" side, which would need to be made up at the other end, after adding noise.

You can have that ^^^^^ .....or an ABY splitter/switcher.

I mean, do you see how you take something real simple, and then add like 5 more steps to it...then debate how you don't understand the problem with that.
It's just like the thing with you and the guitar-->amp.....VS....guitar-->DI-->interface-->laptop-->sims-->mouse-->click, click, click....

This thread should have ended after grim's post....

 

[ashcat_lt]

Unfortunately I don't have a signal splitter or a mixer, and I heard that using a simply y-splitter plug coud cause tone loss, so I'm looking for another solution.

Thanks!

He has "heard" that a Y cable might cause tone loss, which is in fact correct, though he doesn't know why. He's looking for another solution. So miro and grim offer him a Y-cable in a metal box and don't even address his concern.

I agreed that in this case he probably could get decent results using a passive split if careful. Then I offered other solutions, as requested. I offered a solution which will work more consistently, for more people, and uses gear that most of us already have. And I tried to offer some insight into what the fuck is going on so that the OP and other folks might be a bit further along than just "I heard..." Do we hate learning things? Just tell him what to buy and shut up. Except the OP took my suggestion, saved himself a couple bucks, and has reported positive results.

miro, when I said "nope" it was in response to your misunderstanding of my post. But I did ask you why a person "can't " plug a line input into an amplifier. You weren't saying that it was unneccessary. You didn't even say "shouldn't". You said "can't ". I asked you to explain yourself and you didn't. I suspect this is because you don't actually have a clue what's going on inside these things. It's not magical mystical voodoo shit happening here. It's physics.

So, do you have anything enlightening to say? Have you got any informed objection to the information I've posted in this thread? No. You disapprove of my use of sims and that's fine, but it has no bearing on this discussion. Or is it that my attempt to analyze the situation, discuss the factors involved, and address the issues in a thoughtful fashion just hurts your brain? Lalalalala don't give me facts. Just tell me what to buy.