Direct recording an amp

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dressner

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I've had a fair amount of success with micing my amp thanks to you guys but I wan't to know if there's a better way to record directly than what I'm doing.

My amp is a peavey valve king 112 and it has a effects loop send and return and an external speaker jack. There is no line out or headphone jack. I am under the impression that hooking up my mixer directly to the speaker jack would be a bad idea and I'm pretty sure I don't want to do that, however I have hooked up the effects loop send to the mixer and I'm really disappointed with the tone. Apparently big 12 inch speakers naturally roll off highs a lot. I've gotten a mildly ok tone by running the effects loop send from that amp into this solid state amp i have on a clean channel just to do EQ shaping and then headphones out into my mixer and its EQ. But its just really processed by then and doesn't sound natural.

Am I screwed with the equipment I have? Should I buy one of those Hot Plate things? Should I just get an amp head with a line out?

I just want to be able to play and record with no sound coming from the actual amp speaker (apartments suck).
 
My experiences recording through the line out of an amp have usually sounded about like a circular saw cutting into plywood. Earsplitting, awful stuff. The signal coming from the amp is made to sound good through the speaker and it just doesn't translate well direct. I have a feeling what you want is an amp modeler. I don't use those, but a few folks around here do, and I'm sure somebody will be able to recommend a good one.

And yeah, hooking anything but a speaker to a speaker jack is definitely a bad idea. Nothing good down that road.

Also, don't go unhooking the speaker to try to run the amp silently; it's my understanding that it's not good to run a tube amp without a speaker load on it.
 
Don't unplug the speaker, and certainly don't feed the speaker output directly to your mixer. When you don't want to actually hear the speaker, you could always use an isolation box. Unfortunately, the sound totally changes, so you have to find what you like. This takes time, effort, and cash.
Here's a quick and painless way out of the whole mess. Buy a Sans Amp Liverpool. Case closed! Use the amp for gigs.
 
For apartment dwellers, I would look at the modelers. Basically sofware amps and effects. Depending what software you use to record, you may already have one. Try the demos of Guitar rig, Amplitude, etc. Just do a google and tons will pop up. The question then is getting the guitar signal into your computer. You mentioned recording so I'm assuming you have an interface or mixer you are using to get microphone to computer. Put on a set of headphones and rock on!
 
Thanks guys, the iso box wouldn't really fit the space I have to use, or I'd have already done that. I haven't tried a sansamp pedal or actually ever heard of it before so thats worth looking into. The only thing is it isn't tube based. Those guitar rig and amplitube modelers aren't either. I never intended to be a tube snob, I firmly believed it was all hogwash when I started playing, I figured my Line 6 Spider II could do anything your $3000 boutique amp could but I was wrong. Most solid state amps or modeling software distortion I've heard sounds ok with one single interval, the root fifth power chord. Any other notes and its just garbage. I still don't think its impossible to make a digital solid state amp that sounds great but I've yet to hear it. It is just going to have to come at the problem from a different angle than everyone else has.

Anyway I suppose that leaves me sort of screwed until I move back into a house. Oh well you can't have everything. I traded being able to play guitar at 4am at a nice comfortable volume for a walkable commute to work. I love the commute but maybe when the lease is up I can find a happy medium.
 
Go for the sansamps over the modellers IMO. They are at least analogue sounds (rather than digital models of sounds), and with a bit of reverb can sound pretty good. Not a substitute for a proper amp but volume + apartments don't mix. I really like my gt2 + a tiny bit of reverb (or a lot!). Also handy for touring and stuff. I've found the digital modellers I've used in the past have some weird glitches, but the sansamps have been solid.
 
The Sans Amp pedals are really cool. The added advantage over modeling software is you put less strain on your PC's CPU. No matter how good Amplitube/Gearbox/Guitar Rig/Revalver et al. get, they are resource hogs. If you have the ultimate PC, Revalver is extremely flexible.
 
My Marshall 4100 has a decent clean sound out of the recording jack, but for some reason they made the high gain sound all buzzy. The clean sound is okay but still lacks the thickness of the speakers. It'll do in a pinch though.
 
i'm surprised no one has said it yet...but what you're going to want to do is throw a cabinet impulse on the track with the direct recording off of the amp

you have to think - what you're hearing from the FX loop is the signal from the preamp alone...you're used to hearing this then go to the power amp section and then to a speaker. impulses will emulate the power amp, speaker, and microphone that were used to capture them, and will make things sound a LOT better than what you're hearing now.

on top of that, there's tons of free impulses out there, along with some great freeware for loading them such as voxengo boogex(also has an amp simulator, turn all the amp knobs to 0 to run impulses alone) and another that's called "lecab"
 
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