Getting Distortion on Acoustic Guitar>Firbox>Reaper

  • Thread starter Thread starter RixMix
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RixMix

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Hi,

I made a few tracks with Reaper using an acoustic guitar and keep getting distortion in the monitoring and playback. Here's the setup:

Direct-in Taylor 614 with expression electronics into Presonus firebox into Reaper as a mono track (i'm making a scratch track with vocals). I plan on recording final using a mic but can't figure out why/where the distortion is coming from?

I've set the input gains very high but not near clipping (red). One take I didn't get distortion (or not that much), the other I did. Makes the acoustic sound like an electric.

Any suggestions? Should I use less input gain, but then will my whole project be forced to lower volume?
 
You may be overdriving the actual inputs on the Firebox. Try turning the gain down on the Firebox and recording a new take.

Most people around here will agree that setting your peaks for about -12dbFS will give you *plenty* of headroom to work with. :) (You can always turn it up later.)

Hope that helps!
 
I was thinking about that too, but I thought the rule of thumb was to go in as high (gain wise) as possible but not clip? But I'm getting the impression that's not the case.

Thanks for the confirmation!
 
Concentrate more on getting a clean sound rather than high-as-possible levels.

Is your scratch vocal distorting? If not, then it's a problem in the signal chain between guitar and computer.
 
gecko zzed said:
Concentrate more on getting a clean sound rather than high-as-possible levels.

Is your scratch vocal distorting? If not, then it's a problem in the signal chain between guitar and computer.
Click to expand...

Appreciate that. The vocals are not distorting (as far as I can tell). The chain is basically my Taylor Expression => Firebox => Reaper. I'm going to give it another shot at lower input setting on the Firebox and see if that does the trick.

Thanks
 
going on what gecko said, does this happen when the guitar is plugged into anything else? (ex: guitar amp) or maybe it's a low battery if your pickup uses one. (my pickup doesn't use a battery so I'm not sure if this could actually be a cause for distortion or not)
 
d.bop said:
going on what gecko said, does this happen when the guitar is plugged into anything else? (ex: guitar amp) or maybe it's a low battery if your pickup uses one. (my pickup doesn't use a battery so I'm not sure if this could actually be a cause for distortion or not)
Click to expand...

I haven't tried it on an amp. The guitar pickup does use a battery. That's a good area to check. I guess the reason I thought it was the chain going into Reaper was that a track recorded previously (about an hour or so) didn't have distortion on it.

I'm going to change the battery regardless, and try a new take at a lower input level and see how that works.

Thanks for all your help!
 
d.bop said:
You may be overdriving the actual inputs on the Firebox. Try turning the gain down on the Firebox and recording a new take.

Most people around here will agree that setting your peaks for about -12dbFS will give you *plenty* of headroom to work with. :) (You can always turn it up later.)

Hope that helps!
Click to expand...

+1 What He said
 
d.bop said:
Just checking in: how did it work out for you?
Click to expand...

Thanks for asking D.Bop.

I haven't had an opportunity to re-record yet. I plan to get to it over the weekend. I'll definately update on this thread and let you know. I suspect a change of batteries and lower input levels will do the trick. I had the Firebox pretty high going in.

Thanks again for your help.
- Rick
 
Fresh batteries and lower input levels seemed to do the trick. Not sure if it was one or the other or both, but acoustic is coming in a lot cleaner now.

Thanks everyone.:)
 
That's great to hear! Glad you got it working :)

If you need any more help, you know where to turn.
Happy home recording!
 
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