Guitar help with Akai EIE Pro – it starts clipping like crazy!

  • Thread starter Thread starter AGTElit
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AGTElit

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Hey guys,
I'm really stomped by this problem that I'm having. I'm new to recording music at home and recording guitar is my main focus. So I got this sound-card that was recommended to me, its Akai EIE Pro.
So I plug in my guitar start playing and it starts clipping like crazy! Ok I play a bit roughly but I feel like I should be able to play open chords without clipping. And Its not like I'm smashing the guitar with an hammer I'm just playing. The fucked up part is that the gain on my sound-card is at its minimum and its still clipping... What am I doing wrong?
Another thing that bothers me is that I don't think the guitar sound is very clear, it sounds distorted.
 
The manual unhelpfully does not give a maximum input level for the guitar inputs (you ARE switching to "guitar" input?) but even tho' the launch of the EIE was perhaps the biggest cockup in AI history, I doubt a firm like Akai would make a high (ish! 102k!) Z input with such low headroom.

As ever, can we get a sound clip and the dBFS level in the DAW involved?

Dave.
 
It doesn't really give a maximum input for anything but the insert, but it does show that the guitar input has about 12db gain over the line input. That's probably too much for a lot of humbuckers, but then the impedance is probably too low also, so...

Plug your guitar into a non-true-bypass pedal - powered and bypassed - and from there to the interface. Set the thing for line input instead of guitar. Enjoy. (Unless it is, in fact, an active guitar, in which case you don't need the pedal, just flip the switch away from "guitar")
 
Thank you all for your input. Switching between line and guitar helps. Its weird for some of my distortion pedals line is WAY better than guitar. Anyway sounds better now so thanks!
 
AGTElit said:
Thank you all for your input. Switching between line and guitar helps. Its weird for some of my distortion pedals line is WAY better than guitar. Anyway sounds better now so thanks!
Click to expand...

You are most welcome. I keep looking in my local Cash Generator shop for an EIE because they keep cropping up in forums with this or that little issue and I would love to get hands on with one and really shake it down.

I have done well at the CC in the past. A Tascam 144 for 60quid with an unregistered copy of Cubase LE4 (Steinberg were a bit byzantine about the registration but ultimately relented). I also have a F'rite 8i6 I paid £100 for and that works well but despite the constant forum fawning, the mic amps are no better than my NI KA6!

So an Akky Pro for about £80 would be great. All I need then is the bloody time and energy to check it out!

Dave.
 
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