Pre-Amps! Toneport?

J

jay clarke

New member
Hello

I want to record top quality guitars and bass. I have a good full marshall stack and an SM 57. I was thinking of buying a Line6 toneport or similar to help eliminate unwanted noise and do some amp modelling for when I do the guitars. But I need some advice. Does toneport work well using a mic'd guitar or does it only work well with direct imput. What good alternative's are there? is it worth me buying a pre-amp specially for doing the bass?

The guitar sound i wanna achieve is a big heavy sound like Metallica's Load album, Dream Theater's Train of Thought, Opeth's Blackwater park or Ghost reveries. That kind of big heavy sound.

Cheers
 
Honestly, micing the stack will give you an infinitely better sound that using the toneport. Really, itd be such a waste to D.I through the toneport.

In terms of variety, you might wanna look at a pod, modeller or stomp-boxes BEFORE your amp...modulate the sound, and THEN mic the amp. Your toneport wont ever realistically replicate speaker sound (do a search for micing an amp, theres been alot of talk on this lately).
 
TelePaul's post makes sense. I'd add that you won't get a big heavy sound through a TonePort. They are fun toys, my friend ended up sending it back after I recommended it to him - I told him to send it back after playing with it. Thought it might be a cool option for him, but I wasn't blown away.

I don't know if you like to experiment, but it can be fun micing good amps with different mics. I've had some success micing a 1965 Fender Super Reverb by experimenting a bit with an SM57, and a GrooveTubes condenser placed back about 3 feet or so. This wasn't for heavy sounding guitar, just nice clean Les Paul electric recording.

I'd poke around here a bit - there has been a lot of discussion on micing amps vs. using modelers/simulators/yada yada. Whatever you do, try capturing the sound that's coming out of your amps speakers and not relying on simulation.
 
it's definitely better to use a mic'ed amp (though then the sound becomes more dependent on the room, your equipment and your technique, as well as noise issues (how loud you can get w/o law enforcement becoming involved). if you can't, but if not and have to go the with amp simulation, try double tracking and stereo panning the guitars and/or using a distortion pedal before the toneport (and back off the distortion on the amp simulation a bit).
 
jay clarke said:
Hello

I want to record top quality guitars and bass. I have a good full marshall stack and an SM 57. I was thinking of buying a Line6 toneport or similar to help eliminate unwanted noise and do some amp modelling for when I do the guitars. But I need some advice. Does toneport work well using a mic'd guitar or does it only work well with direct imput. What good alternative's are there? is it worth me buying a pre-amp specially for doing the bass?

The guitar sound i wanna achieve is a big heavy sound like Metallica's Load album, Dream Theater's Train of Thought, Opeth's Blackwater park or Ghost reveries. That kind of big heavy sound.

Cheers
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Is your, "good full marshall stack" the mg series? If it is, you probably won't get the sound you're looking for and you surely won't get it with a toneport. Good tones require good amps and speakers with a fair amount of talent.
 
jay clarke said:
I want to record top quality guitars and bass...Line6 toneport...big heavy sound like Metallica's Load album, Dream Theater's Train of Thought, Opeth's Blackwater park or Ghost reveries.
Click to expand...

Do you think those artists got their sounds with a Toneport?
 
jay clarke said:
nah its not mg series.

What about bass tho, Can you get a good DI Bass sound?
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many people will use di's for bass-- the sansamp bass driver (in its various incarnations) is really popular. there are a lot of specialty di's like the avalon u5 which are really popular for bass, and a lot of preamps that are as well-- the brick is a popular preamp/di, i use my ua m610 and my chameleon labs 7602 for bass di to pretty good effect, and there are many others ranging in price, quality, sound, etc.
there are many options out there. i have bass pod and like how it sounds...
 
scrubs said:
Do you think those artists got their sounds with a Toneport?
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doesn't the guy from dream theater actually use one? i'm not a big fan or anything, but i have a berklee friend who used to say that their guitarist would use a pod through a keyboard amp or something. i may be talking out of my arse on this one though... :o
i also believe that weezer, among many other bands, used pods to record some of their earlier records and got fairly big sounds. i happen to dig them, though i understand others find them grating...
 
jay clarke said:
nah its not mg series.

What about bass tho, Can you get a good DI Bass sound?
Click to expand...

I DI a bass...if you could take a line-out from a decent bass amp, thatd work quite well. I use an external compressor too.
 
kojdogg said:
doesn't the guy from dream theater actually use one? i'm not a big fan or anything, but i have a berklee friend who used to say that their guitarist would use a pod through a keyboard amp or something. i may be talking out of my arse on this one though... :o
i also believe that weezer, among many other bands, used pods to record some of their earlier records and got fairly big sounds. i happen to dig them, though i understand others find them grating...
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Led Zep II was all POD. :rolleyes:
 
scrubs said:
Led Zep II was all POD. :rolleyes:
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well, if you pick out a classic album to use as an example, you could make the argument that recording to tape, using awesome classic mics, mixing boards/preamps, etc. and technique could have a profound influence on the sound as well. moving a mic a few inches around on a speaker will make a big difference on the recorded sound. also, zep ii doesn't exactly have the metallica guitar sound.
that said, i'm pretty sick of pods myself.
 
kojdogg said:
well, if you pick out a classic album to use as an example, you could make the argument that recording to tape, using awesome classic mics, mixing boards/preamps, etc. and technique could have a profound influence on the sound as well. moving a mic a few inches around on a speaker will make a big difference on the recorded sound. also, zep ii doesn't exactly have the metallica guitar sound.
that said, i'm pretty sick of pods myself.
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I don't think we're in disagreement here. I'm just suggesting to the original poster that wanting "top quality" sounds with a $200 box is a bit of a stretch. Not that good sounds cannot be obtained with this device, but the expectation that cheap preamps with modeling technology, coupled with a marshall and 57,will yield professional results every time is certainly misguided. There are lots of factors, as you've mentioned, that go into getting a great sound.
 
def man

scrubs said:
I don't think we're in disagreement here. I'm just suggesting to the original poster that wanting "top quality" sounds with a $200 box is a bit of a stretch. Not that good sounds cannot be obtained with this device, but the expectation that cheap preamps with modeling technology, coupled with a marshall and 57,will yield professional results every time is certainly misguided. There are lots of factors, as you've mentioned, that go into getting a great sound.
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Yeah man-- absolutely no disagreement. Pods, Toneports, V-amps, etc. make things easy for people (like me) who have no or relatively no idea what they are doing. I finally have everything I need (at least i think so) to make a decent recording of electric guitar (good mics, good preamps, a decent acoustic space, a semblance of a clue) and am sufficiently fed up with pods to go back to micing live amps. Pods and the like offer consistency, immediacy, volume control and other advantages that I would never totally discount though...
but the though of using mine for much longer has started to make me cringe :D
 
recording

Interesting.

Well thing is, I don't own a toneport or anything, I just wanted to know if it could do the job but by the sounds of it it can't really. 200$ isnt my budget, i said toneport as an example but I have much more then that to spend. I will spend what it takes to get a really good guitar sound. So in that case how should I go about recording my Amp for a really good sounding heavy noise? Would it be worth in me buying any more mics for micing the amp? would it be worth me buying a really powerful external soundcard?

The only thing I thought about using a pre-amp is doesn't it eliminate unwanted noise like buzzing etc and add things like compression?

My amp is a Marshall AVT 150 with 2 cabs. Its not the best amp in the world but I get a really good sound out of it live and in rehearsal rooms, I would buy another head if it was thought vital but im not sure it is.

Cheers
 
jay clarke said:
Interesting.

Well thing is, I don't own a toneport or anything, I just wanted to know if it could do the job but by the sounds of it it can't really. 200$ isnt my budget, i said toneport as an example but I have much more then that to spend. I will spend what it takes to get a really good guitar sound...would it be worth me buying a really powerful external soundcard?
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??? A powerful soundcard? What does that mean?

First, make your guitar sound like you want it to live through an amp. Then, get a mic and record it. A good mic will help.
 
So all in all the advise i seem to be getting is that I should mic my amp rather then DI, though im still not sure how to eliminate the unwanted noise and clean things up a little. Should i use a pre-amp at all? Should I use 2 or even 3 SM 57s or another type of mic?,

As for DI'ing bass I Just checked out the brick and that avalon thing. They both look very good. which would you reccomend?
 
jay clarke said:
My amp is a Marshall AVT 150 with 2 cabs. Its not the best amp in the world but I get a really good sound out of it live and in rehearsal rooms, I would buy another head if it was thought vital but im not sure it is.

Cheers
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Not vital? That's about the craziest logic I've ever heard when it comes to guitar amps. The amp is ABSOLUTELY vital, as is the guitar and the speaker. Trust me, I used to own an AVT and it's complete crap, especially the 150. Get a quality tube amp and you'll discover how vital an amp is.
 
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