So Line Out jacks straight into mixer/interface....

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AMTA

Pack it in a frame.
I'm not exactly in the most ideal of recording situations. Vocals seem to come out okay, but my guitar just seems to have too much room sound to it. I was in the market for a new amp anyway, but I figured now I'll try and look for amps that have either a Line Out jack or an XLR out jack that I can plug straight into the mixer.

I'm kind of dead in the water as far as this goes. I originally planned on getting a B-52 head with a Peavey Valveking cab because I just loved the tone. The problem is, I was in a band then, and thus could utilize a half-stack fully. I am no longer in a band, and therefore don't really have much use for something like that anymore. I would just go for the B-52 combo...but it sounded like complete ass. I almost didn't give it another look. The head and the combo sound completely different (probably because of the Peavey cab).

Anyway back to the point. I'm looking for suggestions on a tube combo amp with a line-out or preferably, an XLR out. I'm open to pretty much any brand of amp, though I don't much care for Marshall or Mesa (at least the Rectos....haven't tried anything else). I'm trying to get a good amp with a good sound, and trying to take my crappy recording space completely out of the equation.

I've thought about getting a Line 6 POD, but I just don't think I could get the sound I want out of something like that.

I play mostly progressive metal influenced stuff, but I'll often throw a hint of more extreme metal flavors in for good measure. Good cleans are important to me.

Also a more important question is generally, how does it sound running direct like that? I assume there is some loss since you're not getting the sound that's coming out of the speakers, but is it really that big of a difference?

I'm kind of looking at the Carvin MTS combo, but I'm not really sure what to think. I watched some youtube videos (yeah I know not the best for judging sound) and the tone seemed good, but then I listen to the ones on the site and it's just horribly muddy and just...well....horrible.
 
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I have a Carvin SX 200 (a little different from the one you mentioned) which is pretty decent, it's loud but has fairly good tone. It sounds a lot better miced than DI though. The DI is a little on the treble side to suit me. Both the clean and the drive chanel deliver decent tone. The clean side is also decent for keyboards (surprising for a guitar amp.) The SX 200 may have more power than what you are wanting and I'm not familiar with smaller Carvins but the one I have is a screamer. I'm not sure if trebly DI is common to all Carvins or if its just the way my model is designed, just something to check before you decide on which amp to buy.
 
I've got a good friend whose been playing for a long time, he just got a Carvin SX200 and loves it live, dunno bought recording sounds (yet), he runs DI with it. I have to admit I never run DI, always mic my amp regardless, just aint the same to me. jmho
 
go line out from the amp into the mixer with a1/4" Female to LXR male transformer.
pRS1C-2160353w345.jpg

Radio Shack has them for 15 bucks, Either that or use a passive DI.
 
I've got an MTS3212 combo and love it. It's got a great clean channel for those "bell" Strat tones and the lead channel has a wide range of crunch tones. I also tried out one of the BelAir's - it liked the master volume loud to get similar results to the MTS.
 
There's DI's that will pad down from a speaker out. But it'll miss the natural eq (which is fairly significant) and other benefits or the speaker/mic variations. It also won't be recording what you're hearing from the amp. Might as well get a Pod or something then?
How come you can't get the room tone down enough with the mic?
 
Roguetitan said:
go line out from the amp into the mixer with a1/4" Female to LXR male transformer.
pRS1C-2160353w345.jpg

Radio Shack has them for 15 bucks, Either that or use a passive DI.
Click to expand...

I'm a recording noob still, so what will using that do as opposed to just going into one of the Ins on the mixer? Better signal?

And thanks to everyone else for their input. Doesn't seem like going DI is too popular, but I'll check out that other amp that was talked about as well. :cool:
 
B4 u spend all that money (which is cool if you have it), try the Behringer GDI21 analog guitar amp simulator/direct box.

If you have moral reservations, try the original - Tech 21 SansAmp GT2, but it's about 6x the price. Good thing, though, Tech 21 now has a 3-channel version, so you can have 3 footswitchable sounds (a more "live" feature, I think).

Whether you think it sounds like tubes or not, you'll find useable sounds for the money!
 
mixsit said:
There's DI's that will pad down from a speaker out. But it'll miss the natural eq (which is fairly significant) and other benefits or the speaker/mic variations. It also won't be recording what you're hearing from the amp. Might as well get a Pod or something then?
How come you can't get the room tone down enough with the mic?
Click to expand...

I don't know, I just never liked the sounds I've heard from a POD.

The room itself has a lot of echoing going on. It could just be a matter of putting the amp in a different place. I've kind of wanted to try putting it in the closet that's in here and stuffing it with a bunch of crap to try and deaden things, but I know that wouldn't work too well anyway.

It's a really tiny room. I'll admit I haven't experimented too much with anything yet. Mainly because I really don't know what I am doing at this point (read: is a noob). I'm jobless right now and I don't have a mic stand to use for mic positioning, so I just have to hang the mic down over the front of the amp.
 
AMTA said:
I'm jobless right now and I don't have a mic stand to use for mic positioning, so I just have to hang the mic down over the front of the amp.
Click to expand...

That's part of your problem, anyway. To get the most signal from your amp and the least of the room, the mic needs to be pointed at the speaker from a short distance away. Improvise; put the mic on a shoe or something.
 
ggunn said:
That's part of your problem, anyway. To get the most signal from your amp and the least of the room, the mic needs to be pointed at the speaker from a short distance away. Improvise; put the mic on a shoe or something.
Click to expand...

Haha yeah I figured that was part of it too. I used to have a boom stand but I left it at a gig that was 40 miles away a year or two ago and never got it back.
 
Roguetitan said:
go line out from the amp into the mixer with a1/4" Female to LXR male transformer.
pRS1C-2160353w345.jpg

Radio Shack has them for 15 bucks, Either that or use a passive DI.
Click to expand...

With a line level input to a transformer, the balanced output is line level as well; some mixers expect only mic level on their XLR inputs and cannot pad them enough to take a line level without clipping the preamps. If the mixer has 1/4" line inputs, there's really no reason to convert the amp's line output to balanced unless there's a ground loop problem, and in that case you'd want to connect up with a mic cable with the shield clipped.
 
ggunn said:
That's part of your problem, anyway. To get the most signal from your amp and the least of the room, the mic needs to be pointed at the speaker from a short distance away. Improvise; put the mic on a shoe or something.
Click to expand...
..anything! Get that mic pointed in straight (and up on the grill at least initially). Edge of the cone is mellow, center is bright. :)
 
AMTA said:
I'm a recording noob still, so what will using that do as opposed to just going into one of the Ins on the mixer? Better signal?

And thanks to everyone else for their input. Doesn't seem like going DI is too popular, but I'll check out that other amp that was talked about as well. :cool:
Click to expand...

you are converting the High Z unbalanced signal to a Low Z balanced signal

it seems a lot of guitards like to mic the cab I preferr going DI to the mixer.

it is really personal preference, one way is really no better than the other although some people will say it does.
any timeyou record something it is going to sound diffrent than it does listening live real time otherwise therwe would be no purpose for work station editing tools;)
 
Sweet info in here thanks guys/gals. I'll try to improvise on the mic thing and see if that improves the excessive issue.

I kind of have a hopeful job on the horizon at a guitar shop, so maybe I won't have to improvise for too long.
 
One of my worst ever gigs (and that's saying a lot) was where the sound guy took the DI from my Marshall JCM 800 2204 into the board, but also miced the cab -- then... he puts the mic/cab channel to my monitor and the D.I to the mains. During sound check, everyone's like "are you sure about this?", but what I heard coming out the monitor sounded great, so I'm like "yeah I'm sure! :)"

Showtime, I cleared the bar out in about 90 seconds (but that didn't stop us from playing three full sets to a bunch of empty tables and chairs). Later, I heard a tape of what was coming out the mains -- complete ear-splitting crap. Ho-ho, boy did I feel stupid!, But like I said, that was only one of my worst gigs, so I got over it by eclipsing it's crappiness later.
 
oh, and another thing you could try is to build a box of couch pillows around the front of the amp and the mic, and/or put the amp on a bed (careful not to start a fire, of course) and frame the mic and area with pillows.

Also arrange things so that you can wear headphones with decent isolation (which usually means not-so-decent sound) while playing the guitar while moving things around until the sound is good. When it is, take notes if you have to, then reconfigure so that you can record comfortably. I find it kind of annoying taking the time to get positioning right, but it really pays off.
 
It sounds like your room might be a lot of your problem, as well as needing a mic stand. Treating a room can get expensive but there are things you can do to help without spending a lot of money. Hang heavy curtains or thick blankets on walls, stack pillows or stand a mattress in corners, an area rug or two on the floor, almost anything to soak up some of the echos in the room. Set your amp at an angle rather than parallel to the wall and raise it off the floor. A stool or chair and a folded towel can serve as a makeshift mic stand for an amp. Sometimes a little imagination can go a long way, it has to go further when you don't have much of a budget to work with.
 
More good advice in here, thanks again. My first idea is put my amp on my stool and just use my straight mic stand, so I'll have to try that.

This thread kind of turned in a different direction, but I'm okay with that as long as everyone else is...heh heh.
 
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