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Recording...again


Huw

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I would get a Line 6 POD xt. You can more than decent enough recordings with a bit of fiddling and know how. 190.

Unless you own/buy a 1000+ amp/cab rig, and then mic (Shure SM57 - 80, is industry standard for rock/metal pro recordings) and then appropriate cables etc. etc. etc. you won't do too much better than the POD.

And then comes the technical know-how of micing up an amp to get a nice clear tone, which you can bypass with a POD. (of course if you want to start learning about audio engineering then its worthy venture getting into micing up cabs etc...)

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totally agree with Dan.

if you want to get decent recordings for minimal money, don't even bother with trying to record using mics, cabs and amps. You need a lot of good gear and a lot of know how to make them sound good. Not to mention the noise factor.

The PodXT will get you more than enough tone. Coupled with a drum sampler and you're sorted.

Dan, why don't you post an example of the tones you can get with your PodXT and a bit of knowledge of how to record/layer guitars!!?

Dan like me is using a ProTools set-up but I am sure the principles transcend across all DAWs.

(what are you using by the way)

P.S

oh another point, Dan here is using a PodXT into an M-Box (m-Audio) then using ProTools M-Powered.

If you went the PodXT route you would still need some kind of audio interface to record into your DAW.

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dan why don't you post an example of the tones you can get with your podXT and a bit of knowledge of how to record/layer guitars!!

oh another point, Dan here is using a PodXT into an M-Box (m-Audio) then using ProTools M-Powered.

next time I get a second of free time I will!

(mbox2 has protools LE, rather than M-powered - not much difference though)

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ooop, good shout!! yeah sorry bout that.

but no ProTools M-Powered and LE are essentially identical pieces of software.

LE works with digi-design hardware and M-Powered with M-Audio hardware.

(the 'M' in MBox confused me!!)

but yeah man, you should!!

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ooop, good shout!! yeah sorry bout that.

but no ProTools M-Powered and LE are essentially identical pieces of software.

LE works with digi-design hardware and M-Powered with M-Audio hardware.

(the 'M' in MBox confused me!!)

but yeah man, you should!!

I was gutted with my Mbox (1) as it wasn't supported by Vista... very very crap when you have vista laptop. Ended up waiting in the vain hope that things would change but no. I now use it with Cubase, fruity loops and my synths with an old, slow, noisy PC with XP. At least it works now!

I got ProTools LE with it along with a version of Ableton as well, decent bundle actually.

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I would get a Line 6 POD xt. You can more than decent enough recordings with a bit of fiddling and know how. 190.

Unless you own/buy a 1000+ amp/cab rig, and then mic (Shure SM57 - 80, is industry standard for rock/metal pro recordings) and then appropriate cables etc. etc. etc. you won't do too much better than the POD.

And then comes the technical know-how of micing up an amp to get a nice clear tone, which you can bypass with a POD. (of course if you want to start learning about audio engineering then its worthy venture getting into micing up cabs etc...)

nothing to do with you're advice. but i don't really trust line 6 with anything tone-wise. bad experiences and a mistakes i don't want to make again. i find that they only ever give you options for so-called rhythm and lead style guitar playing - blues and metal.

also, i'm looking to get a great sounding guitar rig eventually so it makes sense to me to go for the micing option. i actually do have a 1000 bass rig. still doesn't sound anywhere near as good as i'd like it to for reecordings though.

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ProTools 7.4 is Vista acompatible.

Only been recently released and I couldn't wait that long when i was getting my gear (back end of last year) so I'm running ProTools 7.3 with XP. I may upgrade to 7.4 soon though. Can't decide.

HUW, have you tried just plugging your bass straight into your interface via a sansamp? You can get some very very good tones that way.

Next time I record bass I'll do the same again (sansamp) but then run it through my SVT4 Pro plugin to see if i can make it even sweeter.

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ProTools 7.4 is Vista acompatible.

Only been recently released and I couldn't wait that long when i was getting my gear (back end of last year) so I'm running ProTools 7.3 with XP. I may upgrade to 7.4 soon though. Can't decide.

HUW, have you tried just plugging your bass straight into your interface via a sansamp? You can get some very very good tones that way.

Next time I record bass I'll do the same again (sansamp) but then run it through my SVT4 Pro plugin to see if i can make it even sweeter.

Vista is shit

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yeah well so I have heard. hence me not being overly fussed about still running an XP system.

however the extra RAM available with Vista would be useful.

I resent the fact that they force you into having to buy new (potentially) expensive hardware rather than provide drivers. Why do businesses not transfer to Vista, surely it were any good they would.

Rant over.

Have you got any stuff you've produced on protools? Wouldn't mind comparing quality to my cubase stuff. What is the real difference, I know Protools is often what pro recording studios use...

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nothing to do with you're advice. but i don't really trust line 6 with anything tone-wise. bad experiences and a mistakes i don't want to make again. i find that they only ever give you options for so-called rhythm and lead style guitar playing - blues and metal.

also, i'm looking to get a great sounding guitar rig eventually so it makes sense to me to go for the micing option. i actually do have a 1000 bass rig. still doesn't sound anywhere near as good as i'd like it to for reecordings though.

I would tend to agree with you about line 6 gear... however the pod Xt is pretty good for demos - and a lot of bands have recorded entire albums with them. In your position, you pretty much have 2 options: You can spend under 200 and with a bit of work get results as good as this guy -

(listen to the song 'legatta')

MySpace.com - Bulb(New Song: Legatta)BUY MY RARE SPECTOR GUITAR! - BETHESDA, US - Metal / Experimental / Rock - www.myspace.com/iambulb

Or get a guitar with good pick ups and run it into an Orange stack (for example).

It really depends on how much money you are willing to spend, and exactly how good you want you recordings to sound!

Regarding bass, like Tooms says, with a Sansamp (and a decent bass) you can get really good results by direct recording - which can also help omit some of the nasty boomy low end from attempting to mic up bass rigs. I was experimenting with this recently, recording one take of bass into two inputs; a clean signal and the sansamp driven signal. Then using the clean DI for the nice warm natural low end, and then EQing the Sansamp signal for some really gritty mids, and a touch of highs. After finding the right balance between the two I had a sound that fills out the low end but has a nice bit of presence to sit with the rhythm guitars.

Getting a good sounding recording is 99% knowledge and ability of recording, and how good the players recording it are - NOT good gear. Good gear helps obviously... and I'd recommend getting a good guitar rig as it helps for playing live, and also it is just good to own/fun to play! But as mentioned before, it's all dependant on how much you want to spend and how good you want your stuff to sound. :up:

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Have you got any stuff you've produced on protools? Wouldn't mind comparing quality to my cubase stuff. What is the real difference, I know Protools is often what pro recording studios use...

It's all to do with the producer/engineer rather than the DAW etc - Protools is very user friendly and the learning curve is great. i've never used anything else so can't comment, but comparing recordings will be futile. Eg. you might be a great engineer using cubase for 10 years who has recorded guitars with a Bogner rig and drums in a pro studio, and I might be rubbish on protools and have used a 10W Crate combo for guitars and used crap drum programming. Therefore seeing who's sounds best won't really be the best judge of whether cubase or protools is better!

I'll post up something soon though, just for interest :)

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It's all to do with the producer/engineer rather than the DAW

spot on, the audio engines in most host software are all very similar and high quality, it's what you do with it that counts. I've seen phase inversion tests of a handful of the most common software that proves there is literally no difference between some of the audio engines. Don't let the "pro" in protools mislead you into thinking it's any better than cubase, logic or nuendo.

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haha. I know. Poor spelling really grinds my gears! :-p

But you're all spot on about the differences between DAWs being very small.

It's all about the person behind it really, then the musician, then the gear/hardware... and only then does the software come into play!!

Dan,

who's bass did you rinse??

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Just thought I'd post this in here:

I have just bought a Line 6 PODxt to track guitars with. (Along with signal splitter cable so that I can DI the signal then use for re-amping at a later date if I so wish.) Looking forward to tracking some guitars this weekend!!

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Regarding bass, like Tooms says, with a Sansamp (and a decent bass) you can get really good results by direct recording - which can also help omit some of the nasty boomy low end from attempting to mic up bass rigs. I was experimenting with this recently, recording one take of bass into two inputs; a clean signal and the sansamp driven signal. Then using the clean DI for the nice warm natural low end, and then EQing the Sansamp signal for some really gritty mids, and a touch of highs. After finding the right balance between the two I had a sound that fills out the low end but has a nice bit of presence to sit with the rhythm guitars.

did you just take the signal direct from the bass and muck about with it on the computer or what?

ugh :down:

if thats reference to my spelling/grammar, i'm sorry.

'you are advice'... nice.

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spot on, the audio engines in most host software are all very similar and high quality, it's what you do with it that counts. I've seen phase inversion tests of a handful of the most common software that proves there is literally no difference between some of the audio engines. Don't let the "pro" in protools mislead you into thinking it's any better than cubase, logic or nuendo.

I run both protools and cubase and invariably reach for cubase for mixing as I find protools clunky. I certainly can't hear any diffrence between the two as regards sound quality.

The best thing about protools is that I can send projects to virtually any studio and know they can open it and vice versa.

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