Help! advice/suggestions for home recording

[Empros]

First of all, I apologise for how convoluted this first post may sound, but I have a shit load running around my head and it needs straightening out. It feels like I've been revising for an exam, learned what I thought were the correct answers, but then subsequently discovered my knowledge was completely superficial.

I've lurked here for a few months and found this place pretty helpful. Here's the deal: I've played guitar (properly) for a few years now but I've hardly ever played amplified, aside from a few jam sessions with people here and there. I'd previously bought a toneport, but I absolutely hated the tones I got from it, so much so that it almost put me off all together. I like to play with unusual voicings, not just power chords, but there was no note definition and it just sounded a muddy mess. I've since heard plenty of home recordings where people have obtained really impressive, clear tones, so I know it can be done!

I'm in the process of looking for a new pc (geared mainly towards home recording). After talking with someone from Carillon, they drafted up some specs and gave me a few options for various pc set ups. One thing I've noticed that people stress is the importance of the soundcard - in this case, I've been recommened Saffire Pro 24. I've heard people say that the pre-amps are impressive, but I've also been looking at the Engl E530. Question: can these two run together? If so, which is the better pre amp? I'm trying to get things straight in my head, but I'm really struggling to figure out where everything goes in the chain...

Any straightforward advice would be appreciated. I felt like I was getting the hang of things, but now I feel like I'm back to square one...

 

[Empros]

Eh, guess I was asking too much...

 

[AntonioPetrole]

if you did some research on these you would not have a problem. Not trying to sound like a dick but that's just how it is.

The Saffire Pro 24 is an audio interface (or soundcard, basically the same thing). It converts analog sound to digital. What it does is send information and sound bytes from the outside world (captured by a microphone, guitar pup etc.) and converts it to digital and sends it into your computer.

The Engl E530 is a rack mounted guitar preamp. It can be run with a power amp and a cab or in a multitude of other ways to create the actual amp sounds. There is no digital/analog conversion involved, just shaping and changing the tone.

You can think of the quality of the preamps in the saffire as how clean, clear or colored the input signal is converted. A better preamp will have a low noise floor, a cleaner sound and with the higher end stuff it will color the sound (Neve, API etc.)

So all in all you would get the Saffire. It is a great product for the price and it will act as your sound card. From their you can plug in your microphones and guitars.

You can buy the Engl E530 but essentially you are just buying the preamp to an amp (not sure if I worded this correctly)

Edit: Also

Eh, guess I was asking too much...

Your not asking to much, in fact, you are asking to little. Its annoying to have to answer 10 posts like this everyday that cover the basics which you can find with a few minutes of googling. Read the stickies and use the custom search. You have almost 10 years of information floating around this place

Welcome to the forum!

 

[Empros]

Sorry to have 'annoyed' you for not understanding something you do. What an atittude to have; it was stated in my first post that I'd "researched" and struggled to understand it, so I was hoping a 'human' person to interact with might help more. That's the problem; there's almost TOO much to research and, like I stated, you end up tieing yourself in knots. It's honestly really disheartening to read up on something, not understand it, ask people on a forum who obviously understnd it well, and then be greeted with that type of condescending, passive aggressive tone from your intial salvo. So, kindly, shove that "welcome to the forum" where the Sun doesn't shine. A welcome doesn't involve making a 'noob' feel a dick for being in a place you were at one time.

All you need to do was write that info ina helpful manner. Do you honestly think it was helpful to make someone feel like a pest for asking what you deem is a basic question. We all start somewhere...

 

[AntonioPetrole]

the only rude thing I said was the first sentence

"if you did some research on these you would not have a problem. Not trying to sound like a dick but that's just how it is."

Of course I was once a newb and there is nothing wrong with that. I'm just letting you know that you have an insane wealth of information on this forum and you just need to dig deep and you will learn so much in the process of digging to. I was just making you aware.

I appreciate your thanks for the information I gave you, next time you can fuck yourself and have noone help you

Again, welcome to the forum, I wasn't trying to be a dick, just stating that this place has all the info you could ever need, you just gotta know how to dig deep

 

[Empros]

I appreciate your thanks for the information I gave you, next time you can fuck yourself and have noone help you

Well, before I bumped it, were you one of the 40 people who viewed and thought "meh, where are those shootout threads I want" *skips*? Aye. It was almost begrudging 'help', which included a section where you even said "if that makes sense", so you pretty much proved my initial point correct - it's not easy to extrapolate from a shit ton of often conflicting info.

 

[AntonioPetrole]

Well, before I bumped it, were you one of the 40 people who viewed and thought "meh, where are those shootout threads I want" *skips*? Aye. It was almost begrudging 'help', which included a section where you even said "if that makes sense", so you pretty much proved my initial point correct - it's not easy to extrapolate from a shit ton of often conflicting info.

I wasn't one of those people, that was the first I saw of your post. I don't care for shootout threads unless its comparing digital to hardware. I'm always trying to help beginners to. I even posted 2 threads in this equipment subforum with links to awesome free plugins and an acoustic treatment calculating app.

Once you are on this forum for a while you will understand why I feel the way I do.

/endthread

 

[einride]

Saffire Pro 24. I've heard people say that the pre-amps are impressive, but I've also been looking at the Engl E530. Question: can these two run together? If so, which is the better pre amp?

When people talk about the pre-amps in the Saffire Pro 24, they're talking about the mic preamps in the interface.

The Engl is a guitar preamp. You would probably be using that live or for recording, but then you'd need a power amp stage and a speaker cabinet, too. It in itself has nothing to do with getting sound into your PC.

Either way, you need a sound card/interface. Depending on whether you want to use real amps or plug-in amp simulators, you either need an amp and some mics (which then go into the mic preamps of the interface) or an interface with a hi-Z/DI/guitar/instrument (these are mostly interchangeable terms) input.

If you get the Saffire Pro 24, you have everything you need to record guitar, because it has instrument inputs. Plug in your guitar, load up an amp sim in your DAW, and you are good to go. There are very good free ones.

 

[electricred]

Well, before I bumped it, were you one of the 40 people who viewed and thought "meh, where are those shootout threads I want" *skips*? Aye. It was almost begrudging 'help', which included a section where you even said "if that makes sense", so you pretty much proved my initial point correct - it's not easy to extrapolate from a shit ton of often conflicting info.

Welcome to Sneap, a board filled mostly with bedroom musicians, a small handful of experienced posters have elitist attitudes, and an even smaller number of openly helpful individuals. If you ask any questions, you will be referred to Google, because someone might have posted about something similar back in 2008 and somehow that should answer all future questions.

That being said, you did overreact to roflsaurusrex. His post wasn't that rude, although he could've attempted to be more friendly and leave out the snide comment.

Anyways...

The Saffire Pro 24 DSP is a microphone preamp and soundcard/audio interface. The Engl e530 is a guitar preamp. They are completely different. To connect them and be able to record, you need to run the line out (as you would to a power amp) into the 1/4" inputs of the Saffire Pro 24. This bypasses the microphone preamps and allows line level signal. Then, inside of the DAW (Pro Tools, Logic, Cubase, etc) you will need a plugin to run cabinet simulation like Impulse Responses, Recabinet, or Two Notes Wall of Sound.

I personally do not like the Engl e530, but would strongly prefer that over amp sims.

 

[Empros]

Thanks for the response. It seems the Engl e530 is a 'love/hate' thing, but I don't see anything comparable in the market for that price range? In other words, I want decent home recording quality, without spending a shit load of money.

 

[Firaxis]

Thanks for the response. It seems the Engl e530 is a 'love/hate' thing, but I don't see anything comparable in the market for that price range? In other words, I want decent home recording quality, without spending a shit load of money.

You'll still need the saffire or some other audio interface as well as the e530.

 

[Empros]

That was another thing; I know default soundcards in computers are generally shit, but what 'real' differences will a good one make? Are we talking very noticeable difference in tonal quality?

 

[MatrixClaw]

That was another thing; I know default soundcards in computers are generally shit, but what 'real' differences will a good one make? Are we talking very noticeable difference in tonal quality?

Yes. Extremely noticeable, especially if you want to use a mic, though the conversion on the Saffire will destroy your computer's sound card. You'll also get much lower latency (lag) recording into a dedicated interface, which is a HUGE plus if you plan on tracking multiple instrument parts.

 

[einride]

That was another thing; I know default soundcards in computers are generally shit, but what 'real' differences will a good one make? Are we talking very noticeable difference in tonal quality?

It is absolutely out of the question to use on-board motherboard audio chips for music recording. You need something with ASIO drivers, at the very least.

 

[SLave_Machine]

Welcome to Sneap, a board filled mostly with bedroom musicians, a small handful of experienced posters have elitist attitudes, and an even smaller number of openly helpful individuals. If you ask any questions, you will be referred to Google, because someone might have posted about something similar back in 2008 and somehow that should answer all future questions.

ehehehe, I couldn't agree more

 

[Robert W]

Thanks for the response. It seems the Engl e530 is a 'love/hate' thing, but I don't see anything comparable in the market for that price range? In other words, I want decent home recording quality, without spending a shit load of money.

Well the Engl is about $600 USD new so you should really make sure that's the kind of tone you're looking for. There are other pre amps out there, but they're pretty costly too.

Maybe you might want to give the amp sims a try first. The LeCto and the X30 are good ones to start with.

 

[C-Martin]

If i were you i'd avoid using mics for a while until you get the basics figured out. It is clear that you are new to this and still barely understand the basics. It takes years to learn how to coax the great sounds you hear in those recordings, not to mention that there is a ton of variables that come in to play. Even copying someone elses signal chain might not give you the results you want to hear or even the same results as that person you tried to copy.

My advice would be to start simple with either amp sims (as some have already suggested) or get something like a POD Farm, a POD HD or perhaps even the previous PODs. This will give you much to play with and experiment. Learn how to use impulses, a great and simple product to use would be Recabinet. You may be satisfied with the results from sims and impulses, a lot of people are, but once you've figured out the basics and have developed an ear and an understanding of how to get great guitar sound, or at least the one you are after, then you can enter the world of micing a guitar cab. If you chose to go that route, you can have fun starting over because it's a completely different beast to learn lol.

This will at least get you started and you'll be able to enjoy making music rather than getting frustrated as to why you can't make your guitar amp sound good with a SM57.

Usefull links:

http://www.google.com/cse/home?cx=007593470310830667409:4qw46y8lnza - Sneap Search, no forum member should be without it. I get 95% of my answers from here.

www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/equipment/541010-list-guitar-ampsim-software.html - List of guitar amp sims

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/equipment/513601-getting-audiointerface-faq.html - Getting an audio interface FAQ

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/equipment/346068-tube-screamer-faq-version-1-a.html - TS FAQ

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/production-tips/419244-all-tutorial-requests-here.html - compilation of many tutorials

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/...6-best-production-tips-all-stickies-here.html - Best of production tips

http://www.recabi.net/ - Recabinet site, in case you didn't know about it.


The reason roflsaurusrex was a bit snide was because all this info is readily available and super easy to find. It literally took me longer to paste them into this message than it took me to find them. Most of the good stuff is stickied to the head of each sub forums. No one here will ever take you by the hand and guide you step by step on how to get a setup and get great sounds. Best way to get help here is to ask a clear and specific questions. Avoid asking general questions like "What's the best way to record guitar". Like i said, to some this is years of work and dedication, a lot of us have started just like you and we just raped this forum and other sources of information (google and you tube) until we found a satisfying amount of info to start doing it ourselves. A lot of it is also trial and error, nothing beats experience and you have to fail miserably before you learn what you did wrong and can become better at it. There is no easy solution, recording is the type of thing that requires patience and dedication.

 

[vaiman]

My advice, don't rush out and buy lots of new toys.

Stick the evaluation version of Reaper (http://www.reaper.fm/) on your current pc and get to know how a DAW works and workflow etc. Full version is $60 if you like it.
You can learn the basics about EQ, compressors, filters etc etc with free plugins before buying "better" plugins.

Lots of common questions are asked here because people rush out and by all the "correct" gear, but they are then overwhelmed by the learning curve of a DAW, soundcards, vsts, IR's, mixing, mastering, tracking, EQ, blah blah blah

Soundcard is a must.
But you can get DI's from here and use them to practice with at first. Use the various free guitar plugins and see what you like or don't like.

Once armed with some experience and knowledge you can visit your local store and test out soundcards, amps, mics, keyboards with confidence.
Take it one step at a time and you will have a fun time.

Good luck

 

[Robert W]

Great source for free IRs,
http://www.guitarampmodeling.com/