How HOT you track your guitar DIs?

[botus99]

Ive had a look at professinally tracked dis used for reamping and they are clipping and everything occasionally and you can hear it. Seems to help attack. I realise we worry about stuff like that when really just being concerned with a good balance is far more important.

Depends what you mean by helping the attack. If the guitar player in question doesn't control his dynamics well and you need to level out the hard hits, then it might help. Also keep in mind, I'd put good money on those DI's being from a guitar with active pickups which tend to clip the signal before you even plug into a preamp.

I don't get why the level matters at all as long as it's not clipping. What's the difference between having peaks at -18dbfs and -6dbfs? Not only for DIs but for recording in general.

Saturation from preamps and coloration/transparency from your converter are the 2 main reasons level does indeed matter. Some converters, for instance, sound more transparent around -18dbfs while others are truer to the original signal at a hotter level (-6dbfs).

And preamps come in so many flavors, to keep this short I'll have to generalize. A preamp is going to color your sound differently depending on how hot your signal is and what type of preamp it is (tube/solidstate), exactly like the preamp on a guitar amp (lower gain is cleaner and higher gain is more saturated).

 

[JeffTD]

I really like preamp coloration on my DIs, so do a few other people I know. Will Putney originally turned me onto it - adds a cool bit of saturation to the tone and can focus things a certain way (driving an API vs driving a Neve sound very different).

 

[Diego Rugiero]

-3dbFS, like Glenn suggest in the reamping guide.

 

[abt]

stupid short question.. say you track your d.i.s at -18dbfs average and then add your amp sim.. are you trimming the outputs of the amp/cab sim to keep it at an average of -18dbfs?

It depends on what sim you use. Some of them sound crap if you do this. If this is the case don't bring the level back down in the sim, add a trim plugin after it. This goes for other plugins as well. Some of them just don't sound good with the level set this way or if the incoming signal is to low.

 

[Jim Siou]

Ive had a look at professinally tracked dis used for reamping and they are clipping and everything occasionally and you can hear it. Seems to help attack. I realise we worry about stuff like that when really just being concerned with a good balance is far more important.

I use a saffire pro 40 to record DI guitars and they clip occasionally. But when I reamp their track at 0 level they have exactly the same gain like when the guitar is plugged in to the amp directly. Therefore I do it even if I'm using plugins and I don't have added noise or hear any clipping.

 

[Ermz]

Whatever keeps both the mic pre and converters at their NOL. At home that's averaging around -15dBFS. The converter calibration at the studio is similar, so the levels translate decently well going into the reamp box.

I don't like any coloration on the DIs. Want it to sound as close as possible to plugging the guitar straight into the amp.

 

[XxSicRokerxX]

around -18 db RMS, no more than -6 dbFS if you wanna talk digital.

 

[texisthebest]

Thank you again for your answers.

Using the RMS Buddy (funny free plugin):
I have average RMS between -18dB and -16dB
And absolute peak at -0.97dB (no clip)

This is only from dry guitar DIs.
It´s sounds great and with less noise.
Is there any problem recording this HOT? (only for guitar DIs)

 

[indecizo]

Whatever keeps both the mic pre and converters at their NOL. At home that's averaging around -15dBFS. The converter calibration at the studio is similar, so the levels translate decently well going into the reamp box.

I don't like any coloration on the DIs. Want it to sound as close as possible to plugging the guitar straight into the amp.

Excuse me, what does NOL mean?

 

[JeffTD]

Normal Operating Level.

 

[Ermz]

They call it 'nominal' here, but it's the same difference.

 

[indecizo]

Thanks.

 

[He's Dead, Jim]

I'm a little late on this one, but quick question: If I've got a guitar with active EMGs and it tends to come in at around -6db in my DAW without any processing, would it work to turn down the input level in the amp sim? In other words, I always use POD Farm to monitor because I have a UX1 and the latency is nearly nonexistent. From the stand-alone POD Farm application, it routes the dry sound to Reaper. If I turn down the input knob in POD Farm, would that be sufficient, or do I actually have to turn down the guitar volume or buy a DI box with a Hi-Z input to get down to -18db before the signal hits the DAW?

 

[mickrich]

Really interesting topic.

I always track at everything at about 12DBFS but my radial x-amp needs to be fed 0DBFS to get the correct level to the amp so I tend to put a sonnox Inflator on the DI tracks to send them out to the X-Amp.
If I send out at -14 the amp is starved of signal.

 

[sinquestsound]

http://reampbox.com/ soon in english ! price 30$

http://translate.google.pl/translate?hl=pl&sl=pl&tl=en&u=http://reampbox.com/

Welcome to the website dedicated DAW-AMPowi, device type reampbox. DAW-AMP allows you to record guitar audio interface and then play it through an amplifier without changing the tone and level. DAW-AMP combines friendly features so the two devices - di-box reampboxa while shooting and during playback. Importantly, despite the lack of control DAW-AMP provides an adequate and constant, repetitive recording level and the same level of play - it's what comes out of the guitar, the recording and playing back enters the amplifier without any changes. DAW-AMP provides adequate input impedance without weighing guitar and without changing its sound. Power of two 9V battery provides sufficient headroom, while avoiding distortion in the interface or DAW tracks - a task amplifier distortion. At the same time the output level is so high that even with interfaces calibrated to the level of-10dBV is possible to fully control the amplifier guitar without distortion or change the level. It is obvious galvanic isolation transformer, which allows to minimize hum.

Stay Metal !

 

[Alphanumeric]

-12 through my Roland. Its more than -18 recommended. But whatever, if you are dealing with over-tight modern tones ala axe fx 5150, 5153, ENGL, I like the Roland Pre's, very wide warmness to them just like the synths!