Massive Tone Difference: Monitoring and Recording

[Line666]

So I've got a dilema.

I'm recording with various amp sims in the latest version of Reaper, and there seems to be a difference tonally between the sound I'm hearing when I'm monitoring as opposed to the sound I hear when I record and play back.

When I'm monitoring my tone has a lot more beef to it, but when I record I get lots more high end, the tone is a lot more scratchy and buzzy sounding and its just not got the same fullness that it did when I was monitoring. It's bizarre.

I started to notice this the other week when I sat down to record and dialed in a nice sounding tone only to find that when I recorded it, it was really harsh on the ears.

Anyone have any ideas about what this could be? I've tried various amp sims, different impulse loaders but it all does the same, its pissing me off...

Any help appreciated, cheers!

 

[hsinn3r]

What bitrate are you recording in? Check the sample/bit rate, I can't think of anything else that could cause that

 

[-Loco-]

hey mate, if you could post some clips that'd be great..i also had an issue like this with my pod. Make sure you're monitoring one guitar and one guitar only in reaper cause the superposition of the 2 sounds lead me to believe that my tone was actually good, when infact i had tracked it and it was shit. Also when you playback the track in reaper is it slightly quieter than when you're monitoring it?

 

[Line666]

hey mate, if you could post some clips that'd be great..i also had an issue like this with my pod. Make sure you're monitoring one guitar and one guitar only in reaper cause the superposition of the 2 sounds lead me to believe that my tone was actually good, when infact i had tracked it and it was shit. Also when you playback the track in reaper is it slightly quieter than when you're monitoring it?

Yeah, slightly quieter, slightly more tinny. Its a Toneport, so another Line 6 product...

It's kinda hard to post samples when theres nothing recordable to compare it to.

 

[Torniojaws]

Just wondering, are you playing it yourself when you record? Because when you have a guitar on your lap, the guitar body will transfer some low vibrations into your body. When you later play the same performance, it won't (literally) feel the same.

 

[Line666]

Just wondering, are you playing it yourself when you record? Because when you have a guitar on your lap, the guitar body will transfer some low vibrations into your body. When you later play the same performance, it won't (literally) feel the same.

I considered the possibility of that at first but the difference is to large to simply put it down to those vibrations, I mean there sounds like a massive loss of low end to my ears and it gets more tinny and fizzy at the top.

I think hsinn3r might be right and its some sort of bit depth problem, I'm fiddling with that right now...

 

[AudioGeekZine]

on headphones too?
I've noticed if the wire for the headphones is touching the guitar the vibrations carry up into your ears.

It could be that when you're monitoring it's in 32 bit float or something, and on playback it's a 16bit file. BUT that should have nothing to do with frequency balance, just dynamic range and detail.

If you can get something to constantly record in the background like a screen cap program you can get both the monitored sound and playback sound at once. This is pretty bizarre though.

 

[ahjteam]

take a screenshot of the monitoring situation

 

[Line666]

http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/5051/screenshotrdy.jpg

 

[ahjteam]

I noticed the most propable reason. Use 24bit projects instead of 32bit. There aren't any soundcard that records in 32bit. 32-bit (or higher) are used internally by software to minimize the inevitable round-off error that occurs as part of digital processing, but the audio itself remains 24-bit.

 

[Torniojaws]

Reaper always uses 32-bit (if the sound card allows it), you can't change it anywhere yourself.

 

[-Loco-]

I think you're problem is simpler than that man, i think its your monitoring settings on gearbox not matching your playback levels on reaper. I had the same kind of issue for ages in Logic and it was driving me insane with all these volume knobs haha adjust your monitor level in gearbox/podfarm to the same level as reaper and that should fix your playing/playback volume issue.