POD + Apogee Duet for Guitar recording??

[The Crystal King]

Hi guys,

I've been reading a lot in the past few months, and have eventually decided to go with a MacBook pro + Logic 8 + Apogee duet to record a demo CD for my band. I was looking into the Mbox2 and Pro Tools (initially with a PC, then Mac), and some other interfaces, but it looks like Logic/Mac is the best choice, and most hassle free drivers and reliability.

The thing is, for my bands last demo I used my POD 2.0 ( Line 6 :: Products ) to record all the electric guitar parts, and they came out quite well (needed to play around with it a bit). I mostly use a crunchy Metal riffing sound, similar to bands like Sonata Arctica, Rhapsody, Iced Earth, Helloween.

I'm wondering if I'll be able to use the POD 2.0 with the Duet, and will it improve the sound quality, as compared to using it on my old PC with a Soundblaster Live! card (using the line-in)? Do you know how I can go about using it?

I'm still new to all this, but want to be sure I'm making the right choices for guitar recording. I've also read stuff about GT3, and it looks good, but I'm already over my budget with all the other s/w and h/w, so I will use the POD if I can...

Many thanks for any advice

PS.Regarding the POD output, just found the following info in my POD manual:

Left & Right Output - These are balanced 1/4" TRS connectors, and ready to rock with pro +4 dBu balanced equipment. They will also work happily with unbalanced -10 dBV equipment and standard guitar cables. If you are running POD mono, use the Left output.

 

[beyond dead]

im familiar with all the stuff you mentioned. go for the duet and logic pro. that would be a good combo. although it may be a better idea to just get a fire pod instead of the duet. at first i thought the duet was cool, but it has a lack of i/o features, such as outputs other than speaker outputs which renders it useless for reamping although pres and converters are SUPPOSED to be stellar. i would like to do some test recordings with it!

duet: $500
fp10: roughly $399

fp 10 is enough to track drums(10 tracks), has decent pres/converters and is tried tested and true. also it has lots of i/o options and 2 of the pres have an effects loops as well as line ins (for using external pres)

basically, even if the duet offers better conversion, it doesnt offer the i/o to properly utilize it. and conversion is not that big of a deal at this point in your development
fp10 ftw

get logic pro aswell if ya can. $500 bucks for a daw with tons of features. beats getting the light version of software just to have the pro tools name.

- the pod 2.0 is good for recording demos and shit. you are correct about using the left output if you are going out mono, but i never paid attention to that rule lol

 

[Metaltastic]

Yeah dude, unless you plan on programming the drums (or doing them all via MIDI), good luck recording a demo with a Duet - IMO it's really a pretty niche gizmo meant EXCLUSIVELY for like rap/electro artists who have very limited i/o needs.

 

[The Crystal King]

Thanks guys...

Actually, I'm doing the drums using drumagog and won't need a very good drum recording!! Our drummer is very good so I shouldn't have to make too many adjustments, apart from replacing ALL of the recorded parts with samples. I'm hoping to use Steven Slate samples and some Addictive drums stuff as well.

So that is why maybe the Firepod might be overkill for now.. I'm only going to record some backing vocals, guitars (track by track), and shitty sounding drums using 1 mic (I will then run that bad sounding recording through drumagog, because I don't think drumagog is very fussy about the quality as long as every piece is audible).

Anyone have an answer to my original question about getting the POD into the Duet? Is it possible? Will there be a sound improvement?

thanks

 

[The Crystal King]

By the way Metaltastic, I was listening to your music earlier today on myspace and was very impressed!! You're doing great stuff, and I want some of your guitar sound quality...

 

[grywolf627]

Maybe I'm missing something here (probably the case), but how are you planning on using drumagog to replace all the drums from drums recorded with one mic? Don't take this as being sarcastic, just want some clarification because I don't see how this is possible. Sorry to get off topic from your question about the POD.

Edit: Honestly, I'd go with Beyond Dead's recommendation and go for the fp10 so you're not limiting yourself. You can never have too many options.

 

[Metaltastic]

Hey, thanks a ton man, I really appreciate that! Unfortanately, none of the guitar tones on there really represent what I'm working with now, cuz the only two songs I used my JSX on were through my old Bogner oversized 2x12, and thank god I got rid of that overpriced fizz-box. I'm on the hunt for a good used Mesa Traditional 4x12, though, so when I get it, I'll post some clips that are a better representation of such a kickass amp

And yeah, the Pod can totally run into the Duet - just plug the Pod line out into the Duet line in using a stereo/TRS/balanced 1/4" (all the same thing) cable. And the quality will be slightly improved over the SB Live because of the better converters, but I doubt it'll be noticeable, especially in a mix. However, for anything mic'ed (guitars, vox, etc.), that's another story!

 

[The Crystal King]

Maybe I'm missing something here (probably the case), but how are you planning on using drumagog to replace all the drums from drums recorded with one mic? Don't take this as being sarcastic, just want some clarification because I don't see how this is possible. Sorry to get off topic from your question about the POD.

Edit: Honestly, I'd go with Beyond Dead's recommendation and go for the fp10 so you're not limiting yourself. You can never have too many options.

No you aren't missing anything, but maybe I am!

I don't know much about Drumagog, but from what I've read on this forum I'm under the impression that the quality of your initial drum recording doesn't matter too much. I've read posts here about people recording themselves banging on a table, and then converting it using drumagog! So surely using a decent mic in the duet, the drums will sound good enough for Drumagog? Maybe not..?

As long as Drumagog can scan my recording and "pick out" those snares, toms and bass drums, it should be able to give me my base rhythm pattern. I will probablt add cymbals to that...

 

[grywolf627]

I hate to be the one to burst your bubble. But unless Drumagog has some powerful features that I don't know about (admittedly, I use Aptrigga much more than Drumagog), it doesn't work like that. Each drum needs to on its own track, and somewhat isolated. Then you load an instance of Drumagog on each track, then load up your snare sample on the snare track, kick sample on the kick track, and so on. I guess you COULD load up several instances of Drumgog on the one track, and set each one to trigger only from certain key frequency ranges. But I don't think that would have very accurate or reliable results.

As far as your question about the POD though, just like Metaltastic said, it will work just fine. But don't expect to hear any major differences.

 

[gorath23]

No you aren't missing anything, but maybe I am!

I don't know much about Drumagog, but from what I've read on this forum I'm under the impression that the quality of your initial drum recording doesn't matter too much. I've read posts here about people recording themselves banging on a table, and then converting it using drumagog! So surely using a decent mic in the duet, the drums will sound good enough for Drumagog? Maybe not..?

As long as Drumagog can scan my recording and "pick out" those snares, toms and bass drums, it should be able to give me my base rhythm pattern. I will probablt add cymbals to that...

I'm 99% sure Drumagog cannot do what you want. It needs single isolated drum tracks, and works on the principle of audio/volume thresholds being breached and then triggering samples. Unfortunately its not a magic box that recognises individual pieces of kit from a sprawl of noise.

EDIT: haha, greywolf beat me to it.

 

[grywolf627]

EDIT: haha, greywolf beat me to it.

Great minds think alike. LOL

 

[gorath23]

As an addendum to what has been said, once you start getting into recording full demos, including 8-12 tracks (or more) for drums the recording lark suddenly becomes expensive, considering that a 'bedroom engineer' can just program up some killer drums for much cheaper. My advice would be to work out exactly how far you want to go with it. Either spend the money on the gear you were originally planning on getting, but resign yourself to going to a studio to actually record the drums or scale everything back to allow for a interface with more i/o options (fp10 is a solid choice) and a set of drum mics. Actually It may be easier to just invest in some triggers for the kit and just have a couple of overhead mics and maybe a mono room mic, that way you could still incorporate the Drumagog/Slate stuff.

 

[The Crystal King]

Doh.. well there goes that idea!

So obviously there aren't any "magic boxes" out there that can do this for me? I had also been thinking about recording my drummer, and then programming the drums in beat by beat myself based on what he's done. It will take a big longer, and I'll need to "humanize" it all, but it's certainly a good option, and lower cost

One more question: if I decide to go down the Addictive drums route, or doing the drums using Logic Pro, can I import the Steven Slate samples in? The addictive drum samples are pretty good, but Slate ones are totally amazing..

 

[SocialNumb]

Are you talking about importing drums sounds into AD? No. Not that I know of. You will need some kind of sampler, or apTrigga. Don't know about Drumagog.

Edit: Logic has a sampler.

 

[grywolf627]

Sorry, I know nothing about AD. I use a combination of EZDrummer/DFH and Battery. But there's plenty AD users around here so maybe they'll chime in.

 

[The Crystal King]

thanks, maybe I'll start a thread for that

 

[beyond dead]

best thing to do on budget
logic pro
firepod

mics (a couple good overheads and some shitty ones you can convert to midi later)
battery

logic can convert audio to midi, put battery on instrument track, select sample for the appropriate cell. easy as cake

fire pod is cheaper, save money for mics and dont regret buying an interface that is extremely limited as to what it can do and expandability. trust me, once you get reading stuff around here and learning stuff, you will regret the purchase dude.

i would recommend the duet if you were recording vocals or guitar to send away the be mixed elsewhere. but for drums, or for recording a band, not its purpose.