Saffire Pro 24 Input Question

[AgentX]

I recently upgraded my interface to a Focusrite Saffire PRO 24 and haven't quite mastered this thing yet. Overall I'm really happy with it and the playback of the device is so much better then my sound blaster and I have balanced outputs for the first time for my monitors! Fantastic!

I have a quick question regarding recording guitars via input 1/2. Is it recommended to have the instrument mode enabled for guitars with active pick-ups? it seems to amp up the input signal and I'm curious if this should only be activated for low output instruments.

Thanks!

 

[CAlexanderParra]

Yes, it's recommend and sounds the best to me. As long as your pickups aren't insanely hot and don't start clipping the preamp you should be fine. (I have this problem with my X2N on my Ibanez even with the gain on zero and the pickup as far down to the body as possible.)

 

[DEFIED]

I was wondering this also. I have the Pro 40 and I plugged my guitar in and it was clipping all over the place! I turned the gain down considerably but it didn't seem to help (I have EMG 81's with the 18v mod), so I enabled the pad switch and it seemed to help out a lot, don't know if that's proper though, is it?

 

[CAlexanderParra]

We don't have the pad switches on the Pro24, so I'm not sure but it seems like the correct thing to do.

 

[AgentX]

Cheers for the help guys, I will continue to play around and see which sounds better! Do any of you use DI box's aswell? or just guitar direct to the input?

 

[DEFIED]

Direct to the input, hoping to get a Radial soon though

 

[CAlexanderParra]

Yeah I was going direct and I'm absolutely positive that using a DI box in front of the Pro 24 will solve this input volume issue. Off to buy a countryman 85 now!

 

[guitarguru777]

I have no issues with my Pro 40 and Active or Passive Pups. I can get a great signal all the time sitting at about -6 with the peaks.