Introduction to Music Production Week 1 Assignment

How To: Recording an Electric Guitar or Bass without an Amplifier

Introduction
Hi, I'm Jess Rodrguez from Madrid, Spain. I'll do my best to explain how to record an electric guitar or bass without an amplifier, trying not to mistreat your language, as English is not my mother tongue. ^_^U Let's Start...

Pros and Cons

+ Amps are expensive, specially tube amps. + Cabinets are not cheap either. + Less gear needed. + Reamping. + Neighbour and family friendly.

- Nothing sounds as a real tube amp. - Real cabinets sounds better than impulse responses or emulations. - More miking options. - Generally, software can't cope in sound quality with real hardware - Latency

Setup::Gear
Things we'll need: Electric bass or guitar 1/4" TR cables (at least one) Audio interface A good pair of headphones A reasonably powerful computer A DAW It'll be desirable to have also: XLR cable (at least one) DI Box or Preamp A good pair of active monitor speakers A better computer (with zillions of RAM and processors) Quality plug-ins (VST, AU, RTAS, etc...)

Setup::Simple
Connect the 1/4" TR cable to a Instrument/Hi-Z input of the Audio Interface

Set input level, with the Gain/Trim control of the Audio Interface Preamp, and you're ready to record

Setup::DI - PreAmp
1/4" TR cable goes to a 1/4" TR input of the DI or the Preamp

Connect one end of the XLR cable to the balanced output of the preamp or DI box, and the other end to a XLR/Mic input of the Audio Interface

With this setup, input levels might need to be adjusted twice:

- On the DI (if it's an active DI) or on the Preamp. - On the Audio Interface.

Setup::DI - PreAmp::Levels:Audio Interface

Adjusting levels on the Audio Interface
Start by setting the Gain/Trim knob from the preamp you connected the XLR cable to, to nine or ten o'clock. Then go adjust the levels of your preamp or active DI to until you are satisfied. Finally come back here to finetune (raise or lower a little) the gain at the audio interface.

Setup::DI - PreAmp::Levels::DI/Preamp
Adjusting levels on the DI/Preamp
If the DI is passive there's nothing to adjust, it just converts Hi-Z unbalanced signals to low impedance balanced signals. On the other hand, if the DI you're using is active, or if you are using a Preamp; there will be (hopefully) a Gain know you must tweak to set the input level (preamplification). Begin with the knob all way down (usually at 7 o'clock) and begin to raise it slowly while you check the signal level. Stop when you get a good level, and remember to not go into the red.

Recording
Just fire your DAW, setup a track to record into, arm it for recording and press...

Play it (not so) loud!!!

Reamping (I)
Once you have a record of a good performance, you can change the "tone" of it, by a process called "reamping". Reamping is simply applying a model of an amplifier (and maybe a cabinet and microphones and their positioning relative to the cab) to a dry record. Recording through a "real" amp limits the "tone" to that particular amplifier (its character, colour, etc...), the cabinet used and the microphones used to record the speakers output. Reamping opens a vast array of possibilities soundwise, because it offers a great number of parameters to be changed on the fly, and to hear the results immediately.

Reamping (II)
There exists many reamping software plug-ins, some better than others, some free, some commercial... It's up to you to select the ones to use, or better, mix and match them. Reamping allows to use, for example, an amp head from one plug-in, and then use a cabinet simulator from other plug-in, or an impulse response loader. With reamping, you got at your fingertips many more options than you can possibly have with real hardware at a fraction of the cost. And that all for the first week assignment, I hope someone gets something useful from this. Thank You!!