Why does recording direct out on my amp sound bad??

Tom-eg

I thought that if i got an amp with a record out jack that it would work well for recording direct as i can't make much noise where i am living at the moment. It sounds terrible tho. Its a roland cube i have. I can get great sounds out of the amp but recording direct into my interface all i heard is added noise. Do i need to do something to prevent this from happening? Any help would be great at all. Thanks eveyone

studiorat

What's the interface? What's the level like coming out of the amp? What's the impedance of the two devices?

QuadLeo

Yea, check impedance. Might also be an earth lift switch on the amp or interface too. Try that if there is one.

Tom-eg

I had a feeling it might be impedance. Well my interface is alesis. Not the best in the world but it doesn't warrant the noise im getting. It just sounds like it has added hiss in the background of the signal. It completely ruins the sound. Levels coming out are fine. I am keeping them just below unity. So i am thinking it must be the impedance? How would i solve that problem? Cheers

studiorat

Make sure you are using line out. Is the line out balanced? Are you using a balanced cable, do you have to turn anything up too loud to get a small signal etc.

It should just work, if it's a line to line signal.

PaulBrewer

Usually a line out from a guitar amp will sound pretty foul, especially on distorted sounds, similar to listening to the direct out of a distortion pedal.

The simplified reason is that the speaker acts as a lowpass filter reducing the top end and fizz.


That might explain it?

progsound

Unless that roland amp has an in built speaker simulation all you are recording is the dry preamp signal from your amp which should sound like a altogether undesirable fizzy mess but dont worry all you have to do once you have your direct out recorded in your daw is apply a good speaker impulse to the preamp signal and you should have a convincing guitar sound.

You can use this programe to load impulses http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/programs/keFIR/

Here is a link to some decent free impulses http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=batch_download&batch_id=TTdGcHBFdVVsMHpIRGc9PQ

What are impulses and how to use them? Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impulse_response and then http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convolution_reverb

anders

I have a Roland Micro Cube and the record out sound isn't the best. If you connect it up with an unbalanced cable to a line input you shouldn't have any problmems with impedance. Haven't used it in a while but if I remember corretly I found the main problem to be the output over saturating. I got a better result going into a mic preamp, turning down the output level of the Cube and use the mic input gain to set the level.

Hope this helps.

raindog.promo

I use guitar Rig 3 due to late night playing. I find it's great.

Maybe you should check it out?