Much better, thanks! Is it supposed to be L / R guitar?
You could say so - the same riff, the same tempo, should be aligned right off the bat. Just two different guitars and drunken me playing them.
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Ok, full disclosure, I basically never record or work with DI tracks, so I have no idea if these are any good - these seem kind of hot, if anything, but this was straight into the buffered Guitar input on my apogee, with zero added gain on input, and while it sounds like shit with the freebie VSTs I have lying around just for kicks (LePou stuff, which I remember being decent), it sounds perfectly fine if I instead send it back through my Mark V. Sooooo…?
These are 24-bit, 88.2, so not insanely high quality, but they should be quite good and while my Ensemble is a few years old by now, it should still be excellent conversion quality. Tried to do something similar to what you were in the clips above, two tracks so you can pan hard L and R. I had a crude drum beat going at 90bpm if you want to throw some drums in there as well.
https://drewpeterson7.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/di.zip
Curious to hear if these respond any differently. Also, there may have been a beer harmed during the recording of these DIs (as well as a couple soup dumplings, which showed up right after I remembered I’d forgotten to switch from 44.1 to 88.2 
)
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Woah, this sounds… different. Dunno if it’s just the guitar, or simply a different riff, maybe it’s just my imagination, but it definitely sounds different.
Roots -> Emissary -> Sigma -> Amplex with JCM800 preset.
Maybe I’d have to play the same chugs to have a direct comparison, but as it is now it kinda sounds like something that could be used for real, professional recordings.
I like that sharp, growling thing in the tone. I dunno if it’s midrange or whatever, and I’m listening through an old stereo, but man…
Let me try and record something similar, be right back.
Would you tell me what chords are played?
EDIT:
So your DI’s for some reason look much hotter in Reaper:
But don’t sound overdistorted. No clipping, that is, and even as they give more juice to the ampsims the tone itself does not sound like it has more gain (not the same chords, but kinda should suffice):
That’s my old Dean Vendetta.
Also level meters show your samples go at about 4dB louder than mine.
Heavier strumming? I believe so, yes, but also I’d think your interface must be set to higher level.
EDIT2:
I tried strumming harder:
And with Shecter (not sure if it needs battery replacement - DIs are hotter that Dean’s but there seems to be less low end…):
Conclusions - strumming harder is crucial, but I still feel like there’s something else going on…
EDIT3:
Your DI’s seem to be too hot after all:
That’s clipping.
This all becomes more and more complicated now to be honest, and more interesting.
EDIT4:
When I play your DIs separately in WMP they seem fine… even if there is some clipping it’s barely there. When put together in Reaper it clips hard. I’ve got no idea what is going on.
Quick reamp with your guitars, didn’t change any of my amp settings or add pre / post eq:
Did a quick take with my guitar, same settings as above:
I could probably make your DI work with eq going into the amp, sounds like it needs some upper mid snarl. You can experiment with this in your emulation software, assuming you have an eq pedal emulation or something like that.
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Maybe I could bring them up with pre-eq. In fact I think I’ve seen lots of guitarists on YT who would make a high shelf eq before low-pass.
Yeah, again this will DEFINITELY speak to my lack of familiarity with DI recording, so bear with me here…
I recorded these through the buffered guitar input on my Apogee Ensemble, configured to “pass through” and record the signal but also then send it out to my amp, so I could have a “real” guitar sound while I was tracking. And, honestly, in theory this wouldn’t be a bad way to make a record, provided I had a decent VST amp/IR setup that got me more or less to the sort of sound I go for, though the real reason I haven’t experimented more than I have is that I think forcing myself to commit to things like guitar tones fairly early on really helps when it comes time to go through the process of mixing. It’s funny, I remember trying this once in the past and the LaPou VSTs being pretty decent, but here they sounded fizzy as hell even with IRs I’ve used in the past that I know I liked - like something was clipping internally, maybe? Maybe the LePou stuff doesn’t like 88.2, idunno.
Anyway, the input gain was set at 0 on my Apogee, I couldn’t turn it down any lower and anything higher would definitely be pushing it into clipping. I do pick reasonably hard so that could be a factor but i was still surprised. Whether or not the signal reads as clipping could depend a lot on how the clip indicator is set up on your DAW/playback setup - I didn’t scan the peaks to see if there was visible evidence of clipping, but certainly if there was any good way I could see to do so, I’d have backed it off a couple dB just to play it safe.
But, IIRC Reaper gives you trim adjustment, where you can adjust the volume on the file itself, before it hits the track fader/FX patch/all that jazz - try right-clicking and adjusting the volume under Source Properties, I think, and drop it a few DB to get it closer to what you’re working with, and see if 1) any audible evidence of clipping goes away (also, try playing it back with no VST, but only one track at a time - the DIs are definitely peaking CLOSE to unity, if not at, and two of them together are likely enough to cause clipping at the master bus), and 2) if it changes the behavior at all in your VSTs. Probably worth trying the reverse, too, and boosting some of your own clips a little, and seeing if you get them to about the same point they sound similar.
Also, the fact these strings probably had less than 15 minutes of playtime on them when I hit record probably helped at the margins.
The chords… I was trying to do something that sounded kind of like what you were playing in your earlier clips, while still being too lazy to actually transcribe what you;d played, lol. The chords are basically:
*last time
A|-9----10---9----7----|-2----10---9----10--9--|
E|-7----7----10---9----|-2----7----10---10--9--|
B|-0----0----0----0----|-0----0----0----8---7--|These DO sound good to me run through your signalchain, but then again your subsequent clips sound pretty good too - I do think digging in a bit is really important to getting a good guitar sound. Sort of weird to hear my own playing with a very, very different tone though.
That’s what I thought later on, actually.
What hit me the most apart from difference in DI volume (which did not change the amount of gain or volume of the amps) was has much more harmonics were in your playing. Could of course be down to different chords on our samples - I’ll try recording once again through the same amps using your tab - but the samples provided by @ Pepepicks66 show the same - my DIs are more dull and hollow sounding.
This is something that definitely needs to be investigated.
EDIT:
So it was only clipping in a DAW - i lowered volume on the items by about 14dB (not the faders, but item properties) and it sounds ok:
And so I applied these to ampsims again:
Now I’ll go and record my own guitars to the same tab and see what happens (my strings are relatively new too - I changed them on Vendetta a week or so ago, on Shecter I think on Thursday).
EDIT 2:
So here are mine:
Schecter:
And Dean:
and yours again:
Your palm mutes seem to be tighter, but otherwise this is as close comparison as we can get.
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I mean, I’m biased, and I fuckin’ love that guitar - swamp ash body, maple top, and the Blaze has a ton of harmonic overtones on sustain that just come alive, especially for lead playing… But, an equally plausible theory here is that a lot of that IS the product of really good AD/DA conversion (and my Apogee is probably getting on in years but the conversion there IS great), coupled with tracking in 24-bit/88.2.
Running out the door to go play in the snow, but I’ll come back and listen in a bit!
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Shot in the dark, but you could record a video of you playing your electric unplugged so we can hear your attack. If it’s a technique issue, that might make it easier to narrow down. Otherwise, it’s something gear related.
Took some time to upload:
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You seem to have good attack, so my guess is that the pickups / guitar might need some help. Either something going into the DI or emulation before your amp sim.
So I was going through the samples from my post A-B-ing them all with a fresh ear, and… I can’t really tell which is better quality. They all sound slightly different, with the differences being so tiny that I couldn’t tell which is which in a blind test. Of course the differences will come from just tonal variety of guitars, pickups, strings and playing technique (especially since 8 string pickups are voiced differently and my playing was not as tight as I would like), but I find it rather impossible to say THIS is better than THAT.
I was listening through decent headphones, albeit hooked up to my smartphone - this could be a factor of course.
I’m still not exactly happy with the tone I got too - but obviously it would sound different in a mix.
But the question arises - is it enough in terms of quality and tone to produce semi-professional record? Something I could use on an album? Demo perhaps?
In short - can I get a decent quality record with it?
It all comes to this after all.
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I’ve heard stories of some huge-selling / cult-following albums being recorded on the most “horrible” gear imaginable, so I would say go for it!
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I’m not nearly handsome or creative enough to pull this off that way, and also don’t play first wave of black metal. Unfortunately no cults for me without sounding good I’m afraid.
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Welcome to my personal recording hell.
Honestly, in terms of making a good-sounding recording, I’d worry far more about bass and drums than I would guitar. Getting a clear, thick, stable low end and a punchy-yet-fat drum sound (or whatever fits the mix you’re after) is going to make away bigger difference to the casual listener than the intricacies of your guitar tone, and sometimes a guitar tone that sounds kind of, well, raw and cheap on its own sounds fucking epic underneath the wash of the cymbols and with the bass filling out the low end.
The other elephant in the room is, if the song is good enough, people will forgive a LOT in the mix.
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Still have to come back and do some listening here, btw - still on my to do list!
Hey @Rot and @Drew, I did a test with you guys’ DIs too! I used Fortin NTS and Nameless. Here’s a video:
I left the amp section on default, and just tweaked the mic placement and did post-EQing to clear out a little low-mid croaking, especially useful (imo) for the Blackjack. I tamed some high end as well, although all these decisions would eventually depend on the mix and the vibe, of course.
I couldn’t notice anything being technically off about your DIs, @Rot. I guess you could record a little hotter, but even that doesn’t really change anything as long as you don’t clip, and you don’t go down to something like -30 dB range.
Different audio interfaces (that is, converters within them) do sound different and some provide much better ability to put post-processing on the signal that you’ve recorded. In The Mix has a great informative video about this subject, which surprised me a lot when I saw it.
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I would say yes. Like @Drew pointed out, the drums and bass dictate so much of whether the guitar tone is “good”. It’s much harder to first choose the guitar tone, and then work the drums around that.
What’s your opinion on your DIs via the NeuralDSP amps? I’m not trying to say you need these amps specifically, I’m just wondering about your DI recording setup and process. Especially since you mentioned this:
What levels are you hitting when you notice that your tracks are quieter than others’?
I’ll have to listen again on decent headphones, but I see some frequencies being cut - this is something I need to learn tbh, just listening which frequencies to cut, and which to boost.
I think the DIs you used were recorded at -12dB, now I’m trying out -14dB. What do you think is the proper level in this case?
I was trying out the Nameless recently - I think in fact that I still have a few days of the trial left - and so far I like the tone very much, it gives me a hot-rodded Marshall on steroids kind of vibe (I even heard someone who managed to get close to Batushka’s sound unintentionally - which is among bands that I like), however I don’t think it’s worth the money. Don’t get me wrong, it is a fantastic plugin and sounds nothing like the ones I already have (mostly free), but the difference in quality does not justify the pricetag of $100. Sure, free plugins do not sound the same, but that’s not to say they are worse, at least in the quality of the sound they offer.
Maybe if I had money to spare, then I would just buy it, but $100 for me is a considerable amount of cash.
Like I said, I’ve setup my interface to -12dB, now -14dB just to have some more headroom and clarity on Amped Roots - and that’s also what my tracks in Reaper peak at individually. Master bus is another story though.
However a few years back, when I knew absolutely nothing about recording guitars, when I was using line in input in my onboard souncard, it would not be so much different - what I heard playing through Reaper was much quieter than all the videos on Youtube or Spotify, or whatever. When I want to play with a backing track I pretty much have to lower the volume on it’s track by good few dBs (but that’s also due to clipping inside of Reaper).
This issue was prevalent on all PCs I ever used for recording my guitars, regardless of soundcard or interface used (to be fair I only had one IF, before that I would use whatever soundcard was built in my MOBO).
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