I recorded songwriter demos over twenty-five years ago by taking a DI from the Line Out of my amps into my four-track and it sufficed at the time.
Some twenty years after the break up of my last originals band I want to make another attempt to make a start on my solo album.
I'm using Reaper to mess with these days and none of my amps have Line Out (Sound City 50+ and Carlsbro TC40).
The plan is not to use a speaker cabinet as I live in a timber-framed semi so not to annoy the neighbours and I've been lead to believe this may be my best approach using equipment I currently have:
Guitar(s)/bass > assorted pedals > valve head > Palmer PAN01 DI > Marshall Power Brake
I intend to use free cabinet IRs loaded via Poulin LeCab2. I may also use a Behringer GDI before the amp in case I choose to reamp or use effect plugins and amplifier IRs also.
Comments
I have tried a lot of approaches to get a good valve sound captured, but sadly a lot of that sound requires volume, and lots of it. The Marshall powerbrake is a fairly crude tool these days to attenuate, what you gain in volume-you lose in attenuation-at least you lose a lot of the feel.
My last, and most successful attempts, was to ditch the amp completely. I run my guitar into a splitter- A goes to DI through a focusrite scarlett, input 1, B goes through my pedals-Flyrig5-5150 OD-HOF mini-Mooer Radar-and then input 2 on the focusrite.
I set up a folder in Reaper with 2 tracks armed record , and play.
This gives me a good DI track, and a speaker emulated 'Live' sound from the built in power amp / IR response from the Radar.
On the Di track I have had a lot of success with all the Poulin amp sims, and there are plenty of other free ones out there to play with, but I have the Slate suite so have been using their THU rigplayer more recently.
All this means I can monitor at very low levels, and have maximum flexibility with my recorded tracks.
I think a well mic'd valve amp, in a good room is a glorious sound, but have to live in the real world.
Just some food for thought, valve amps are 20th century technology, and Reaper is 21st-why not work with those advances?
https://m.soundcloud.com/pintspiller
That last track sounds like the vocals are clipping, though. What were you using?
just for comparison, I still have my old rig, it is just easier for me to record DI these days.
keep it up mate--sounds good.
Did you buy the Slate stuff or use one of their lease/rent programs? Is that the same crowd as Steven Slate Drums? It use the MT Power Drums.
There is a free version of the drum package,SSD5, easily as good as MT, I use both.
I'm also using a Fabfilter pack, which are probably the best eq stuff available, worth the money in the long run.