Recommend me a simple set-up for recording my amps at home (£200-300)

ryanverbena

Hi all, 

I'm looking to record a few bits and pieces at home. I'm a complete novice so all I was thinking was a microphone, cables and interface - but do advise if you think there is any other gear that might be necessary. At this point I'm happy to use garageband unless anyone strongly suggests otherwise. 

I'm using a Macbook 2019 model, so it's reasonably capable. 

Also, fully okay with shopping around for second hand stuff so suggestions can be angled towards better gear at the right price. 

I also have a D28 I wouldn't mind recording so bonus if any suggestions would be suitable for this as well, but primarily looking to record my amplifiers. 

Cheers!

danishbacon

If you’re only ever going to use one microphone, this is a pretty superb bit of kit. 

https://www.rode.com/microphones/studio/nt1-ai1kit

jasonbone75

At home Two Notes Torpedo of some kind. With a good cabinet IR loaded you will get results far above anything you would get in two years of moving microphones around and worrying about the noise and your neighbours. Also don't throw loads of money at IR packs - there are free ones around that frankly embarrass some of the paid offerings!

ryanverbena

jasonbone75 said:

At home Two Notes Torpedo of some kind. With a good cabinet IR loaded you will get results far above anything you would get in two years of moving microphones around and worrying about the noise and your neighbours. Also don't throw loads of money at IR packs - there are free ones around that frankly embarrass some of the paid offerings!

Okay nice - so line out recording technology is now viable? I'm very much an amateur in this arena but sounds like the tech has caught up. I know it's a much higher price bracket but is the Universal OXBOX the same kind of thing?

jasonbone75

Correct - ox box same kind of thing very much different price bracket. These units present a reactive load to the amplifier that emulates a speaker being driven whilst also applying a captured profile of a speaker and microphone signal chain onto the raw output of the amp. The combined signal is a line level output suitable for feeding into your recording setup or a PA, monitoring system etc.

I haven't used a speaker cabinet at home for years.

mrkb

What amps are they? You cant run most valve amps without a speaker attached - so do you want a low volume/silent solution of are you happy to play loud when recording?

ryanverbena

mrkb said:

What amps are they? You cant run most valve amps without a speaker attached - so do you want a low volume/silent solution of are you happy to play loud when recording?

Amps are a Two Rock Studio Signature and a Marshall SV20H

Winny_Pooh

You will need an interface like a basic focusrite or Audient & closed back headphones for tracking. 

If you need low or zero volume recording a modeller is better value than a load box like the OX or Boss TAE 

The captor is cheap though and you can use IRs in a freeware loader VST like Boogez to cover the OX functionality. Depends on the latency whether it's feasible to monitor through a plugin.

Mic'd still sounds better than the loadbox option. You can buy an Audix i5 that is great for and electric & ok on an acoustic. 
And add the aforementioned Rode just for acoustic or voice. 

jasonbone75

Winny_Pooh said:

Mic'd still sounds better than the loadbox option. 

I would disagree with that as a blanket statement - I believe only a tiny fraction of people who mic up cabinets would ever get a better sound than a competently captured IR.

mrkb

jasonbone75 said:

Winny_Pooh said:

Mic'd still sounds better than the loadbox option. 

I would disagree with that as a blanket statement - I believe only a tiny fraction of people who mic up cabinets would ever get a better sound than a competently captured IR.

Agreed - if you record without an IR applied, you can tweak/adjust the sound later. A mic recording has the sound finalised at the point of recording (and that sound isnt the same as you hear in the room).

goldtop

Buy the PDI-03 that's in the Classifieds, plus any well-supported interface.

Record two tracks from the PDI-03's separate DI outs - a cab-simmed output and an unfiltered output. Live monitor the cab-simmed output for zero latency, and decide later if you want to use that, or stick an IR on the unfiltered track.

Macca_25387

The Audient evo interfaces are fantastic for the money.  Spend the rest of your budget on the best microphone you can. An Aston Spirit would be my  Suggestion

https://reverb.com/item/50917816-audient-evo-4-usb-audio-interface?utm_source=rev-ios-app&utm_medium=ios-share&utm_campaign=listing&utm_content=50917816

darius

As mentioned above, the simplest setup would be an interface, guitar direct into interface and a NeuralDSP amp plugin of your liking.

Do you want to record your amps or your guitar for your 'bits and pieces'?

If indeed it is your amps then DI loadbox as plenty recommendations above. I would avoid trying to mic amps unless i really wanted to learn that technique and had the home environment to properly crank it up.

Danny1969

One thing you can do which I generally do is record through my amps pre amp, then out of that into the DAW and slap a speaker sim on it. Get a really good take using that arrangement. 

Then when you are happy, take the speaker sim off it, send it back out the DAW into the return socket of your amp and mic the amp up. Turn it up to get some air moving and then record that onto another track in the DAW. I know you can get re amping boxes and such but the loop on a lot of amps is buffered line level (all mine are0) and records fine in this regard. 

As far as IR's being better than a real mic'ed tone I'm not so sure. You can have a sound that sounds fuller isolation but doesn't mix as well into the live drums and other live instruments. DI'ed keyboards can suffer the same fault to the extent a lot of engineers will patch the keys out into a PA in the live room and record them with the room sound and mix 15% of that into the DI just to keep it sounding like all the instruments were recorded live in the room. 

ryanverbena

This is good advice, thanks gentlemen. 

Now having looked around I'm considering doing it properly, selling a couple of unused pedals and buying either an OX BOX or the Boss Waza TAE (I understand there is a good amount of discussion regarding the pro's and con's of each, so will do my research).