1 Topic by laex (edited by laex 2010-01-02 18:09:46)

  • laex
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Topic: FF800: Recording eGuit with POD - wet AND dry

Hi there!

Apparently, I'm not much of a guitar hero :-) - regarding high impedance inputs, reamping and external effects... I know how to handle simple setups and never had any problem so far, but now I'm not sure...

I've got a session next week and the guitarist wants to record with his Line6 POD XT Live: He wants to record both the dry and the processed signal. So I started to play around with my own very old guitar effects unit and I found two ways to do it - please point me into the better direction, as I find both ways more or less OK - but I'm simply not a guitarist to judge the sound...

a) Plug guitar into FF's instrument input and route the signal back out via Totalmix, into the POD...

b) Plug the guitar into a DI box and use its output for FF and its parallel output for the POD...

The Line6 POD XT Live's input is described as: "Set the switch to norm for use with most passive pickup guitars. If you have to put two 9-volt batteries in your guitar to make it shred, point your guitar down and use that ?shark? headstock to flip the switch to pad. (Also handy for those stompboxes that have ridiculously hot output levels.)"

A or B? Or some simple C that didn't catch my attention yet?

Thanks a lot and a happy new year!
laex

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  • marQs
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Re: FF800: Recording eGuit with POD - wet AND dry

Guess you nailed it with a) and b) already.

a) You'll send the guitar into the HI-Z channel 1 of the FF, that's fine. Be aware that the analog out of the Fireface you're going to feed the POD with is a line signal then. Shouldn't, but could matter. A reamping box converts the signal back to the impedance of an instrument signal. I don't have a POD - if it has a line in, use this.

b) DI-Box: use the 'link out' (if available) for the POD and the XLR out for the direct signal. The DI converts the instrument signal into a line signal, so plug it anywhere but not into the HI-Z input.

That's my understanding only (and how I do the same job successfully) - I'm not claiming at all I have completely understood all the confusing HI-Z/Low-Z, active/passive concepts to their depths. So please correct me anyone if I was talking soap HeadScratch

  • laex
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Re: FF800: Recording eGuit with POD - wet AND dry

Thanks marQs!

Today it's quite obvious to my eyes. I'll take the DI box. Obviously "link out" means unaltered output, so the POD will get 100% original guitar signal. Only thing I lose this way is the FF's limiter, but I think I can live without it...

Why do such obvious things sometimes look more difficult than they really are??
All the best,
laex

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  • gtr
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Re: FF800: Recording eGuit with POD - wet AND dry

marQs wrote:

Guess you nailed it with a) and b) already.

a) You'll send the guitar into the HI-Z channel 1 of the FF, that's fine. Be aware that the analog out of the Fireface you're going to feed the POD with is a line signal then. Shouldn't, but could matter. A reamping box converts the signal back to the impedance of an instrument signal. I don't have a POD - if it has a line in, use this.

b) DI-Box: use the 'link out' (if available) for the POD and the XLR out for the direct signal. The DI converts the instrument signal into a line signal, so plug it anywhere but not into the HI-Z input.

That's my understanding only (and how I do the same job successfully) - I'm not claiming at all I have completely understood all the confusing HI-Z/Low-Z, active/passive concepts to their depths. So please correct me anyone if I was talking soap HeadScratch

I have recently used an X-Amp to re-amp my signal out of the Fireface. It worked fine. However, I have also used the line level soutput of the Fireface directly with the guitar amp input and it also worked fine. Im a bit perplexed... Which one should I use? I got the X-amp because I though I actually needed it but now Im not sure if I should return it to the store. Or maybe there are situations where the re-amper will come in useful ... maybe a situation which I havent encountered yet. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

  • marQs
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Re: FF800: Recording eGuit with POD - wet AND dry

I use the passive version of the X-Amp, Radial Pro-RMP and it's good to have that thing. If you fed the amp with a FF line out, be glad it worked, usually that creates noise of different sorts. Have you a/b'd the line out vs. the X-Amp? Maybe you've lost some of the signals transparency, highs without realizing? Or maybe countered the situation with a different amp setting?

Anyway, beware! Did some reamping yesterday as well as direct amp recording plus the naked di-guitar to a seperate track. I used my UA Solo/110 as di box, a high end preamp with 'di-through' (equals 'link' on a standard di box) - I had noise in the amp signal and even more noise with ground lift pushed! (I didn't really understand.)
I routed the DIs output to the RMP via Totalmix then - the noise was gone! (Good, but still don't understand, why it didn't work with 'di through' - it did many times before.)

My conclusion is: keep the reamping box! It simply helps you solving problems sometimes. I've used a friends X-Amp too but bought the RMP (it's cheaper). They both do an identical job to me, so maybe you can return the X-Amp and get an RMP for it and save some bucks for other nice stuff :-)

  • gtr
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Re: FF800: Recording eGuit with POD - wet AND dry

I did a quick on the spot a/b of the signals and there was nothing that caught my attention. Maybe I need to record the signals in both cases and then analyse them on software. However I am thinking in impedance terms, and I'm being convinced that i'd be better off not using the re-amper at all... for two reasons.

To start with the FF output impedance is 75 Ohms (as stated in FF UC manual page 84). The Radial X-Amp has an input impedance of 600 Ohms. In general it is better to have a high mismatch between the source and the receiver (the source being of a lower impedance than the receiver). In this case there is not such a high mismatch between the impedances, so the X-amp has more 'work' to do.

Secondly, the output impedance of the X-amp is 10 kOhms!!! Now this is the typical output impedance of a passive guitar so its definately well suited for inputting into a guitar amplifier as they are designed to have a high input impedance to be able to accept high impedances of electric guitars. However, the output impedance of 10kOhms of the X-amp is much higher than the 75Ohm output of the FF!

The lower impedance of the source (compared to a high impedance of the receiver) creates a high mismatch which also assures the preservation of signal level and a high frequency response. Therefore using the lowest possible impedance output is best... hence use the line out of the FF. What do you say? Am I getting the theory right or am I completely off track?

Also, I too had a terrible experience with the ground switch pushed on the X-amp. It just gave me a looooot of noise! Depressing the switch solved the problem. I did not encounter that problem when using the output from the FF at all.

  • marQs
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Re: FF800: Recording eGuit with POD - wet AND dry

I admit I don't have my head in the scientific part at all. If it works without reamper - great!
I bought the reamper because it didn't work for me without it (noise of different kinds) and haven't tried it without since. There might be more factors like electricity, amp models, cables... that could make it work flawless or troublesome.