Basic tracking with external mixer + Sonar4.. noob noob noob

[Guitarded]

Hi, all. First post. After some searching around, I'm not finding exactly the info I need to address my situation.

My basic engineering qualifications:

Owning an old Tascam 644, Roland R8, a couple rack effects, and some midi gear.

Had my hands on an SSL a few times.

Went to the AES convention once.

And that's about it. Long story short, after many years of not recording, it's time to get back to it. Built an Athlon DAW with Sonar 4P, and am in the market for an interface. Likely an 1820M. But in the meantime, I'm using the mixer of the 644 as an interface. I want to properly track my guitar and I'm doing something wrong. Hopefully the following description gives enough info.

The guitar goes into a mixer channel, is panned center, exits the mixer through group outs 1 and 2, those RCA's go to a stereo 1/8" plug into the line in of the onboard soundcard (realtek driver). On the Windows mixer recording properties, I have stereo mix selected and panned center. Now I fire up Sonar and choose normal template. On audio track 1, I leave it panned center, choose stereo realtek AC97 audio for the in, and realtek AC97 audio 1/2 for the out. The meters are showing some kind of noise floor and one channel is more than the other, but there's hardly any noise coming out the speakers at all, so I hit record and play some guitar. Now here's the two problems.

When I play it back, one side sounds a little thin and weak compared to the other side, even though absolutely everything is panned center and all physical connections are good from guitar to speakers.

When I plug in an amp sim vst for distortion, I cannot completely get rid of the dry signal. I can have the distortion much louder than the clean, but the clean guitar is still there mixed into what I'm hearing.

These two problems make me think I tracked the guitar wrong to begin with. So finally, my basic question is...

How should I set up the Windows mixer properties, and how should I set up ins and outs to record a basic mono guitar track?

I know I have a lot of power here for someone who doesn't know squat about PC recording, but I did want the ability to make a semi-professional CD all in one box, and have a system that lasts me a while. Thanks for reading.

[Guitarded]

Going to do some more research on this tonight, but in the meantime does anyone have a couple tips on if I'm doing something wrong panning-wise or with signal routing?

[C00kie]

Firstly welcome to KVR, Guitarded!

What you can try first, is record the guitar part in Sonar in mono. It should be one of the track properties you can set up. I don't know Sonar in particular, but all hosts allow to record in mono so the option should be there somewhere.

[ozinexile]

It sounds like you have set up to record corectly but the failure is somewhere in the recording chain. Many moons ago my first PC recording setup was based around a SB AWE64 Gold card and over time one channel of the stereo input deteriorated and would sound softer (and thinner) than the other, I replaced the card.

So I can only suggest to check the outputs from the tascam to discount that. Then as suggested by C00kie to try recording in mono (a selection under track properties). Also try recording into another program, even just something included with windows, to again check the onboard soundcard. Then decide whether you need tha emu interface sooner rather than later.

More info is required to solve the amp plugin problem. Which are you using and is there a mix level (should be at 100% wet). How are you using the plugin in sonar? As in insert or send, insert is preferable.

I hope you sort it all out.

[Guitarded]

Thanks, C00kie and ozinexile! Glad to be here. In a way I'm not though because this PC recording biz is all so damn complicated! And I'm not stupid either (a little guitarded though), but geez. Wish I could turn it on and go a little easier.

However, I think I've got a step or two closer with proper tracking of a mono guitar. On the outboard mixer, I've got the guitar panned hard left. In Sonar, I've chosen the left side of the Realtek driver for the input on the guitar track, and I have the panning set on that strip panned center so I can hear it coming out of both speakers. I think it's better now, even though my recorded tone still sounds like crapola. The tone sounds better when just monitoring what I play through the basic Windows mixer. But when I record and play it back, it sounds flat and toneless, and very compressed. I don't know why. Aye aye aye...

As for the amp sims, I've tried the built in Cakewalk one, and the Simulanalog Guitar Suite. Guitar Suite has much better tone quality, especially the JCM900, but I still cannot completely get rid of the dry signal when using it. This does not happen with Cakewalk's sim. The Simulanalog does not have a wet/dry level, but it has a volume control that represents the volume on a real Marshall. When I turn it all the way down, I hear the dry signal there plain as day. Seems all I can do is crank the JCM900's volume all the way up to mask the dry signal.

Speaking of amp sim trouble, does anyone know how to get enough gain out of a sim without having to crank the gain and volume to the max? It tremendously boosts the noise floor when I do that, but it's the only way to get decent distortion. Even then I can't get nice saturation. And I'm on channel B of the JCM900!

Thanks for the responses, guys. Any more help to get me going with some good sounds is much appreciated!