How do I record my guitar amp?

[Stupid American Pig]

I also have a frontman 15r- I love the spring reverb in that unit- I have been tempted for a while to harvest teh reverb out of it and make it standalone...

[cptgone]

THIS is a long long thread (many pages) from a ProSoundWeb forum, where an innocent question about recording guitar caused the great Slipperman to post one of the most amazing tutorials on anything I've ever read.

GREAT link, thanks!

[TristezaOrange]

The soundcard's a shitty SB PCI128 and I plug the mic straight into its mic [obviously] input. And it sounds, how can I put this mildly, crap.

Yes, the preamp on your sound card is absolute, utter crap. You shouldn't be using it for anything. Fill it with epoxy so you won't be tempted to use it

You need a preamp. One of the preamp channels on the small mixer that you don't have should do the trick nicely.

Now, the amp you're trying to record isn't really anything special. You'd probably get really good results from modelling.

The SB 128PCI should've never been invented. But now I'm stuck with it I'm getting a preamp, that's for certain.

[TristezaOrange]

As I replied in many similar threads I use the M-Audio audiobuddy preamp (~80$) straight to my audiophile 2496 with very nice results. You will definately need a preamp or a mixer with preamps.

BTW Are you from Greece? Cyprus maybe? Because if you leave in Athens you can check my setup.

Cheers

80dollars sounds cool - and within my budget I guess that since you're from Greece I can easily find the audiobuddy here. I'm from Cyprus but I live in Athens actually, I'm studying here. Perhaps I'll PM you to check out your setup, thanks for the invitation.

[TristezaOrange]

Hi,

if you're on a budget - how about a DI box? Behringer's Ultra-G allows you to use the speaker output of your amp; it has -20 and -40 dB pads so you can quite crank it. There's also a VERY decent speaker sim --> you won't need to worry about a microphone, placement etc.

Alex

So, I use the output from my amp, plug it into the Ultra-G and then into my soundcard? Or have I got it wrong? I AM on a budget, that's true

[TristezaOrange]

fishbowl, I thought about modelling but there's no chance my PC's going to take it real-time.

BTW Hovmod, that's a really cool thread. Thanks for that

[TristezaOrange]

I also have a frontman 15r- I love the spring reverb in that unit- I have been tempted for a while to harvest teh reverb out of it and make it standalone...

Yeah, that reverb...

[finnbio]

So, I use the output from my amp, plug it into the Ultra-G and then into my soundcard? Or have I got it wrong? I AM on a budget, that's true

Hi Tristeza,

Yup, pretty much. If you have a tube amp, you'd also have to connect your speaker to the Ultra-G - you can't run a tube amp without a "load". That means also that you still have to crank it a bit if that's the sound you want, and it won't be "silent" recording. But the Ultra-G can take several thousand watts. If it's a tranny amp, as far as I understand you don't need to connect the speaker, so you even could record without bothering your environment. Bettween the master volume of your amp and the two -20dB pad switches, you should be able to get a decent recording level. But that's all pretty well described in the instructions.
Cheers
Alex

[freeztar]

If you have a tube amp, you'd also have to connect your speaker to the Ultra-G - you can't run a tube amp without a "load". That means also that you still have to crank it a bit if that's the sound you want, and it won't be "silent" recording.

Could you explain this a little more please? Load?
I have a tube amp (Fender '72 Princeton Reverb) and I have been looking for a way to use my 1/4 in. speaker out jack so I could record silently and without mics. Are you saying that this isn't possible?

edit: I should add that a couple years ago, I bought a kit on the internet that allowed you to transform the speaker out into a line out. I hadn't dabbled with electronics and soldering, but it looked simple enough, a couple resistors a capacitor and one other component that is lost in my memory. To make a long story short, I made a pretty big mess of the soldering and never got it to work. If anyone knows of another device that can convert the signal, I would be happy to know. Something like my kit, but prefabricated.

[IIRs]

Are you saying that this isn't possible?

It is possible, but if speakers aren't connected to a valve anp, something else must be to provide a similar impedance or the amp will blow up! You can buy devices designed for the job, and also "powersoaks" which do connect to a speaker but reduce the volume dramatically so that your cranked-up valve head sound needn't annoy your neighbours.

[realmarco]

a word of caution

the head & the cab(speakers)

on big amps are connected with a Speaker cable, that looks like a normal 1/4 jack instrumen t cable but it is not a normal cable

therefore replacing the cable between the head and the cab with a normal cable will f**k up the wiring and might actually burn something

so When recording use proper wires...Instrument cable for Guitar and SPeaker cable for ampto speaker connection (you can only find these type of special speaker cables at guitar stores...you must mention it is for the amptospeaker connection)


there is a cool way I read in EM for recording Guitar with amps.

you plug your guitar in the amp(head) , you buy a "hot plate" http://www.zzounds.com/item--THDHP?trk=smx
you plug the amp out to the hotplate
you plug the out of the hot plate into your soundcard

and you use a speaker plugin .

that way you get the cool Tube sound of an actual guitar amp without the need to mic a loud speaker playing the amps audio