KVR Audio

wizzardlikeccs · Post by **wizzardlikeccs** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 6:39 am

I just bought amplitube 1.0... and well in my stupidity overlooked the fact that it need some interface ofhttp://www.kvraudio.com/get.php
Instruments
Effects
Hosts
etc. some kind.... not to mention I'm having to buy these things after spending way more than I had first intended. Anyways I need some advice on hooking up my guitar in a cost effecient way yet not sacrifice the quality of the sound. Please help. Also I seen the interface at a local guitar shop that hooks up directly the the usb port, but it says its for guitar recording should I assume it can also be used live with amplitube?

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 8:18 am

I'm not sure what you mean. Of course, a software will not give you a signal path and you would need a way to get the guitar's signal into the computer.

What kind of sound-card do you have now?

wizzardlikeccs · Post by **wizzardlikeccs** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 8:31 am

Lunch Money wrote:I'm not sure what you mean. Of course, a software will not give you a signal path and you would need a way to get the guitar's signal into the computer.

What kind of sound-card do you have now?

I have the soundblaster live which i'm using with the kx asio drivers.. with the guitar straight into the mic jack but its sounds weak.

Mr. Tunes · Post by **Mr. Tunes** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 8:52 am

at namm the guys from IK were running the m-audio firewire 410 feeding to amplitube 2 and ampeg on the main stage. some stations had the digi002 rack but i dont think you want to buy that if you are starting on interfaces. m-audio has a few firewire soundcards now that feature mic pre's and line-ins, i havent tried the firewire Solo yet but it looks good for this purpose. http://www.m-audio.com/ professional products and you'll find the interfaces there.

you can use usb but i think firewire or pci will give you tighter timing with amplitube. but you cant quote me on that. firewire is just way more stable. i have my dark suspicions about usb and i dont recommend it to people at this point in time - but keep in mind that hardware manufacturers are still making stuff for this connection. you can get usb mic pre devices from many companies now including ART i think has some new stuff.

for guitar tracking in the pc, make sure you buy something with nice preamps. or else it is hard to work with your guitar's signal. the mbox for instance has focusrite preamps which is great for your guitar.

for budget I/0s though i think m-audio does great stuff. some people on the forum can tell you about better cards that may offer things like DSP power but i like to keep it simple.

the main thing is to not cheap out too hard because before you know it four years go by and your using the same interface because it works and you dont bother to invest in a new one. like what has happened with my 200 dollar audiophile 2496. when i bought it, it was like "yah just going to record my guitar, do vst stuff and that's it" but in the span that ive had it i could've used my computer as a multitrack workstation with bands that i have met over the past few years if i had invested in a delta(the bigger audiophile)

finnbio · Post by **finnbio** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 9:05 am

I think you need a DI box to match impedance and get a decen level. Cheap and decent solutions are the Behringer Ultra DI or Ultra-G (the latter has a cab simulation; I suppose you don't need that if you plann to use amplitube). These work with a 9V battery. For a few Euros more, you can get the Tube Ultragain 100 from Behringer; that works well as a DI box, but is also a decent microphone preamp (but needs to be run with a wallwart which comes with the preamp).
I had a very disappointing sound with revalver and Trash with my Creative Audigy Platinum before I got these devices. Now it's awesome.

Cheers
Alex

wizzardlikeccs · Post by **wizzardlikeccs** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 9:13 am

I need some help on this. I'm barely getting started and well I didn't plan on getting this deep into this. As it is I'm over $300 in and looking to spend what seems to be at least another couple hundred on a low end interface. With still having a risk of being I guess dissapointed with the sound. My friend is in love with amplitube for some reason and well i'm wondering if I should just drop this and buying me something like a line 6 pod xt live floorboard. I need someone with more experience to guide me here please.

wizzardlikeccs · Post by **wizzardlikeccs** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 9:25 am

finnbio wrote:I think you need a DI box to match impedance and get a decen level. Cheap and decent solutions are the Behringer Ultra DI or Ultra-G (the latter has a cab simulation; I suppose you don't need that if you plann to use amplitube). These work with a 9V battery. For a few Euros more, you can get the Tube Ultragain 100 from Behringer; that works well as a DI box, but is also a decent microphone preamp (but needs to be run with a wallwart which comes with the preamp).
I had a very disappointing sound with revalver and Trash with my Creative Audigy Platinum before I got these devices. Now it's awesome.

Cheers
Alex

The tube ultragain mic 100 is carried my local guitar center.... so to make sure I have this right, I would need both the interface and this ultragain preamp, or can I do with just this preamp alone straight into the line in jack on my card?

Brickhead · Post by **Brickhead** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 9:36 am

wizzardlikeccs wrote:
finnbio wrote:I think you need a DI box to match impedance and get a decen level. Cheap and decent solutions are the Behringer Ultra DI or Ultra-G (the latter has a cab simulation; I suppose you don't need that if you plann to use amplitube). These work with a 9V battery. For a few Euros more, you can get the Tube Ultragain 100 from Behringer; that works well as a DI box, but is also a decent microphone preamp (but needs to be run with a wallwart which comes with the preamp).
I had a very disappointing sound with revalver and Trash with my Creative Audigy Platinum before I got these devices. Now it's awesome.

Cheers
Alex

The tube ultragain mic 100 is carried my local guitar center.... so to make sure I have this right, I would need both the interface and this ultragain preamp, or can I do with just this preamp alone straight into the line in jack on my card?

I would say that you can get decent results with this device and your current soundcard (using line in). Of course you can replace your soundcard later, if you feel like it, but the preamp is the key at this time.

Best regards.

Mr. Tunes · Post by **Mr. Tunes** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 9:59 am

wizzardlikeccs wrote:i'm wondering if I should just drop this and buying me something like a line 6 pod xt live floorboard. I need someone with more experience to guide me here please.

no i dont think you can get better results with most of the hardware amp sims! and they dont give you the flexibility to change your amp AFTER you've recorded it.

yeah getting the behringer DI would definitely cut your costs, but i feel that if you left your soundcard as is you would still be disappointed with the sound because you wont get full headroom on the soundblaster-at the input stage and when you are monitering what you're working on. i know you have dropped some cash on amplitube but replacing your Creative soundcard is definitely a worthwhile investment in your music life. Creative is one company that i actually hate, but i do commend them for bringing soundcards to the masses readily available in stores like Best Buy or Walmart. but the new emu soundcards are looking good as they are cost effective and boast great headroom stats. keep in mind if you are buying a behringer or ART preamp you are not limited to soundcards that have mic/lines on their front panel and you can grab something with RCA ins

PCI and USB are the cheapest soundcards but PCI is much more reliable

i am encouraging a soundcard with preamps on them because you want to minimize your signal chains. adding more devices like a behringer will bring up the noise floor. amplitube has a gate function that will get rid of this but you really want try to get a noise-free signal to begin with

wizzardlikeccs · Post by **wizzardlikeccs** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 9:24 pm

Mr. Tunes wrote:
wizzardlikeccs wrote:i'm wondering if I should just drop this and buying me something like a line 6 pod xt live floorboard. I need someone with more experience to guide me here please.
no i dont think you can get better results with most of the hardware amp sims! and they dont give you the flexibility to change your amp AFTER you've recorded it.

yeah getting the behringer DI would definitely cut your costs, but i feel that if you left your soundcard as is you would still be disappointed with the sound because you wont get full headroom on the soundblaster-at the input stage and when you are monitering what you're working on. i know you have dropped some cash on amplitube but replacing your Creative soundcard is definitely a worthwhile investment in your music life. Creative is one company that i actually hate, but i do commend them for bringing soundcards to the masses readily available in stores like Best Buy or Walmart. but the new emu soundcards are looking good as they are cost effective and boast great headroom stats. keep in mind if you are buying a behringer or ART preamp you are not limited to soundcards that have mic/lines on their front panel and you can grab something with RCA ins

PCI and USB are the cheapest soundcards but PCI is much more reliable

i am encouraging a soundcard with preamps on them because you want to minimize your signal chains. adding more devices like a behringer will bring up the noise floor. amplitube has a gate function that will get rid of this but you really want try to get a noise-free signal to begin with

Thank you. I'm going with a sound card with intergrated preamp. It all makes sense.

One more thing. Since ampitube is a modeling program, would I be able to connect it straight into a p.a for live performance and still get a good sound?

braj · Post by **braj** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 5:41 am

From your first post, it sounded like you needed a vst host still, is that right?

BTW, if this is the case, someone pointed out Kristal Audio, it doesn't do midi but it's free and you could record your playing and maybe use some drum loops.

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/866.html

It looks pretty impressive considering it's free. And I believe it will host Amplitube.

Mental Audio Deviations · Tue Feb 08, 2005 7:48 am

wizzardlikeccs wrote:I need some help on this. I'm barely getting started and well I didn't plan on getting this deep into this. As it is I'm over $300 in and looking to spend what seems to be at least another couple hundred on a low end interface. With still having a risk of being I guess dissapointed with the sound. My friend is in love with amplitube for some reason and well i'm wondering if I should just drop this and buying me something like a line 6 pod xt live floorboard. I need someone with more experience to guide me here please.

You say your friend loves Amplitube, so why not copy his setup. Apparentely he gets a good sound out of it.

Mr. Tunes · Post by **Mr. Tunes** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 8:08 am

wizzardlikeccs wrote:Thank you. I'm going with a sound card with intergrated preamp. It all makes sense.

One more thing. Since ampitube is a modeling program, would I be able to connect it straight into a p.a for live performance and still get a good sound?

yeah im not trying to be a snob or anything by deterring you away from settling on a behringer pre w/soundblaster. im really just trying to help

some people do run through other pre's before they are going into their soundcard's pres, but for you i think that's just adding redundant stuff.

yes you can plug into a PA for great sound. check Amplitube Live because it might feature some midi foot settings i dont know that product very well yet. i'll get some info on it for you soon. if you plug into the PA using a soundblaster you wont get the best possible sound. it's great to have professional audio connectors on the output stage for this purpose.(edit- and input stage god damnit! a better soundcard/pre device wont hum as much in a live setting. )

I just remembered that once you have your IK login you will find amplitube live! in your download updates section. *i think*.

Sicklecell666 · Post by **Sicklecell666** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 8:16 am

yeah, if you need a host, go grab Krystal; it's perfect for what you need & free as well.

interface for amplitube