could use some recording advice

[illusory]

Hello,

We have a new Express 5.25, and are trying to record through a presonus usb audiobox onto computer, using Studio One.
We are really disappointed to hear the sound coming out of the preamp 'send' output. For one thing -- there is no reverb at all! A very flat sound gets recorded. And we've been spending a lot of time developing good tone settings that we like coming out of the Mesa. We are obviously not going to get those sounds through this preamp output, at ALL.

We've also tried the 4 ohm speaker output plugged into the audiobox. With that we get background hum which is really significant. Makes the signal go up a third of the way (in the software) while the guitar is silent -- before anything is played. At all sorts of volume settings.

The only other alternative we can think of is to mike the amp. This is really not do-able considering this is a home recording studio, and there is a lot of house noise -- especially the dang computer itself, which must be on to do the recording. We have no experience with miking amps, so if anyone thinks this is the solution, please advise on microphones and techniques to record in a noisy environment. We can't soundproof the room, and even if we could, the sounds IN the room are the most significant.

Really could use some advice here -- how do people here get good sound, recording from a Mesa Express?

Thanks for any knowledgeable advice,
NJ

 

[J.J]

Hi and welcome.

I have heard good things about the Axetrak isolation speaker. Basically it is a speaker in a box that you run your amp into, but can't hear. It has an internal mic which is your record output.

http://www.jlhproducts.com/axetrak/

I have also heard of others using an attenuator like the THD hotplate set as a speaker load with no speaker and using the line out to record.

http://www.thdelectronics.com/product_page_hotplate.html

 

[floaty83]

First off....

NEVER NEVER plug your speaker output into the input of a device like the AudioBox. I'm surprised you didn't completely destroy the AudioBox when you did that.

The Express series does not have a dedicated line out for recording and the Preamp send is not designed for it either.

Your best bet and pretty much the only way to record a guitar amplifier and get the best tones is to mic it. Buy yourself a Shure SM57 microphone, a mic stand, and a mic cable.

There is no wrong way to mic a guitar cabinet really. Just experiment until you find the tone you're after. Start with the mic almost touching the grille of the amp. The closer to the center of the cone of the speaker, the brighter the tone the mic will capture. As you start moving towards the outer edge of the speaker, the tone will get darker. Also experiment with the distance from the grille. In a noisy environment, the closer the mic is, the better the isolation from all of the outside noises.

 

[EtherealWidow]

To extend on floaty's comment, I think you might be at risk of damaging the amp while plugging the speaker out into the interface. That load would be all wrong. Don't know though. Either way, it's a bad idea. If you want to do a line in, get an attenuator with a line out. Then just get a cable to go into the interface. You'll need to download some impulse responses (IR's) too, as well as a program that can read those files. An impulse response is basically a "fingerprint" of a certain sound condition. The main IR's that you'll be interested in are for speaker cabs, but you can also get IR's for weird stuff like caves, forests, warehouses, or even someone's living room. The whole reason you'll need to use impulse responses is because the signal coming right from your output transformer is very raw. Sounds very thin, scratchy, buzzy, harsh, etc etc. A lot of people don't realize how much a speaker contributes to the character of their sound.

 

[JohnSFromMD]

Hey, thanks for all the input! I think we're going to try both of the suggested approaches, mic'ing the amplifier, and using a "sim". Would any of the following DI boxes work for the second approach?

Behringer ULTRA-DI DI600P Passive Direct Box
Whirlwind Director Deluxe Direct Box (This looks EXACTLY like the Behringer!)
Radial ProDI Passive Direct Box

I don't think that we want to use an active box for this purpose, so these are all passive. They don't seem to specify the input impedance very often. Are you supposed to get the impedance matching by connecting the amp speaker up to the "Thru" connector?

Thanks,
John

 

[EtherealWidow]

Ah! Those are different types of DI boxes. Those are meant for plugging your guitar into them, and then plugging the DI into a mixer or interface. You really don't wanna plug your amp outputs into one of those. You would be best off with something like one of these: http://www.tedweber.com/atten.htm Personally, I use a 25 watt minimass for my 5:25. I got the option for a balanced line out, although unbalanced works fine too. There are plenty of other people on this board who use weber attenuators. They're really good. If you're planning on cranking the thing in 25 w mode, you might want to get one rated higher than 25 watts. There could be some debate on that for various reasons, but I'd always rather play it safe.

 

[JohnSFromMD]

Ah! Those are different types of DI boxes. Those are meant for plugging your guitar into them, and then plugging the DI into a mixer or interface. You really don't wanna plug your amp outputs into one of those. You would be best off with something like one of these: http://www.tedweber.com/atten.htm Personally, I use a 25 watt minimass for my 5:25. I got the option for a balanced line out, although unbalanced works fine too. There are plenty of other people on this board who use weber attenuators. They're really good. If you're planning on cranking the thing in 25 w mode, you might want to get one rated higher than 25 watts. There could be some debate on that for various reasons, but I'd always rather play it safe.

Ethereal, I'm not sure I'm following your response. All of those DI boxes have unbalanced outputs or "thru" outputs, which I assume you'd plug your speaker into. And all of them talk about accepting "speaker-level" inputs, so I'm not sure why I wouldn't want to do that. As I understand this arrangement, crudely outlined below, you'd still have the speaker load on the amp, and be sampling the speaker signal to the AudioBox:

Guitar
||
Mesa Express
speaker output
||
DI box --- Presonus AudioBox --- Computer/DAW
||
Speaker

Also, the Ted Weber stuff talks about wearing out the tubes, etc. We're not trying to get sounds that require the amp to be at ear-bleeding levels - we're just trying to get the same sound that we get out of the amp at a fairly restrained volume level into the recorded track.

Thanks,
John

 

[JohnSFromMD]

You'll need to download some impulse responses (IR's) too, as well as a program that can read those files. An impulse response is basically a "fingerprint" of a certain sound condition. The main IR's that you'll be interested in are for speaker cabs, but you can also get IR's for weird stuff like caves, forests, warehouses, or even someone's living room. The whole reason you'll need to use impulse responses is because the signal coming right from your output transformer is very raw. Sounds very thin, scratchy, buzzy, harsh, etc etc. A lot of people don't realize how much a speaker contributes to the character of their sound.

The program to read those files would be our DAW, right? Can you recommend some sites to find these?

I was thinking about getting the frequency response curve of the Celestion and setting up an EQ with a similar curve, but I'm betting that's not all that these IR's do, right?

 

[EtherealWidow]

Go figure. I guess it would help me to research these particular products before running my mouth. :/ I think all of those would be fine to use coming from the speaker out except the Radial. I could be wrong, but I don't think it mentioned that particular application. The other two looked fine for it. If you do end up getting one of those, I think you should still make sure to have a speaker plugged in whenever your amp is turned on. They didn't say they could be used for dummy loads. The cool thing about the Weber's is that they're more versatile. You can use it for a dummy load and unplug your speaker (provided that you turn the volume all the way down to make it more resistant), you can crank your amp to get power tube distortion while keeping it at a super low volume, and you could still use it for DI stuff.

For IR's, I use LA convolver to read the files. And setting up an EQ to sound like a Celestion would be right about impossible, I'd think. There are so many little nuances. I'm not sure you'd ever get it to sound right. The IR typically captures the power section, the speaker, the mic (or mics), AND the environment. I don't think that an EQ could really cover all that ground.

 

[JohnSFromMD]

Ethereal, thanks for all the input! We've got a few things on order, and we're planning on trying everything, including the Weber.
Wish us luck!

 

[ifailedshapes]

I didn't read all the responses (got about halfway through), but I thought I'd share a few things:

1) As was already stated, never run an amplifier without a proper load. A proper load is either a speaker or a load box that transfers the power of the amp to dissipated heat.

2) Direct boxes (DI's) are useful tools for multi-track recording. By placing a DI between the guitar and your amp/effects, you can send the direct unaffected signal to one track and the mic'd to another track. Having the direct guitar signal recorded opens the door to a process called reamping. Reamping is taking the direct signal out of your DAW into another amp setup, and then recording the new sound as a new track. You can do this as much as you want until you get the sound you desire, and you never have to replay the part.

3) Hughes and Kettner makes a cool product called a Red Box. The Red Box goes between your amp and cabinet and has a balanced speaker-simulated output to record with. This may not sound as good as a properly mic'd cabinet, but the key phrase is PROPERLY MIC'D. Micing a guitar cab is an art, and there are more wrong ways than right ways. The Red Box (or a similar product) would be cool for you because you just plug it in and it works.

 

[tmac]

3) Hughes and Kettner makes a cool product called a Red Box. The Red Box goes between your amp and cabinet and has a balanced speaker-simulated output to record with. This may not sound as good as a properly mic'd cabinet, but the key phrase is PROPERLY MIC'D. Micing a guitar cab is an art, and there are more wrong ways than right ways. The Red Box (or a similar product) would be cool for you because you just plug it in and it works.

It is a very good tool. I have a "clone/copy" of this by Behringer (called Ultra-GI100 I think, and is also red...). It can be used on guitar, line, or speaker signals. When used on the speaker signal from a tube amp, it is neccesary to also connect a proper load on its output, because the unit doesn't have this built in. Either a speaker, or a proper dummy load to get silent recording.

The box has a optional built-in speaker simulator circuit. This is neccesary because the speaker signal from a tube amp to its speaker really needs the colouration done by the speaker to sound good. The built in speaker simulation sounds ok, but I find that applying good speaker cabinet impulse response files in software after recording sounds a good deal better.

 

[floaty83]

2) Direct boxes (DI's) are useful tools for multi-track recording. By placing a DI between the guitar and your amp/effects, you can send the direct unaffected signal to one track and the mic'd to another track. Having the direct guitar signal recorded opens the door to a process called reamping. Reamping is taking the direct signal out of your DAW into another amp setup, and then recording the new sound as a new track. You can do this as much as you want until you get the sound you desire, and you never have to replay the part.

This is great way to record. I have a lot of experience recording and if you're after the tone that your amp provides in the room, your best option will be to mic it. But having the DI as a simultaneous 2nd track gives you all kinds of options and neat possible tricks.

 

[Newysurfer]

Hello,

We have a new Express 5.25, and are trying to record through a presonus usb audiobox onto computer, using Studio One.
We are really disappointed to hear the sound coming out of the preamp 'send' output. For one thing -- there is no reverb at all! A very flat sound gets recorded. And we've been spending a lot of time developing good tone settings that we like coming out of the Mesa. We are obviously not going to get those sounds through this preamp output, at ALL.

We've also tried the 4 ohm speaker output plugged into the audiobox. With that we get background hum which is really significant. Makes the signal go up a third of the way (in the software) while the guitar is silent -- before anything is played. At all sorts of volume settings.

The only other alternative we can think of is to mike the amp. This is really not do-able considering this is a home recording studio, and there is a lot of house noise -- especially the dang computer itself, which must be on to do the recording. We have no experience with miking amps, so if anyone thinks this is the solution, please advise on microphones and techniques to record in a noisy environment. We can't soundproof the room, and even if we could, the sounds IN the room are the most significant.

Really could use some advice here -- how do people here get good sound, recording from a Mesa Express?

Thanks for any knowledgeable advice,
NJ

You're real lucky you haven't blown the whole rig to pieces :mrgreen:
Take a listen to my recordings on the Soundclick link in my signiture. All of these were done with a mic'd 5:50 in 5w mode in a small home recording studio.
My computer is 6 ft from the amp. I have no background noise & need no attenuation.
I just lay the mic from the top of the amp so i'ts less than an inch off the front of the amp grill. Place the mic off centre anywhere on the speaker.
After some experimentation you'll find the speakers sweet spot.

You don't need a speaker stand and certainly don't need a DI Box. I'got 2 but have never used them for recording.
You do need a decent soundcard in your computer and good recording DAW software.
Also - join this forum and learn how to record at home. It will tell you everything you need to know & more.

http://forum.recordingreview.com/forum.php

 

[soundchaser59]

You can build a 3x3x3 ft cube using 2x2's and 1/2 inch plywood, line the inside of it with several folded movers blankets, set an E906 mic in front of the amp, and set the cube over the amp.

The E906 is a much better cab mic than the Shure's or the Audix stuff, imo...

The folded movers blankets should be folded to be at least 3 or 4 layers thick, they are not expensive so don't scrimp.

Actually, I have this method setup using an extension cab, since the amp will get a bit too warm inside the box. With a cab you can have the covered cab and box in a different room or a closet where it will muffle the noise even more, while you have your amp next to the recorder so you can tweak the sound while you listen to the monitors. I have a homemade mic booth 6x6x6 done the same way, with my 3x3 cab box inside the mic booth. I can crank my amp full blast in the middle of the night and record without waking anybody up.....but I have an unfair advantage, I'm in the basement and everybody sleeping is on second floor.

All of the elec guitars in all of the songs in my link below were recorded this way. And the acoustics are recorded in the booth as well, sitting on a deluxe padded drummers throne in front of 2 condensors. Vocals too. In the song Set Me Free, you'd be surprised to hear how the Burn channel was set to get that guitar solo sound at the end of the tune. All of these were done with the masters up to about 3 o'clock, 30 watt setting, thru 12 inch Webers and I think there is even a 15 inch EV used on one.

I've never had good luck getting the "real" full sound that the amp is capable of to come from a DI or an attenuator or a line out. People listening to the final recording may not know the difference, but after you play an attenuator for a few months then remove it and crank the amp up, you might never plug in to that attenuator again....... :mrgreen:

 

[topcat0399]

In my looooong experiance; and with all the methods I've used for recording - there is no true substitute for speaker/mic combination. Any thing else is just posing. Build the iso box; its worth it.

 

[JUS]

Illusory,

There is a reason your amp sounds so good. It is not just the preamp, but also the power tubes, the speaker, the cab the speaker is mounted in, and the ambient conditions of the room you are playing in. I believe this is also the reason why Mesa gave us no direct out...so that when those pesky sound engineers ask if we have one, we can truthfully answer with a resounding "NO!" You need all of the components of your amp to make it sound like you. never let an engineer or soundman talk you out of this. It is your RIGHT as a guitarist. Build an iso box...or use my preferred method..the old "amp in a closet" trick.

I play in a lot of churches. Sound guys (who are often amateurs) really go nuts about stage volume. (BTW, if a 5W amp is causing issues with stage volume you suck as a soundman) My ideal setup is having my 5:25 facing me on a stand about 4 ft from my guitar strings, but I will settle for in this order:

the amp on the floor behind me
the amp on the floor behind me facing backwards
the amp behind the drumset
the amp in a hallway backstage

I will NOT run direct.

-JUS-

 

[MrMarkIII]

Life would be so much simpler if there was one best way of doing things, wouldn't it? But bo-o-o-o-rrring.
Here in L.A., soundmen in the clubs will just chuckle if you mention running direct, and set the mike up in front of your amp anyway. Of course, they will still demand zero stage volume, that's just the Way Of The Soundman.
I get excellent results recording my Mark III direct into Pro Tools.
I guess my mileage has, indeed, varied. Oops.