Tone suck - advice needed

[imalrightjack]

Hi all

Go easy on me, I'm pretty clueless (particularly considering I'm on the way to forty years old).

I recently bought a beautiful Egnater Renegade 212 (in black, for what it's worth) and I love it. I upgraded (call it a quantum leap) from a Line 6 Spider Valve Mkii, so needed to get out and buy some effects pedals. So, after selling the old amp, a Martin acoustic and a bunch of other stuff, I had enough money to buy some really nice gear. A Pedaltrain and flightcase, a Voodoo Labs Power Power 2, some Cleartone cables (expensive but supposedly worth it) and the following pedals:

TC Electronics Polytune;
MXR Custom Badass Modified OD;
MXR Carbon Copy (digital delay);
Jim Dunlop Cry Baby Classic;
Ernie Ball VP Junior.

I've gigged a couple of times with the rig and am genuinely delighted with the sound. BUT...

Today I decided to hook up the pedalboard to my iMac and record the sound in Logic, then record using just a cable straight in. It's immediately apparent that I'm suffering a significant amount of tone suck. I unhooked the Ernie Ball VP, as they seem to be renowned for tone suck, but no change.

My problem? I went and bought all True Bypass pedals thinking I was being smart. From what I've read, it sounds like I made a mistake I believe that a good quality buffered pedal, such as a Boss, is almost essential to boost the signal and avoid tone suck.

Now, I could do with a compressor pedal (which would sadly mean dismounting my Egnater footswitch from the Pedaltrain)...does anybody know if this will suffice? Or do I need to buy an inline buffer?

Any advice is more than welcome. I appreciate that despite the tone suck I love the amp but, given it's such a pearl of an amp, I want it to sound as good as it possibly can.

Thanks!

 

[TremoJem]

Get a buffer and place it right after the guitar.

Depending on how many pedals you are using and how much cable, you might want to consider another at the end, right before the amp.

I could be wrong, so anyone out there who knows better, please feel free to correct me.

 

[imalrightjack]

I'm toying with switching the TC tuner for a Boss TU-3, as I believe it will help. Thanks for replying.

 

[guitarobert]

Since you like the tone through your amp, your pedal board setup should be ok.

I think the problem is that you don't have all the pieces of the recording signal chain that are required. To record something to a computer, you need (or need to simulate) at least these parts:

guitar --> amp --> speaker cabinet --> microphone

Keep in mind, simulating the amp/speaker/microphone is fine.

Right now in your recording setup you essentially have this:

guitar --> pedalboard

You're missing a few things from the list above. Remember, it's ok to simulate it rather than use the real thing:

- amp
- speaker cabinet
- microphone

One exception here. I'm guessing you're playing into the clean channel of the amp. Yes, it affects the tone to a degree compared to bypassing the amp altogether. But it's not nearly to the same extent as if the amp was being used for distortion. So let's disregard the amp since it seems to be used only for a clean channel in this setup. You still need these:

- speaker cabinet
- microphone

You're in luck, because you can simulate this. It can even be done for free. But I must warn you. You are wading into a river that leads in 10,000 different directions! The combination of speaker cabinet, speaker type, microphone, and microphone position will affect your tone dramatically. And you may end up spending a lot of time experimenting with this. So I recommend you start with one of the typical mics/positions. Try an SM57 1" - 2" from the cap edge. This will get you started. You need an impulse response file and a plug-in to run it. Download these.

Redwirez free speaker cabinet impulse response set: http://www.redwirez.com/free1960g12m25s.jsp
(use the SM57, cap edge 1" or 2" file)
AudioUnits plug-in for using impulse response files: http://audio.lernvall.com/

Use the same hardware setup you have. Guitar --> Pedalboard --> Computer. On the audio track used for guitar recording in Logic, add the above AudioUnits plugin as an Insert effect. In that plug-in select the Redwirez impulse response file, trying first the file that represents an SM57 1" to 2" from the cap edge. You can experiment with different mic positions and microphones by selecting different files. That Redwirez sample comes with many microphones/positions. This should make it sound much better!

Alternatively you can play through your real amp at volume and use a microphone in front of the amp to do the recording. But somehow you need to have a speaker cabinet and microphone involved, at least simulated. This filters out all the high frequencies that make the guitar otherwise sound awful, especially if distortion is involved.

 

[hbucker]

Lots of variables here. So many I don't know where to start when (no offense intended) the description of the problem is as general as "tone suck".

Often, I find what is recorded sounds different than what I hear coming out of the front of my amp. If this is the case, adjustments need to be made. My Renegade has sounded quite nice the couple of times I've used the XLR direct out in the back of the amp - fwiw.

My recommendation is that you remove all pedals from the formula and hear what just the amp sounds like when recorded. Get that dry signal to sound the way you want and then add effects in after that. It may even be helpful to only use effects provided by the recording software. This can tend to make mixing easier down the road.

Good luck. Sorry if this wasn't helpful.

 

[ramblin390]

Try running without the carbon copy, there is a known tone suck issue with the tweaker and the c.c. Not sure if there is the same problem with the renegade

 

[guitarobert]

Today I decided to hook up the pedalboard to my iMac and record the sound in Logic, then record using just a cable straight in.

I might have been mistaken, but I was assuming there was no amp involved in this recording. Just pedalboard straight in. If an amp is involved then disregard my previous post.