The art of recording through your amp

[Number Of The Priest]

I have a "Line Out" jack on my amp and I know I can use it to record direct into my computer. But, I have to turn up my amp pretty loud to get my usual great tone to come through to the computer and computer speakers.

Is there a way to reduce the volume from my amp's speaker while maintaining that level of volume/signal/whatever going into my computer? It's so damn loud that I can't even hear my backing tracks played from my computer.

I always record direct using my GT-6 because of the low-volume capability. What do you guys usually do when you record from your amp? I mean, how do you hear your backing track? Do you put on headphones? You must, right? Otherwise, the microphone in front of your amp will pick up the backing track too, right?

[Infernal Death]

Re: The art of recording through your amp

Hmm funny that you get a good sound out of your line out.
Anyway about the signal.First check out the settings on your soundcard. How are the line in settings ? Could be that they are very low and you need to raise your line out from the amp to get a strong signal. Also what are the channel settings in your recording software ? Do you have any metering on those channels ? What do they read ?
I have a bass preamp for direct recording and i need the signal from the DI out to go through one of my mic preamps to raise the signal to get a nice "just under 0db" signal.
Maybe your line in on your soundcard just hasn't enough gain for raising your line out signal if you don't turn up the line out of your amp.

Hmm since you own a GT-6. Maybe you can use it this way (since i don't have a GT-6 i don't know if that will work):
Try to go with the line out into the GT-6 for using it's speaker emulation (you will get a much nicer sound this way than going directly into your computer since you don't have any speaker "effect" on your signal when going out from the line out of the amp). Normally a multi effect has also the ability to raise your level. So maybe you can use the GT-6 to raise your line out signal from your downturned amp as much as you need to get a good strong signal into your computer. Just bypass all the effects and the eq in your GT-6. But of course you can also use them to alter your sound more to your liking.
Like i say i don't know if you can use the GT-6 this way since i don't own one but i guess it's worth giving a try.

As for hearing the backing track. Yes i use headphones because i record with a mic and like you already told it would pick up the backing track if i would run the backing track through my monitors.
I use AKG K270 headphones. They are quite high quality and a good thing is that they are kinda sealed. That means that the sound from the headphones doesn't get outside (good if you wanna hear the backing track through headphones but record something with low volume like a acoustic guitar or the voice with a high sensitive condenser mic). Also a good thing about the sealed headphone is that the sound from the outside doesn't get that much to your ear. Good if you stand near your loud amp and you need to hear the backing track clearly through your headphones.

Flo

[Number Of The Priest]

Re: The art of recording through your amp

Whoa, I never thought about trying the amp's Line Out into the GT-6 before! I'll really have to try that. I know that the amp's speaker will still give out sound though.

Gotta buy myself some sealed headphones. I don't know why I didn't think about this. I usually just use my portable MP3 player's open-air street-style headphones, but the sealed headphones would definitely be better. Now that I think about it, whenever you see videos of artists singing in the studio, their backing track is played through big sealed headphones ad then they sing into their microphone!

I will also check the Line In thing on my computer next time I try recording.

Thank you very much Flo!!! [img]graemlins/notworthy.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/toast.gif[/img]