All my Gear - Recommendations please

Gear & Tools Talk đŸ’» Hardware, Software & Recording
1

One of the sadest issues I have from all my time on the Piano is the loss of the recordings that I will never get back.

In order for that not to happen again with the Guitars, I want to make certain that I have recordings of me playing the Guitar.

The recommendations please, are for items that I will need including different software or hardware from the list of mostly free software below. Almost none of that software has ever been used because of work, and most likely out of date.

When I started my log I never listed my gear as a lot of it had been packed away and forgotten about due to work loads (a 60+hr month was not uncommon) :(. Yesterday I finally found some missing pieces so I can list what I have and start putting my PC to work lol.

Hardware


Gibson LP Standard
Fender Squire
Epiphone ES - 339
Epiphone AJ Electro-Accoustic
Boss Katana 50
Focusrite Scarlett Solo 2i2
M-Audio Keystation Mini 32
Electric Piano - most likely broken though
4K Plus digital video cam
Windows 11 PC
Ipad

Software

Addictive Drums 2 Standalone
Addictive Keys Standalone
Bias Amp 2 Pro
Bias FX 2
Boss tone studio
Guitar Pro 8
Reaper - haven’t tried
Sibelius- trial version - pointless software free version only has 4 bars !
Abelton live 11 lite - havent tried, free version with Scarlett Solo
Transcribe - didn’t like need to change !

I suppose you’ll need to know what I intend
 Many (MANY) years ago I visited a guy who reproduced the entire Shaft theme on synths from home. I can envisage myself doing somehthing very similar ( reproduce music) for personal enjoyment.

Goals.
Remake all parts of a song to play along as either Rythem or Lead Guitarist

What gear is needed to recored and what software whould you use for PC.

Rachel.

1 Like
2

Well reaper is a DAW so it should be able to record everything.

Dont know about the Katana ins and outs but you can plug your guitar into the computer via the 2i2

Bias FX2 can run as a plug in under reaper

For a start if you run Bias FX2 alone and just use that + 2i2 and guitar it now has a replay mode that loops the last 5-15min so you can record as you play and save that off if you like it.

3

I remember the list of vids available for reaper, just never had the chance to look into it.
It’s been an astonishing 4 years since I got the Bias software :frowning: , Been far to busy :frowning: :(

Updated both software and found the rewind, very nice addition :slight_smile:

Katana 50-has
USB can record from this to PC and edit katana setting
Aux In 3.5 which I can use for the Ipad App
Phones/Rec Out
PowerAmp In

Am I right in thinking that use of the Power Amp In, prohibits the use of the Katana systems as everytihng is bypassed, so to speak
Am I understanding that right.

Need to test all this to get things right in my head.

I want to test Reaper, Katana , Bais FX or Bias Amp, Scarlett solo all together, think I may need a couple of cables.

4

The Katana can record directly via USB, and doing so has the advantage that the output is stereo.

Cheers,

Keith

2 Likes
5

Looks like you have everything you need in terms of stuff TBH. More than enough. You could even record BIAS FX 2 tones without the amp.

Sounds like what you need is time because remaking all parts of a song is super time consuming and perhaps not that beneficial.

If you want to play along with songs as rhythm or lead, download backing tracks that have the guitar parts stripped out (you can find them on YouTube), load them up in your DAW (Reaper/Ableton) and play along. Then you can skip straight to the guitar bit.

1 Like
6

Yes, thats an option but, as I’m going to be learning transcription and theory I feel the most logical step is creation of backing tracks.

I’ve been following a guy on Bandcamp for a long time , his backing tracks are nothing short of amazing to me, IF! I get to be anywhere near as good by my retirement I will be a happy Lady. !

Make these and replicate songs . :slight_smile:

Rachel.

1 Like
7

Looks like you have options!

No new software recommendations but some insight based on my experience. I have amp modeling software (I use tonelibgfx) and a katana as well and I find that I use one over the other depending on the situation.

I haven’t figured out a way to change the effects I used when recording in a DAW with my katana post recording. With tonelib, because it’s a plug in within my DAW I can change things whenever I want. Super useful when looking to match a specific tone of a song.

On the other hand the katana has an amazing amount of variety in tone. Plus it’s very popular so you can find a ton of resources online to get specific tones you want. Justin has some free ones and there’s really cheap professionally made ones out there too.

It might be possible and I could just not know how I can adjust tone post recording on the katana. Lol.

1 Like
8

Yes, I understand, @RobDickinson said the same

This then should also be capable of the same, hopefully I wont need another piece of software that I haven’t had a chance to use yet.

I have found and downloaded some of the tones from Justin thanks.
R.

1 Like
9

The trick, assuming you are on Windows, is to use the Secondary input from the Katana.

The Katana has two stereo channels: Primary which has the Katana effects, and Secondary which has no effects.

You should be able to connect these to two separate stereo tracks and record both. You then have the choice of using the Katana effects track, or the uneffected track and use a DAW plugin like Tonelib.

It should even be possible to replay the uneffected track back into the amp, apply different effects on the Katana to it, and record the result. This is often called “re-amping”.

Cheers,

Keith

7 Likes
10

From what I understand its typical these days to record the instruments completely ‘dry’ and apply any processing/ effects later anyhow, gives you a lot more scope to tweak.

I guess you can listen to the effects input whilst playing and record both

1 Like
11

Thank you Majik, I’ve heard of that.

Rachel.

12

I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s “typical”. For a start, most home recording setups don’t support this easily.

Secondly, although re-amping isn’t that hard on something like the Boss gear which provides this capability (including, I believe, the Katana although I’ve never tried it on that device personally) it’s still conceptually a bit tricky to grasp for many people, as it involves audio routing with multiple tracks and inputs/outputs and may require some additional latency compensation.

Of course you could then use plugins, but if you are after the ability to tweak an existing tone that you originally created on the Katana (e.g. dial down the reverb), then you won’t be able to do that with plugins without a fair bit of extra work.

Finally, there’s a school of thought that says you should be deciding things like the tone up-front as much as possible as it provides a better workflow: if you record dry and add effects afterwards, you end up with two rounds of tone selection, and with so many capabilities on modern plugins, it can lead to option paralysis. The argument is: you should have an idea of the tone you are aiming for fairly early in the production process, rather than choosing it afterwards.

Having said that there’s plenty of real-world examples where famous tones have been created in post-production, often from a dry DI recording. So it’s really just another choice.

Having the ability to record both “wet” and “dry” gives the best of both worlds. When I’m using a device with such capabilities, I tend to do it by default. On my DAW’s (Ardour and Mixbus) I have session templates set up for each device which are set up for this.

Cheers,

Keith

2 Likes
13

Wasn’t really talking about home but why not doesn’t take much kit these days.

As for deciding tone you get that without the effects anyhow, or indeed hear / record virh

14

But it does take some knowledge and, I would estimate, the vast majority of home DAW users either lack the knowledge or the desire, or the need to complicate their lives with such things.

For more pro studio work, yes a lot of engineers will record the dry (via DI) as well as the wet, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they will use it. It’s something that a lot of guitar players push back against because they feel they have dialled in a tone and don’t want the engineer changing it arbitrarily. Especially guitar players who are using more traditional valve amps and effects.

Of course there’s a new breed of players who would probably record DI into the DAW and use DAW plugin or AI based effects (for instance Universal Apollo) which I would count as a 3rd approach as recording dry is, typically, done here. But, in this case, tweaking the plugins in post is easy, as the tone has already been dialed in on the plugin and maybe just needs a slight adjustment.

I couldn’t quite parse this, but my point was, if you are recording with a real guitar amp and effects (including something like the Katana) then you have a step of setting up the tone on that amp and the effects chain for the performance.

If you then record dry and use plugins, you then have a second step of setting up the DAW plugins to emulate that original tone, or to build a completely new tone (which suggests you got it wrong to start with). That’s a fair bit of additional work.

Of course rather than using DAW effects you can re-amp into the original amp and effects. Traditionally that was probably beyond most home setups, but more recently a lot of the modern multifx units and amps makes that relatively easy. But I would suggest that’s still an exception rather than the rule.

I’m not saying that doesn’t happen, but most of the books and articles I have read, Youtube videos from respected professionals, and the people I have talked to who have worked on projects, suggest this is NOT the typical way that people work in recording studios.

The preference is to get the basic tone and effects right up front as it prevents a lot of work on the back end. It’s generally a better workflow and it tends to produce better results. And, in many professional studios, they are often keen to capture the sound of real valve amps rather than using plugins.

The major exception to that is probably reverb, which is often best applied in post-production on multi-track recordings.

Cheers,

Keith

2 Likes
15

Bloody hell I have Katana for almost 3 years now and it’s a first time I hear you can do such a thing! Thanks Keith :exploding_head::exploding_head::exploding_head:

5 Likes
16

Yes it does. But operating a daw at all takes some knowledge.

17

Quite a few Roland/Boss products support this.

I first encountered it on my old Roland Vstudio 20. I have also seen it on my JS-8 and my GT-001 and Pocket GT. Apparently it’s also a feature on the GT-100, GT-1000, and GX-100.

It doesn’t appear to be on the GT-1 or Pocket GT.

EDIT: I just checked the Pocket GT and it does support this, which is cool.

Cheers,

Keith

1 Like
18

Same! :rofl::rofl::rofl:

2 Likes
19

Just a quick update on this, as I’ve had some time to explore it.

Although a lot of the Boss devices have this capability, not all of them let you do re-amping directly, as they don’t support the internal routing. For instance, on the Pocket GT, the routing is as follows:

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So, whilst you can route USB output back through the Pocket GT effects engine, this will only come out of the Pocket GTs audio output. It won’t route back to the USB audio input.

I’ve used other Boss devices, like the VStudio 20, JS-8, and GT-001 which have a specific “loopback” function which connects the USB input back to the output so you can do re-amping.

Looking at the Katana manual, it’s not clear how it works on this.

On a device like the Pocket GT (and, perhaps, the Katana) to do reamping, you would need an external sound card to capture the re-amped audio output from the device.

Cheers,

Keith

1 Like
20

Pretty complex like you said for home usage.

Thank for taking the time to work on this BTW. :slight_smile:
R.