Help please with a recording system

[BurnsRhythm]

Back in the day, you pressed Record and Play on the cassette recorder and hey presto, you could record anything…….and that is about all I know about recording!
With the upcoming Blim course I’ve decided it’s time I started recording my playing. Audio only - there’s no way in the world I’m going to attack myself with a camera! Aargh!!!

So…… I need the good folks of the community to help me set up a recording system, if you would please. And please keep your answers simple and straight forward cos I know nowt about it!
All I have at the moment is my phone and I know it isn’t enough.
All I want to do is be able to play a backing track through my amp and play guitar to it and record it all and then post the odd recording or two on here.
I believe I need an Audio Interface (whatever that is) and a DAW (whatever that is).
I also need transcribing software and then there’s Guitar Pro (whatever that is).

Hang on, I need a break now. My cells are fogging over just writing this. ….where’s the kettle!

Okay, that’s better!

I believe I can get a cable to connect phone to amp for playing bt’s, although storing three volumes of JG jam tracks on my phone may clogg it up. So I’ll consider getting a Laptop.
Is it possible to store bt’s on a Laptop, play them through the amp and record back onto the Laptop? Justin mentioned needing two devices?
I also believe that my amp - Boss Katana Artist - will act as an Audio Interface. Here’s a pic of the back panel.

So folks, what do I need and how do I use it??

[Jozsef]

Hi there,

I’m not a recording guru, but if I plug my laptop into the “aux in” input of my amps when the laptop’s charger is plugged in, it adds an awful lot of noise to the sound. It’s OK when the laptop runs on battery. So be careful with that.

If you can connect your amp via USB to your laptop with a DAW running on it (e.g. Audacity or Reaper), you might be able to record without buying an audio interface (AI), but others may want to comment on whether that’s a good option or not.

[mattswain]

My question is do you want the best possible quality of recording or merely something that is good enough?

The problem with a DAW and an audio interface is the learning curve if you’re starting from zero as it sounds like you are.

I think you will need a second device, one for playing tracks and the other for recording but you could do it with an inexpensive laptop for the playback and do the audio recording on your phone, and then move the recordings from your phone to your laptop so your phone doesn’t run out of storage.

I’m sure people will give you lots of more complex options but I think my suggestion is one of the simpler and cheaper ones (albeit the compromise being it’s not going to be studio quality audio)

[sequences]

@BurnsRhythm

All I want to do is be able to play a backing track through my amp and play guitar to it and record it all and then post the odd recording or two on here

See that USB port on the amp? That’s your path to the computer. I expect that you can both play the backing track as well as record simultaneously if the recording tool is fancy enough. Get a USB cable and plut that into your computer. I’d think the amp may have come with one.

@BurnsRhythm

I believe I need an Audio Interface (whatever that is) and a DAW (whatever that is).

Nope. you already have the audio interface.

A DAW is fancier than you need. UIse one if you want. It is probably easier to use a simple recording tool. Any OS has one. It would help to know what computer you plan to use before getting too far into what software is easy to use.

I use Audacity and QuickTime for fast recordings. QuickTime is just on the MacOS basic install and records video, so an easy option. Audacity can be installed on MacOS, Windows, and Linux. It is free to download and use with no annoying logins or ads to buy.

I also use Waveform DAW. I am new to this. It is a bit more complicated to figure out, but has more recording tools. It requires you sign up to get the software, but they haven’t been annoying me with any mail so far. The benefit here is that is will record multi-track off various inputs. Audacity won’t do that.

If you have a mac, then Garage Band is very nice. Pretty easy to figure out. I won’t go over details since I have no idea what OS you are using.

@BurnsRhythm

I also need transcribing software and then there’s Guitar Pro (whatever that is)

Need? no. Handy? Yes.
Guitar Pro is used primarily to transcribe what you hear into tab. You will find it useful in BLIM, but it is not required. I also use GP to slow a track so I can figure out how to play it. When the slow is also coupled with the tab I figured out, it comes along pretty fast.

You have a Boss Katana there. @Majik has a lot of experience and many comments on the forums here about using it. Do a search. I expect he will also see I used his name here and see what’s up.

[mattswain]

@Jozsef

I’m not a recording guru, but if I plug my laptop into the “aux in” input of my amps when the laptop’s charger is plugged in, it adds an awful lot of noise to the sound. It’s OK when the laptop runs on battery. So be careful with that.

This could be a cabling / power source issue. It took me a while to get my Yamaha acoustic amp to be noise free. In the end I made sure that none of the cables crossed each other and the amp and computer were powered from different wall outlets and the noise went away. It’s the first time in 20+ years at this house with lots of electrical devices that I ever had this problem when I got that amp. Maybe some of what I did wasn’t necessary but it works now so I don’t want to mess with it!

[Majik]

@BurnsRhythm

All I want to do is be able to play a backing track through my amp and play guitar to it and record it all and then post the odd recording or two on here

Fundamentally, you can do that with what you have (and a laptop).

@BurnsRhythm

I believe I can get a cable to connect phone to amp for playing bt’s

You can but, and here’s the rub, you cannot record that backing track using that approach.

@Jozsef

If you can connect your amp via USB to your laptop with a DAW running on it

Yes, and this is the right approach.

@sequences

See that USB port on the amp? That’s your path to the computer. I expect that you can both play the backing track as well as record simultaneously if the recording tool is fancy enough. Get a USB cable and plut that into your computer.

THIS!

So, the Katana, like many modern modelling amps, has a built-in audio interface. It has some limitations but, if your requirement is to “be able to play a backing track through my amp and play guitar to it and record it” then you, mostly, won’t hit those limitations (one caveat below).

And you don’t need to purchase an audio interface to do it.

@BurnsRhythm

Is it possible to store bt’s on a Laptop, play them through the amp and record back onto the Laptop? Justin mentioned needing two devices?

It’s possible to do this on a phone or tablet but, IMO, a laptop is a lot easier to do it with.

And, yes, you can download and playback backing tracks on a laptop.

As others have said, you need a USB cable (of the correct type) and plug the Katana into your computer. You then need recording software of some description. If you have a Mac, then I would recommend Garageband. If you have a Windows system then Audacity, Reaper, or Ardour are popular and low-cost (or free) choices.

I will note that I tend to steer people away from Audacity in general as it’s not really a Digital Audio Workstation in the conventional sense; it’s an audio editor. In my view, it’s a bit clunky and the workflow is a bit “quirky” and it’s not a good gateway to a full DAW as, if you need more capability in the future and you decide to move to a proper DAW like Reaper, Audacity, or Garageband, you’ll find yourself unlearning and re-learning a bit of stuff.

But it’s a decent application for basic multi-track recording and it may well be all you need.

The basic idea is you import the backing track into one “track” in the application, and then when you play this back you can, at the same time, record your playing into another track. Normally this is done by creating a new track for the guitar in your chosen application, selecting the Katana as the recording input, and then hitting the record. The backing track will play, and what you do on the guitar should record into the separate track.

You can then export the combined (backing track and guitar) for publishing.

The one caveat with the Katana is that you cannot play the backing track over USB via the speaker, you can only hear it via the headphones. I don’t really understand why they’ve done it this way, but if you use headphones and select the Katana as your output device, it should work.

Cheers,

Keith

[BurnsRhythm]

Thanks everyone.
I’ll try to get my head around it all and then some more tomorrow.

I’ll probably have more questions!

[Majik]

@BurnsRhythm

So I’ll consider getting a Laptop

I would suggest second hand, as second-hand laptops are pretty cheap.

Mac or Windows? It depends what you are used to. If you are familar with Mac then, IMO, it’s a no-brainer: get a Mac. You can also get a Mac Mini and a cheap screen which may be better than a Macbook.

If you are familiar with Windows, get a cheap Windows PC.

If you aren’t familiar with either, well. In that case, I would get a cheap Windows laptop, delete Windows and stick Ubuntu Studio on it.

Do you not have an old laptop at all? That surprises me: I have at least 3 in my garage due for recycling.

Cheers,

Keith

[brianlarsen]

@BurnsRhythm

All I have at the moment is my phone and I know it isn’t enough.

Are you sure?
Could you not run a (male to male) cable from your ‘headphone out’ socket on your phone to your ‘aux input’ on your amp to play the backing track, and plug your guitar into the amp to play along?
When you’re happy with the balance between the two, simply press ‘record’ on your phone.
Most phone mics are decent for recording.
Not sure why that wouldn’t work and would save you a lot of hassle…

[BurnsRhythm]

That’s what I was hoping to do, Brian, @brianlarsen but it doesn’t work. When I hit Record the bt cuts out.
Same the other way round. If I start recording first, it stops when I hit play on the bt.

[BurnsRhythm]

Keith, @Majik I assume you mean I’ll need headphones if I use a USB cable to play bt and record guitar.
What if I use two cables: laptop headphone socket to amp aux in for playing bt and USB for recording?
Or what about the amp Line-outs?

There’s also this control on the amp front panel.

How does that affect the process?

[Socio]

@BurnsRhythm

How does that affect the process?

[BurnsRhythm]

That’s useful, James.
Where did you find it?

[Socio]

@BurnsRhythm

Where did you find it?

In the manual

[Majik]

That would nominally work. The challenge you may have is getting sound out of the laptop’s audio interface at the same time as recording on the Katana.

When using “pro audio” tools, like DAWs, on a computer, the application normally only allows one audio interface to be used at a time. There’s good technical reasons behind that.

It is, depending on the OS, possible to override that: on Macs, there’s an “Aggregate device” setting, and on modern Linux the built-in Pipewire audio system on things like Ubuntu Studio will handle multiple audio devices. Not sure about Windows.

If you can, then this approach should work, although you may end up with a small latency offset in the DAW. If you do, that is normally easy to fix with a click and drag.

Cheers,

Keith

[brianlarsen]

@BurnsRhythm

When I hit Record the bt cuts out.

Thought that might be a possiblility.
Still, it’d be a lot cheaper/simpler to buy a cheap 2nd hand burner phone with a headphone socket to play the music through than buy and set up a laptop

[BurnsRhythm]

@Socio

In the manual

Well yeah😄
Didn’t get anything like that with mine. I’ll have to ask in the shop - maybe they’ll give me one when I buy an arm full of cables.

Thanks again everyone. A lot to digest and think about here….

[Majik]

They don’t tend to supply paper copies of manuals these days. Especially as, with firmware updates, the manuals get out of date quite quickly.

The manual is a download from the Boss website.

BOSS - KATANA-100 GEN 3 | Guitar Amplifier

Cheers,

Keith

[Mustela]

My wife does all her recording on her phone. She doesn’t do the backing track thing, though. And she’s the reason we bought an audio interface. She doesn’t like that there are multiple steps to getting a good recording. She wants to push one button and be done with it. It does work.

I will say that there’s a benefit to recording video if you’re learning, especially. There’s no need to include your face on it, but if you point the video camera at the guitar, you can see what your hands are doing. Having that third person perspective can help you clean things up.

I use OBS to do my recording (with video). I’ve written about using it more elsewhere. It works. Like everything else, it has its own learning curve.

[mundeli]

@Majik

on Macs, there’s an “Aggregate device” setting, and

Hi Magik–
Is that the Audio Midi Setup widget that comes with OS X?
When I installed baby Pro Tools, the install put a bunch of “devices” in there.

I used that to combine audio inputs on Zoom call back(?) during COVID times.