I’m somewhat new to recording, I’ve been trying to record my playthroughs with DI, to remove the acoustic noise of the guitar (I could down this out by playing louder but it’s not ideal with others in the house).
Anyway, I’ve been trying out a few different tools (GarageBand, Reaper) and it mostly seems to sound awful when recording the wet track. Despite me being happy with the tone coming through my headphones or studio monitors via my Quad Cortex. It seems to sound almost totally different via DI. Very tinny, no bass. I was thinking is this something to with the speakers? But then I thought, well the wet track is being recorded and I’m listening to it through the same speaker, so it should sound the same, right?
Has anyone got any tips or videos they can share on how I can improve this? I guess it’s just all part of learning the process and may be normal, but then again I may be doing something very wrong.
The main thing to check is levels. It tends to be easier with USB as there’s fewer gain stages to deal with.
What’s your recording level like?
Check the input to your DAW. There should be some sort of meter on it. If it’s going into the red, then there’s a good chance you are clipping, and this will sound horrible.
Try checking the settings on your QC, there should be a USB output level. Try turning it down.
Another thing you should check is that you are recording the correct USB channels. The QC gives you 8 in and 8 out channels. You will want to record channels 3 and 4 to get the wet signal from the QC.
Do you have another AI? I never use the QC AI.
@Majik my levels on the QC are OK as I spent some time ensuring it’s not clipping and it sounds good. I’ve not checked my USB levels though, or if it’s clipping in Reaper.
@mathsjunky I’ll double check, I think it’s 3+4. Sorry what do you mean by another AI, Analog Input?
If it is clipping in Reaper you can use ReaLimit to bring the ceiling down to eradicate the clips and if needs be bump the gain to compensate. Its a fine balance but the clipping will be very visible if you just add ReaLimit to the track with it stock settings. Any clips will show as red bars at the top of the UI window and you should see at what level they are braking db wise. Just dial it back so it is consistently under that threshold.
I tend to add RL on all my tracks and the Master with a -3db ceiling so it is under the Youtube max peak of -2db, so helps get a “clean” upload,
I am not QC user, but I record directly by using THR30II amp as an audio interface into Reaper. I had exactly the same problem when I first set this up and found USB output level in settings. This solved the issue immediately. If anything like this exists in QC, this might be the settings to check.
Thanks, this was it. My output levels of the QC were way too high and heavily clipping. It now sounds pretty much the same as my tone when I play. Although I think some of the bass is coming from the acoustic noise through my headphones, which is making it sound slightly different.
