 Re: recording guitar??
Most likely you are experiencing an impedance (Z) mismatch. Most electric guitar pickups were designed in the 50's and are very high impedance. This is especially true for single coil pickups such as those that are installed on Fender guitars. These pickups sound fantastic; however, they need to be plugged into a very high impedance input source (at least 1 meg ohm). When you plug a high impedance pick up into a lower impedance source you loose the high end detail and some of the midrange of your sound. You will also notice that the guitar seems "sluggish" and nonresponsive. As a rule the impedance of your input should be about 10 times higher than the impedance of the source (microphone, guitar, bass... and so on).
Most computer's audio input jacks are great for everyday applications but are have a relatively low impedance for instruments. Try using an interface that offers a " hi Z instrument input". Even better, if you have a good guitar amp that offers a direct line output, plug your ax into the amp and then route amp's line out into your computer or direct box. If you have a great amp you will benefit from the amp's high impedance input. This is what I do.
One other possibly related thought. You may also be experiencing some latency issues. Latency here is defined as the time it takes the signal to go from your (in this case) guitar, through your computer, and back out to the monitor. In most cases just plugging guitar into a computer will result in a slightly-to-moderately detectable delay. This delay drives me crazy. One solution is a computer audio interface that permits zero or near-zero latency monitoring. Another solution is to monitor your guitar directly through a mixing board while playing back audio into the mixer from your computer. The downside is that you will have to also add real effects (not the ones in your computer) to the monitor mix. I would start by using an audio interface and lowering the buffer size on my computer. This should make your latency almost undetectable. It won't, however, correct any impedance mismatch issues that were discussed above." You may have to address all of the above.
Good luck, have fun, we have all been there!
Last edited by kcrow; 05-26-2009 at 08:45 PM.
| 
11-09-2008, 03:48 PM
Linear Mode
Similar Threads 
