Recording With Ampeg SVX

[Nigel451964]

Hi,

I've been reading Brandon's book on recording bass and was particularly pleased that he likes using the Ampeg SVX because I do to. However he mentions he likes to record with the plugin running so that the bass player can hear how it sounds but I haven't found a way of doing this with my setup.

I can open the Ampeg SVX standalone function which works fine but it doesn't work when I open my SONAR 8 recording software. In other words I can only use it after I've recorded the bass track.

I was wondering if anyone has any ideas about how I can run the plugin and record at the same time? Could it be an issue with my audio interface?

Cheers
Nigel

[Danny Danzi]

It will work in real time in Sonar. What version of Sonar do you have? If you place the Ampeg plug on a blank audio track, set up your input and output drivers on the track and then turn input echo on, on the audio track, you should hear sound in real time. Input echo allows you to hear plugs inserted in real time. You should see a little icon for it on the actual audio track near R S M somewhere depending on your view or how you have Sonar set up. You'll see it as every track has one. You may have some latency (delay in when you hear the sound of the bass) so you'll need to compensate.

If you are using ASIO drivers with Sonar, open up your ASIO control panel. Take note of what the current setting in samples is. Most default to 256. Try setting your buffers at 128 and see if the delay is still there. If it is, try 64. When you're done tracking the bass, set the samples back to where they were in the ASIO control panel so you don't get any drop-outs as your project grows.

If you're using WDM drivers, go to your options in Sonar, and click audio. On the general tab you should see a latency slider. If you've never touched it, it may be right in the middle at like 100ms which is a perfect setting for mixing and adding plugins. But for recording with the use of Softsynths or VSTi's, you will need to pull the slider to the left so you don't have that delay when you play. I would say you should be successful taking it down to about 3-5ms depending on what card you are using.

After you're done tracking, make sure to go back and set your latency slider back to where it was so you don't get any drop-outs as you add more tracks and plugins.

If you are running Vista and are forced to use ASIO4all drivers, open up the ASIO4all control panel and take note of what the currert slider reading is. Might be 256 or 512. Don't touch anything else but the one big slider. Set it to 128 and see if the delay goes away. If not, go down to 64. When you're done tracking, put it back to where it was originally. That should get you going. Let me know if it worked. Good luck!

[Audio~Geek]

You have to monitor through the software. If your interface has a 'mix' knob it has to be set to playback, usually this is to the right.
Set you audio buffer size to a low number for low latency
Create an audio track. Set the input to 1
On the inserts/FX plugins insert Ampeg SVX
Record enable and monitor enable (input echo) the track.
play bass!