Printable Version of Topic

Posted by: Berglmir May 15 2009, 07:15 AM

Hi all!

Well, as the title says and as can be demonstrated here:
http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_forum/index.php?showtopic=27423
I obviously have a problem with recording with Reaper.

To be more exact:
I use a Focusrite Saffire LE DAW to connect my Guitar with my PC, Reaper as recording software and Guitar Rig 3 for effects.
When I play I use High Level Headphones for monitoring, and - and this is the annoying part - everything sounds great!
Everything is crisp and when you change the effects in Guitar Rig 3 it REALLY makes a difference.

As soon as I render my project to mp3 the result becomes muddy, dull....boring. Even the Backtracks who are made by GMC instructors get washed out.

I use the Focusrite ASIO driver for recording AND rendering - but only for that. For other applications on my PC there´s still a CL Soundcard installed (with connected speakers).
When I open Reaper with the Standard soundcard Settings the differences in changing GR3 effects are barely audible (and they are muddy as well).

So - anyone else HAD this problem and solved it?! Would appreciate your suggestions!

Cheers muchly
Berglmir

Posted by: Canis May 15 2009, 07:49 AM

I don't have sound here at school, but if your recordings sound good on other computers, it might just be your speakers and/or soundcard drivers that's messed up.

Do your speakers have a good sound when you listen to music, etc?

Posted by: Berglmir May 15 2009, 07:57 AM

Don´t write answers when @ school!

Interesting suggestion though, but I have listend to my upload here...err..at work...as well and altough it sounds a tiny bit different it´s still a BIG difference to the sound I have originally monitored with my headphones.
I have even listend to my other uploads here at GMC and although I have used very different effects in GR3 they sound very much alike now

THX for answering!!

Posted by: Canis May 15 2009, 08:39 AM

What else is there to do when at school/work, except reading GMC?

It's usually like that if you have good monitoring headphones/speakers. They sound extremely good compared to normal speakers. Maybe you have some stereo-settings disabled on your soundcard? That would result in bad panning and weird, muffled sound when channels is "blended".. If that makes any sense

No problem. Glad to help ^^

Posted by: Artemus May 15 2009, 01:34 PM

Is there as much of a difference between rendering to mp3 and exporting to a wave file/uncompressed format ?

Posted by: DeepRoots May 15 2009, 01:56 PM

Yeh could you post a few samples here for us to compare, a wav may take ages to upload/download but it may help us figure things out

Posted by: jafomatic May 15 2009, 02:14 PM

What's the bitrate of the mp3? You're losing sound quality in proportion to the decrease of that number. Above 192kbit most folks won't hear a difference but perhaps your ears are unruined by the loud music of days past.

Also: aren't you always going to lose quality going digital, even at insanely high bit rate?

Posted by: Berglmir May 15 2009, 02:29 PM

Hmm - I don´t know! I was just thinking it MIGHT.
The next thing I will try is to use ONLY GR3 for recording - I´ll just load the backtrack in one tape recorder, play over it and record it on Tapedeck 2 - I´m curious about the result.

More or less I´m expecting my noobishness in using Reaper to be the main reason for all of this! ;-)

I´ll post my settings (maybe some screenshots as well) when I get back home from work.

Cheers muchly for replying though!

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic May 15 2009, 08:00 PM

But why do you use your old soundcard at all man? Isn't Saffire a soundcard itself? Can't you connect the speakers to Saffire and use it that way?

BTW DAW stands for Digital Audio Workstation, and it relates to software for audio production (reaper, cubase etc). Saffire is audio interface, not DAW. Sometimes it can be referred to Digital Audio System tho..

Posted by: Berglmir May 15 2009, 11:16 PM

Interessting suggestion - really don´t know as my speakers have the typical small connectors to fit the usual CL PC soundcard. The DAS (as you rightly corrected me) has bigger connection slots - so I have to spend either money on some sort of adapter or buy new/better/bigger monitors.
But it might be worth a try!

Helpful as always!!! Cheers!

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic May 16 2009, 12:26 AM

The way I understand the situation, CL PC card is some kind of a low budget sound card for PC right? If so, you should not only disconnect the speakers from it, but disable it in windows. Saffire LE is practically the same hardware as the real Saffire, only lacks some inputs & features - and it is Focusrite Saffire! This is by no means a toy, it is a serious interface, and it servers as your audio system for PC, not just ASIO interface for DAW and headphones monitoring system.
If you have small 3.5mm stereo jack plug for your speakers, then you would need this cable:
http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/product/3986-lynx-3-5mm-stereo-socket-to-2-x-6-3mm-mono-jack-plugs.html

If you cannot obtain this exact cable, you can try calling your nearby electronic components store, and ask them to made one for you, they usually provide these kinds of services, and it is relatively cheap if you need short length.

The reason you are using your Saffire outputs is mainly because the sound is much better! The sound is practically as-is, and you will monitor your mixes with more precision.

Posted by: Berglmir May 16 2009, 12:38 AM

I will buy such a cable tomorrow - good idea.
My PC Soundcard is not so cheap & crappy as implied. It´s a Creative Labs SB X-Fi - sound is usually quite good for playing games or even listen to music, although I´ll give it a try.

Only thing that makes me a bit suspicious is that I monitor AND render my Reaper project while using the Sapphire - so the result should sound like monitored.

But we´ll talk later when I have recorded another take! ;-)

Cheers Ivan!!!!

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic May 16 2009, 02:50 AM

SB X-Fi is a good card for gaming, watching movies, and other similar things, but Saffire is much better in all areas then X-Fi. The thing that X-Fi probably has are DSP effects that can be used in games, like reverb, stereo enhancement etc. If you need this, it is OK to use it. However if you record and mix using the Saffire, it would be good to have some kind of speaker monitoring from Saffire.

How do you monitor your Reaper projects before rendering?

Posted by: Berglmir May 16 2009, 02:38 PM

I used some good Headphones only (to be exact: Audio-technica ATH-M40fs).

Just riged my system up with the connector as you have suggested and I have to say - I LIKE IT!!
The things I get out of Reaper now sound like the the ones I´m hearing while playing - that´s a good thing.

Unfortunately I have not been able (yet!) to produce something I dare to upload here - but I´ll get there!

Looking forward to your feedback (when I upload something) and thank you all (Ivan especially!!!) for your support!

Cheers muchly!
Berglmir

PS. Anyone looking for a cheap Soundblaster X-Fi?!

Posted by: Berglmir May 16 2009, 07:29 PM

Update: Although I like having the Focusrite Saffire as my major & only sound interface I just want to show you my render settings for mp3 and wav in Reaper - maybe you can comment on that as well?!

Thanks in advance!

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic May 17 2009, 12:01 AM

You can still keep the X-Fi as a backup, you can't make that much money on it to sell it, and it may be useful in some occasions or for some trade-offs, you never know

Regarding sound monitoring, always use speakers+headphones for monitoring, never headphones alone, cause they give away inaccurate sound, no matter how great they are. Try to compare the sound from headphones and speakers, and see how they sound, and adapt the mixes to both.

If you upload something I will be glad to comment on that, don't be afraid, there is no need, we all have to start somewhere.

Your rendering settings are good, but just check if Saffire has 32bit floating point native resolution. If it doesn't, just use 24bit, it's quite enough. Raising the sampling to 48kHz wouldn't hurt either, but if you want to burn the projects to audio CD, then 44.1 resolution would be a good way to go. 44.1 is slowly getting out of use, and getting replaced with 48 and 96kHz, so consider doing some future projects with these settings. For now, this looks good.

cheers mate

Posted by: Berglmir May 17 2009, 03:28 PM

I did as you said and you find the results here:
http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_forum/index.php?showtopic=27508

And to show you my appreciation for all your great support I have chosen your great "Canon in D Blues" lesson to "test" my new recording setup!
REALLY looking forward to your feedback!

Cheers mate!!

Posted by: MickeM May 17 2009, 05:42 PM

There's three major steps to a successful recording.

Record

Mix

and Master

fail either and you're had.


I don't have much of a clue about the mastering part, there are vst plus you can just run your mix through and it will make the magic for your specific genre. Sadly, I havn't found a freeware master plug of any sort so I usually just stop at the mix and leave it be.
Mastering is where th emagic takes place so it's no step you want to skip in case you're looking for a good quality result.

Anyway, during recording jusy make sure you get enough signal and add some effects.
Mix your song to let each instrument have it's frequency range, make the neccessary panning of your sources and make the mix "stick together". You should end with a result that you're perfectly happy with.

Mastering your track turns darkness into daylight. Don't ask me how but according to my friend who's a pro it's time consuming - though you can run it through a couple plugins and get a good result.


...maybe something suitable for a lesson? Mixng and mastering

Posted by: Berglmir May 17 2009, 06:36 PM

Thanks for your insight - I´m sure everything is true.
But hey - I´m just one guy sitting in his study in front of his PC with the aim to get something out of the equipment he has!
ATM I´m happy with the results I have posted in the Upload section (link posted above).

Although I like your idea about the lesson!

Cheers muchly!!

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic May 19 2009, 12:05 AM

Really cool man, I've listened to the takes. One thing that I notice right away is that it lacks some dynamics. Clean sounds the best, but it is a bit thin. Nothing to worry about of course, it will get better. Tell me, do you record your amp at bedroom volume?

Posted by: Berglmir May 19 2009, 08:53 AM

Thank you very much for your kind feedback!
Well, I don´t use/have an amp at all!

I connect my guitar into the Saffire LE and that´s it - so in a way I think the clean sound you have heard is the original sound of my guitar!
When I record I do so at "livingroom" volume - I have some troubles though to find the correct mix between monitor output and recording output. Sometimes I barely hear something but the scale of the recording output is way red.

But I think I´ll get there (with your help)!

Cheers

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic May 19 2009, 08:36 PM

Aha, I see... So what software do you use for modeling your guitar sound?

Posted by: Berglmir May 20 2009, 07:21 AM

I only use Guitar Rig 3 - apart from Reaper for recording. And theres the Saffire LE Mixer of course - but I think it mainly controls output/input levels.

As I said before - the sound you hear in the clean take is just my guitar put in "directly" into Reaper.

Posted by: jdriver May 20 2009, 08:03 AM

Yes and no. You will always lose some quality when going lossy compression like MP3. But digital recording in general at 24bits/96kHz or higher will sound superb. It's always been the 16 bits that was the quality limitation. The resolution of the recording doubles with each additional bit, i.e., going from 16 to 18 bits gives you 4 times finer resolution.

With that in mind, I think it's generally agreed that MP3 or AAC at 256 sounds pretty darn good.

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic May 20 2009, 10:32 AM

Hmm, GR3 can be a little problematic, because it is noisy and doesn't have too much headroom. Try to make more headroom by making your preset louder with the output knob, and just make a normal loudness with the amp, don't go above 1 o'clock too much. Also try to record it as loud as you can with the Saffire, but never above clipping limit.

Posted by: Berglmir May 20 2009, 12:03 PM

I´ll definetly try this and post you my results.
Maybe a new Clean Version of my take on your "Canon in D Blues" lesson?!

Cheers muchly!

Posted by: Berglmir May 21 2009, 06:14 PM

Just wanted to let you know a strange phenomenon:
No matter what kind of Volume knob I turn down in the Saffire LE Control software, the volume of my guitar in Reaper is very loud - if I just touch a string the volume meter of reaper goes up 1/3 of the way and lingers there for quite some time.

This is true even for "guitar only" settings (no fx or amp simulation whatsoever).
Ok, my volume knobs on the guitar are on max but these are old passive humbuckers.

Any idea where this output level may come from and - more importantly - where can I reduce/manipulate it?!

Cheers in advance!

PS. I think if we can manage this, most of my recording problems/lacking dynamics might be solved as well!

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic May 22 2009, 08:59 AM

This is definitely something that needs to be addressed to mate. If the meter in Reaper jumps, and stays in one position for some time, this means that the signal is compressed.

PLease check the meter in Saffire LE software. Does the meter acts the same way over there? You should be able to have a separate channel strip in Saffire software for monitoring your guitar signal. Monitoring of the guitar signal starts there.

Posted by: Berglmir May 22 2009, 11:47 AM

Nope - the meter in Saffire Control acts as expected. The "funny" thing is - even when I decrease volume on every knob available in Saffire Control to zero, there is sound in Reaper (with the same behavior as described above).
"Gain"/Volume Knobs on the Saffire Hardware are in the middle position.

Thanks so much for your concern Ivan!!

Posted by: tonymiro May 22 2009, 05:17 PM

You've probably already done but just in case...

Make sure that you have set the Sapphire up for instrument and not line on whichever jack you're plugged in to. If you haven't the impedance will be wrong and can result in what you're experiencing.

Posted by: Berglmir May 22 2009, 09:09 PM

Thanks for your tip - In a way it might be the "opposite"!

I have two inputs where I can switch on the hardware between "Instrument" and "Line In". I usually plug in at the first slot, but I have chosen "Instrument" for both slots - just to try it I switched from "Instrument" to "Line In" and the high volume problem was gone in a sec. BUT - latency is so high that it´s not usable for recording.
I now have switched slot one back to "Instrument" and left slot 2 on "Line in" - maybe it´s just my imagination but the problem got a bit better I think!

Most probably it´s just the correct mix of the different Input/Volume/Gain Settings that needs to found out.....*sigh*

But I´m sure I´m getting there - thanks for your help mate!
Cheers

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic May 23 2009, 02:51 PM

Just to make sure mate... Is your Saffire your main audio device for Windows (in control panel>sound and audio devices)?

Posted by: Berglmir May 23 2009, 06:12 PM

Yes it is - but I think I´m getting there.

First of all I only use "Instrument" for the conncetion I use - the other one stays at "Line In"
Second - I have decreased the input gain on the hardware from approximately 50% to 25% - I can now really attack the strings without clipping.

As soon as I can manage to make a recording which is not full of nasty errors & glitches I´ll upload the result!

Cheers !!

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic May 23 2009, 10:09 PM

Aah so the problem was in the hardware after all mate! tony gave a great advice, and lowering down the input gain on Saffire increased the dynamic range that you can use. Great thinking mate, now lets hear some samples

Posted by: Berglmir May 29 2009, 04:26 PM

Here you are mate: http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_forum/index.php?showtopic=27508

Thank you Ivan and everyone else as well for helping me out with this - I feel much more confident with my recording gear now!
CHEERS!!