What Does Recording A Dry Signal Mean? Options

[dcz702]

so i was talking to a audio guy asking what would be the best way to run a hd pod x into my daw, asked if it would be best to use the usb of the line 6 or go into my interface. He asked what interface and daw i use and he told me the set up he uses is very similar to mine and that he goes into the XLR, and the spidf for recording a dry signal, and using your pod into spidf the best way for recording so you can reamp.
so im lost cause i dont know what recording a dry signal means, i kind of think i know what reamping means. but not really clear on either of it. thought i would strat a discussion for some help on this subject

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[Bogdan Radovic]

so i was talking to a audio guy asking what would be the best way to run a hd pod x into my daw, asked if it would be best to use the usb of the line 6 or go into my interface. He asked what interface and daw i use and he told me the set up he uses is very similar to mine and that he goes into the XLR, and the spidf for recording a dry signal, and using your pod into spidf the best way for recording so you can reamp.
so im lost cause i dont know what recording a dry signal means, i kind of think i know what reamping means. but not really clear on either of it. thought i would strat a discussion for some help on this subject

Recording dry signal means that you are going straight from guitar to your audio recording interface and recording guitar as it sounds by itself (sound coming out of the jack on the guitar). No amp, no effects - just the guitar clean signal.

The benefit of this is that once you have this "dry" guitar signal, you can get it out of the computer, make it go through POD or guitar amplifier and record the new track which would be referred to as "Wet" (it has guitar+amp+cab+any effects used). This gives you more versatility in the mixing phase as now you don't need to physically re-play and re-record any tracks in case you for example want to try a different crunch guitar tone.

This is a bit of "modern" thing to do as recording dry allows you to tweak and decide on your final guitar tone later on when mixing the songs. Downside of it is that it is so hard to decide on the "final" tone when you have this much versatility on your hands

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[Mertay]

I have some ideas of what he meant but not sure exactly by how you described. Recording dry signal means its not processed, just like plug-ing the guitar to your interface and listening to it with no vst's.

I'm not sure how the hardware works or limitations but seems it can split the signal. So playing guitar, at the same time you can record the sound of the pod preset and the untouched sound of the guitar so it can be later processed (or with an amp but lets not think so complicated for now).

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[dcz702]

Recording dry signal means that you are going straight from guitar to your audio recording interface and recording guitar as it sounds by itself (sound coming out of the jack on the guitar). No amp, no effects - just the guitar clean signal.

thanks thats what i thought, recording a unproccesed signal just clean guitar would be hard for me to play for a tune that uses lots of gain so a sound close to what im trying to record, then playing back dry to re amp would be really cool, wich bring me to what mertay says.

I'm not sure how the hardware works or limitations but seems it can split the signal. So playing guitar, at the same time you can record the sound of the pod preset and the untouched sound of the guitar so it can be later processed (or with an amp but lets not think so complicated for now).

thats what i was thinking recording the take with what sound best at the time during the take with headphones on, a preset that sounds right at the time. then during play back a dry sound then reamp with what works the best, so does the line 6 unit work like this while pluged in xlr and spdif at same time? huh that would be very cool. ill find out when it gets here in a couple weeks

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This post has been edited by dcz702: Feb 9 2015, 12:49 AM

[Mertay]

thanks thats what i thought, recording a unproccesed signal just clean guitar would be hard for me to play for a tune that uses lots of gain so a sound close to what im trying to record, then playing back dry to re amp would be really cool, wich bring me to what mertay says.


thats what i was thinking recording the take with what sound best at the time during the take with headphones on, a preset that sounds right at the time. then during play back a dry sound then reamp with what works the best, so does the line 6 unit work like this while pluged in xlr and spdif at same time? huh that would be very cool. ill find out when it gets here in a couple weeks

I never used it but does look like a very serious tool. It can become an audio interface but also using it with one might have advantages depending on goals.

You have serious manual reading if you ask me I'd expect the guitar side of things to be easy to understand and probably not even needed to detail read the manual but for recording/connecting options I'd study hard if I were you

keeping the logic simple, think like this; a guitar has a mono out so in order to split it we must make it dual mono (which is very like stereo). I do it with a di-box (seem also the audio guy you spoke) and most di-box outs uses xlr.

But mine also has normal jack too, so I simply connect both left and right channels of the audio interface. Opening 2 channels at daw to record together, so one channel can record with pedals/amp etc. while other is dry.

This can also work with the pod hd x, for splitting the signal seems you might not even need a di-box as the pod can do this for you internally.

So thats the basic logic, the audio guy explained you only what connections he used as the output of the pod. USB, line out, spdif...these are options the hardware gives and its more of a situation thing rather than whats best when choosing one.

PS; when I bought my higher-end processor at the time (compared today its very basic), I spent a lot of time with it to understand not only tone but the options. Later on when learning audio engineering at school, this helped me a lot as my ears already memorized the fx and I had the basic logic of a chain. I expect it to be a hard but very fulfilling experience for you

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This post has been edited by Mertay: Feb 9 2015, 01:19 AM

[dcz702]

I never used it but does look like a very serious tool. It can become an audio interface but also using it with one might have advantages depending on goals.

You have serious manual reading if you ask me I'd expect the guitar side of things to be easy to understand and probably not even needed to detail read the manual but for recording/connecting options I'd study hard if I were you

keeping the logic simple, think like this; a guitar has a mono out so in order to split it we must make it dual mono (which is very like stereo). I do it with a di-box (seem also the audio guy you spoke) and most di-box outs uses xlr.

But mine also has normal jack too, so I simply connect both left and right channels of the audio interface. Opening 2 channels at daw to record together, so one channel can record with pedals/amp etc. while other is dry.

This can also work with the pod hd x, for splitting the signal seems you might not even need a di-box as the pod can do this for you internally.

So thats the basic logic, the audio guy explained you only what connections he used as the output of the pod. USB, line out, spdif...these are options the hardware gives and its more of a situation thing rather than whats best when choosing one.

PS; when I bought my higher-end processor at the time (compared today its very basic), I spent a lot of time with it to understand not only tone but the options. Later on when learning audio engineering at school, this helped me a lot as my ears already memorized the fx and I had the basic logic of a chain. I expect it to be a hard but very fulfilling experience for you

I sure do have some reading to do. I'm going to download the manual now and read up before I get it. It seems when I learn new peices of gear or like when I learned logic I spent more time fiddling with stuff in order to understand and get the most out of it while playing. But when you spend to much time fiddling you've spent less time playing. Lol. So I'll read up casually before its here.

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[Todd Simpson]

I'd suggest skipping the line six for the fx part and just use it for recording a dry signal and then using a plugin in your daw for the actual tone/fx/distortion etc. That way you can go back and change it as much as you like. If you "burn" the tone in to the signal (e.g. record with fx on, even during reamping) you are married to that track. If you want to change it, you have to run it through again.

Grab the demo for OVERLOUD TH2 and AMPLITUDE, or GUITAR RIG and see which one you like That way you can download other folks tones and be able to tweak your guitar tone at any point during recording/mix down

Todd

I sure do have some reading to do. I'm going to download the manual now and read up before I get it. It seems when I learn new peices of gear or like when I learned logic I spent more time fiddling with stuff in order to understand and get the most out of it while playing. But when you spend to much time fiddling you've spent less time playing. Lol. So I'll read up casually before its here.

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[klasaine]

This is a bit of "modern" thing to do as recording dry allows you to tweak and decide on your final guitar tone later on when mixing the songs. Downside of it is that it is so hard to decide on the "final" tone when you have this much versatility on your hands

+1 to all of the above but recording a 'dry' signal (along with amp'd, effected, etc.) has been common since the late 60s. Same with re-amping. Before amp software (and still today) you'd re-amp through another actual amp via a reverse DI ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re-amp Dedicated re-amp DIs became commercially available in the mid 90s. Before that the engineer would tweak the output of a channel strip or reverse build a stock DI (convert balanced to unbalanced, ground reverse, etc.).

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This post has been edited by klasaine: Feb 10 2015, 12:46 AM

[dcz702]

I'd suggest skipping the line six for the fx part and just use it for recording a dry signal and then using a plugin in your daw for the actual tone/fx/distortion etc. That way you can go back and change it as much as you like. If you "burn" the tone in to the signal (e.g. record with fx on, even during reamping) you are married to that track. If you want to change it, you have to run it through again.

Grab the demo for OVERLOUD TH2 and AMPLITUDE, or GUITAR RIG and see which one you like That way you can download other folks tones and be able to tweak your guitar tone at any point during recording/mix down

Todd

Thanks Todd. I'll do lots of fiddling. From what I understand so far though, the line 6 can record with the spdif outputting dry signal. And balanced out outputting wet track at some time, on a sepate track. I might be wrong cause I don't have it yet.
The manual says I need to sync my interfaces spdif clock. To make sure it's in sync. Figure all this out when I get it.

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[Todd Simpson]

IF the SPDIF Outputs would recquire another interface to record the signal. Using external units for "reamping" can be fun But it's just less flexible than using plugins so it's usually done when a specific need is met by given hardware.

I wouldn't worry about the spdif out to be honest. You'd need to be able to record SPDIF IN with another device which would just make things complicated for no good reason.

If the line 6 will let you record clean and wet to different tracks in your daw via usb, then that's something worth looking in to I don't have a line 6 device currently. I'm using an 11 RACK which lets me record wet and dry to different tracks in the daw which is very handy.


Thanks Todd. I'll do lots of fiddling. From what I understand so far though, the line 6 can record with the spdif outputting dry signal. And balanced out outputting wet track at some time, on a sepate track. I might be wrong cause I don't have it yet.
The manual says I need to sync my interfaces spdif clock. To make sure it's in sync. Figure all this out when I get it.
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