Members Gatelyne Posted November 25, 2014 Members Share Posted November 25, 2014 So... I am in the process of getting rid of all of my amps. I have acquired a pod hd300. It sounds impressive running it through a power amp and a cab but like a fizzy pile of crap recording it using the usb and reaper. Honestly, I figured it would be the other way around. I HAVE to be doing something wrong. I thought these things were supposed to shine at recorded tones...? BTW, I have tried the stock, downloaded, and my own patches. All sound like a high voltage transformer getting ready to explode. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted November 25, 2014 Members Share Posted November 25, 2014 Go to your advanced manual and read the section on connectivity thoroughly. And most importantly this...... ~Record Send Level: This slider independently controls the level of the POD signal fed to your computer via the Record Send. This directly affects the signal level that is recorded into your audio software. Note that you can also check the +18dB checkbox here if you need to boost the signal fed to your audio software. Input gain to your DAW is controlled through the Driver like many are. I use M-Audio gear and I have a full set of input and output gain levels. Mine even has meters so I know how loud the digitized signal is. Chances are the factory levels from that POD board are overloading the drivers and creating digital distortion. I can assure you that kind of distortion that occurs when you punch the 0db ceiling is very nasty sounding. On the low end it may pop or crackle like you have a loose connector, and on the high end it sounds like a blown speaker coil. Digital recording doesn't need to be hot like Analog and you should never ever let peaks go above 0db. A nominal range may be around -12~-14 db on the meters and nowhere near the red peaks. You can always boost the track levels later but you can drive the levels to the edge of the ceiling like you can with analog gear. The other possibility can cause nearly identical problems with digital noise. If the buffers are set too low, the CPU cant keep up with the data flow and fills in gaps of that stream with binary noise. The fix is to increase the buffer size so the data is put into temporary storage, like a gas tank. When the CPU is sucking data hard it get it from that tank instead of sucking air and sputtering. So long as that temp memory fills up faster then the CPU can drain it you wont have the CPU sucking air and producing digital noise. This adds delay but its unavoidable because nothing digital can happen in real time. The numbers have to be crunched and counted and even with the fastest computers that doesn't happen instantly. This part from the manual explains a bit about this. ~USB Audio Streaming Buffer: This slider adjusts the buffer size for the audio responsiveness of the Input Monitoring signal. Basically, the default setting should be fine for most systems, but if getting audio dropouts or working with large CPU demands on your system, raise the slider a notch or two to the right until it alleviates the problem. and this..... ~ASIO® Driver Settings• ASIO® Client: If running audio software that is using POD HD as its ASIO® audio device, the name of the software will appear here.• Buffer Size: The ASIO® buffer size in use. The ASIO® Buffer Size will affect the “responsiveness” and “latency” of the DAW software. The lower the setting, the faster the response, but with the trade-off of higher processor usage and the risk of audio dropouts. Raise the value if you are getting inconsistent playback or recording in the audio software. Basically, 256 is generally a good average setting to start with.• Bit Depth: The ASIO® bit depth in use. It is recommended to use the 24-bit option.6 USB Audio Streaming Buffer - This slider adjusts the buffer size for the audio responsiveness of the Input Monitoring signal. Basically, the default setting should be fine for most systems, but if getting audio dropouts or working with large CPU demands on your system, raise the slider a notch or two to the right until it alleviates the problem. If I were to guess, you have your analog gains on the POD cranked to drive a power amp. This makes those signal too hot for the digital drivers when you record. If you were driving a regular guitar amp instead at instrument level inputs, you'd have those analog gains dialed down quite a bit and the signal levels hitting the Drivers in the computer wouldn't be distorting like they are. Hopefully you can use those driver recording levels down and have a nice recorded sound "without" having to change your preset out levels. The analog signal occurs before your converter chips built into that pedal. Normally you want to modify your gain levels bef9ore you hit those chips. Instead you will be hitting those chips hot when converting to digital and trying to attenuate a digital signal that may already contain distortion when you adjust the recording level at the drivers. If you still have distortion when you dial back the Driver record level, then you have no option but to dial back the analog levels when you record. Most of these pedals will do well running at 50% volume level out on the main volume. Having other effects like EQ, Comps, Drive can still boost that signal above a nominal recording level so you'll just have to isolate that if and when its a problem. Main thing is you're driving a power amp that looking for a line level signal. Hopefully that pedal has a switch some place to switch between instrument level for driving amps and Line level. If it does, then its unlikely to be an issue having to dial your presets back to avoid distortion recording. I'm sure there are other tidbits that can help guide you when recording. Also note this. The speakers you are pushing with that power head are going to color the sound. If they are guitar speakers most everything above 5K and below 120Hz will be rolled off. You may be dialing up a tone that sounds great to your ears playing live because most of the hars frequencies just aren't being produced by those speakers. When you plug in to record and play back that recording through studio monitors, your going to hear the full high fidelity flat frequency response that pedal produces. You will have to either modify the settings you use recording or EQ the crap out of the tracks mixing. Remember theres no Speaker there to color your sound when recording direct like that. You could also add horns to your guitar speakers so you get a fill frequency sound playing live, and dial back all your presets to compensate for that high end frequency response. This may be a better match when you do use those modified setting recording. The simpelest may be just to build live and recording patches and just use the right patch for whatever task you have happening. If you plan to record and play live you'll have to take one of the actions I mentioned to get the recorded signal tamed and your live tones boosted. Maybe even a good rack EQ before your power hear with a smiley face EQ curve would be enough to add those frequencies to your live sound and your presets wiykd sound good recording. Its all stuff you have to try and compare results. Good Luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mr.Grumpy Posted November 25, 2014 Members Share Posted November 25, 2014 You need to turn speaker cab emulation ON for direct recording, and OFF if you're running the POD through a guitar amp. It sounds like you have it off now. I have one of the original PODs and they called the speaker cab emulation "A.I.R" and it was turned off or on with a slide switch on the outside of the unit, I don't know how it's done on the newer ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Gatelyne Posted November 26, 2014 Author Members Share Posted November 26, 2014 Go to your advanced manual and read the section on connectivity thoroughly. And most importantly this...... ~Record Send Level: This slider independently controls the level of the POD signal fed to your computer via the Record Send. This directly affects the signal level that is recorded into your audio software. Note that you can also check the +18dB checkbox here if you need to boost the signal fed to your audio software. Input gain to your DAW is controlled through the Driver like many are. I use M-Audio gear and I have a full set of input and output gain levels. Mine even has meters so I know how loud the digitized signal is. Chances are the factory levels from that POD board are overloading the drivers and creating digital distortion. I can assure you that kind of distortion that occurs when you punch the 0db ceiling is very nasty sounding. On the low end it may pop or crackle like you have a loose connector, and on the high end it sounds like a blown speaker coil. Digital recording doesn't need to be hot like Analog and you should never ever let peaks go above 0db. A nominal range may be around -12~-14 db on the meters and nowhere near the red peaks. You can always boost the track levels later but you can drive the levels to the edge of the ceiling like you can with analog gear. The other possibility can cause nearly identical problems with digital noise. If the buffers are set too low, the CPU cant keep up with the data flow and fills in gaps of that stream with binary noise. The fix is to increase the buffer size so the data is put into temporary storage, like a gas tank. When the CPU is sucking data hard it get it from that tank instead of sucking air and sputtering. So long as that temp memory fills up faster then the CPU can drain it you wont have the CPU sucking air and producing digital noise. This adds delay but its unavoidable because nothing digital can happen in real time. The numbers have to be crunched and counted and even with the fastest computers that doesn't happen instantly. This part from the manual explains a bit about this. ~USB Audio Streaming Buffer: This slider adjusts the buffer size for the audio responsiveness of the Input Monitoring signal. Basically, the default setting should be fine for most systems, but if getting audio dropouts or working with large CPU demands on your system, raise the slider a notch or two to the right until it alleviates the problem. and this..... ~ASIO® Driver Settings • ASIO® Client: If running audio software that is using POD HD as its ASIO® audio device, the name of the software will appear here. • Buffer Size: The ASIO® buffer size in use. The ASIO® Buffer Size will affect the “responsiveness” and “latency” of the DAW software. The lower the setting, the faster the response, but with the trade-off of higher processor usage and the risk of audio dropouts. Raise the value if you are getting inconsistent playback or recording in the audio software. Basically, 256 is generally a good average setting to start with. • Bit Depth: The ASIO® bit depth in use. It is recommended to use the 24-bit option. 6 USB Audio Streaming Buffer - This slider adjusts the buffer size for the audio responsiveness of the Input Monitoring signal. Basically, the default setting should be fine for most systems, but if getting audio dropouts or working with large CPU demands on your system, raise the slider a notch or two to the right until it alleviates the problem. If I were to guess, you have your analog gains on the POD cranked to drive a power amp. This makes those signal too hot for the digital drivers when you record. If you were driving a regular guitar amp instead at instrument level inputs, you'd have those analog gains dialed down quite a bit and the signal levels hitting the Drivers in the computer wouldn't be distorting like they are. Hopefully you can use those driver recording levels down and have a nice recorded sound "without" having to change your preset out levels. The analog signal occurs before your converter chips built into that pedal. Normally you want to modify your gain levels bef9ore you hit those chips. Instead you will be hitting those chips hot when converting to digital and trying to attenuate a digital signal that may already contain distortion when you adjust the recording level at the drivers. If you still have distortion when you dial back the Driver record level, then you have no option but to dial back the analog levels when you record. Most of these pedals will do well running at 50% volume level out on the main volume. Having other effects like EQ, Comps, Drive can still boost that signal above a nominal recording level so you'll just have to isolate that if and when its a problem. Main thing is you're driving a power amp that looking for a line level signal. Hopefully that pedal has a switch some place to switch between instrument level for driving amps and Line level. If it does, then its unlikely to be an issue having to dial your presets back to avoid distortion recording. I'm sure there are other tidbits that can help guide you when recording. Also note this. The speakers you are pushing with that power head are going to color the sound. If they are guitar speakers most everything above 5K and below 120Hz will be rolled off. You may be dialing up a tone that sounds great to your ears playing live because most of the hars frequencies just aren't being produced by those speakers. When you plug in to record and play back that recording through studio monitors, your going to hear the full high fidelity flat frequency response that pedal produces. You will have to either modify the settings you use recording or EQ the crap out of the tracks mixing. Remember theres no Speaker there to color your sound when recording direct like that. You could also add horns to your guitar speakers so you get a fill frequency sound playing live, and dial back all your presets to compensate for that high end frequency response. This may be a better match when you do use those modified setting recording. The simpelest may be just to build live and recording patches and just use the right patch for whatever task you have happening. If you plan to record and play live you'll have to take one of the actions I mentioned to get the recorded signal tamed and your live tones boosted. Maybe even a good rack EQ before your power hear with a smiley face EQ curve would be enough to add those frequencies to your live sound and your presets wiykd sound good recording. Its all stuff you have to try and compare results. Good Luck. Awesome info! Thanks! It does sound like some type of insane digital clipping. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Gatelyne Posted November 26, 2014 Author Members Share Posted November 26, 2014 You need to turn speaker cab emulation ON for direct recording' date=' and OFF if you're running the POD through a guitar amp. It sounds like you have it off now. I have one of the original PODs and they called the speaker cab emulation "A.I.R" and it was turned off or on with a slide switch on the outside of the unit, I don't know how it's done on the newer ones. [/quote'] That's the first thing I checked because I was thinking the same thing but it is on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Gatelyne Posted November 26, 2014 Author Members Share Posted November 26, 2014 Ok... I have dialed down all levels and am still getting this very digital/clipping sounding fizz that over powers the tone. Another thing, I see nothing about ASIO drivers in reaper. I have reinstalled the drivers and all for the pod. I have used exact copies of patches that some are using to get great recording tones. I don't get it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted December 2, 2014 Members Share Posted December 2, 2014 Did you try MR Grumpy's advice about the speaker emulation? I bought a Difgitec pedal the other day which records. Its got a switch for speaker emulation and with it turned off the high frequency makes for some nasty crackle. Turned on, that high frequency noise is rolled off with a filter. Also I wouldn't trust other peoples presets. They may be recording analog through an amp or mixer through another interface or god knows what else. Use them as a jumping off point and tweak it from there. Also what are you using to monitor your sound, Headphones, Studio Monitors, Computer monitors, Laptop monitors? I'd also check to see if the sound is going through the windows mixer. If you're running Win 7, it can do some strings things to Audio devices. Normally you'd have the slider full up, and use the POS's volume when tracking. When mixing, you use the DAW mixer to adjust the volume. As far as finding the Latency settings, you have to find the driver icon. It sometimes gets installed in the Control Panel with all the other devices. With mine its installed there and I also have an icon on my task bar down by the windows mixer. I double click it and all mu audio setting s are there and I have a tab that takes me over to the ASIO and latency settings. Buffers and ASIO/WDM etc are chosen within the DAW. I don't run Reaper so I cant tell you for sure. It's usually listed under an Audio Properties/Settings tab or under your global audio settings. You have to be able to switch recording sample rates some place in there. The audio buffers should be close by. Reaper does do some things differently then other DAW's. If its really that much different, you should download "The Maunual" You may have to read a bit to figure these kinds of things out, but that's how most of us learn to do these kinds of things. Same for the POD unit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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