I tried the preamp out of both of my amps and the tone i got wasn't so good

[mbengs1]

there was a hiss i could hear over my playing. is this normal? it sounded ok but its just the hiss that makes it suck. i was using two boss distortions for my tone and it had a lot of gain. will a noise suppressor solve this problem?

[DeepEnd]

What was the preamp out connected to? Another amp? A power amp? Headphones? A speaker cab? If anyone actually tries to solve this, he's going to need a lot more information.

[mbengs1]

What was the preamp out connected to? Another amp? A power amp? Headphones? A speaker cab? If anyone actually tries to solve this' date=' he's going to need a lot more information.[/quote']

 

 

 

the preamp out was connected straight into the console.

[WRGKMC]

In order to know why it hisses you first have to know what hiss actually is.

 

The components like Transistors and chips are used to amplify by pushing electrons through them. Not all electrons travel quietly in a straight line. Some hit impurities in the silicone and ricochet around producing a white noise we call hiss. Tubes create hiss too. The beam of electrons are emitted from the heater through the grid to the plate. Not all of them travel in a straight line and ricochet around causing hiss.

 

If you look at the specs of your devices they usually list the percentage of noise. High fidelity amplifiers use high quality parts and circuit designs to minimize this noise. In audio we call this noise level the noise Floor which is below our musical signal.

 

The problem with his is when you add gain stages to clip the guitar signal. If the first gain units, say a guitar pedal has a .1% noise floor, and you gain that signal up 10X using a second gain pedal. You've increased that noise floor to 1%. If you then pass that signal through a preamp that gains the signal up another 10X you've increased the noise floor to 10%. You also have to add the noise floors of those other devices. If they are both .1% you may be up to 11.1% total plus you're picking up the noise floor of the instrument itself amplifying any hum or noise that comes from exposed wiring and cables.

 

The problem here is the signal from the instrument is only going up so high. Its being clipped/limited so you aren't increasing the dynamic range with these amplification steps - but the noise floor is being amplified up to match the clipped volume levels so weather you're playing notes or not its contamination the musical notes.

 

There are a few ways of covering it up and minimizing it but I suggest you first step down the amount of gain staging you're using. Even with a noise gate, two gain pedals in series then an amplifiers preamp is going to have way too much ambient noise. The only real way to get rid of it is to use quieter pedals and amps but even there you got to know your limitations. Just the fact you're getting that much hiss is telling you you're doing something wrong, so why are you doing it that way when there are better options.

 

When recording straight form an amp line out the hiss is typical with most guitar amps. This is why a speaker emulated line out is becoming more popular with companies like Vox and Marshall. Their like outs use filters that remove the preamp hiss and do a wonderful job by the way. I can use a mic on my Marshall and compare it to the speaker emulated out and its so good you'd likely choose the speaker emulation over a mic.

 

You can modify a regular line out to be a speaker emulated by adding some caps to remove the hiss. If you're interested I'll get you the schematic on how to do it. It would cost you a couple of dollars and only consists of a couple of parts soldered together.

 

The other option is to add an EQ between the line out and recorder and dial up the filtering.

 

A regular line outs on amps are completely flat with no coloration so you get hiss well up into the 10K range and above. A recording console produces a flat high fidelity response well up to 20K which is why you hear all that ambient hiss from transistors and tubes.

 

Normally a guitar preamp feeds the power amp and speaker. Its the speaker themselves that roll off most of that hiss above 5K. They simply don't reproduce it even though its there.

 

If you were to connect a high frequency horn driver to your amp then step on a high gain box you would hear the hiss the speaker doesn't normally produce.

 

You're compounding the hiss with multiple drive pedals too. They have all kinds of high frequency hiss which you don't hear because again, the speaker simply doesn't produce allot of sound above 5K.

 

This hiss roll off by the speaker is actually convenient for guitarists because they don't need to buy an ultra quiet pedals High Fidelity Amps Full ranged speakers etc. they are only concerned with the midrange bands and can eliminate the frequencies out of the normal ranges. Guitarists actually prefer the drive of a raw low fidelity guitar amp because it allows aggressive sound without a bunch of filtering to neuter it down.

 

What you are doing by using the preamp into a recorder is converting the low fidelity speaker system of the amplifier and connecting a high fidelity speaker system of the recorder which is picking up all the flaws in the signal chain that are no linger being masked.

 

What you need to do is remove the hiss before it gets to the recorder - remove his after it gets recorded or a little of both.

 

Since there not much musical content above 5K the fix is simple. Get yourself a graphic EQ and place between the amp and console. Then start at the high bands and take them down one at a time. Find the ones that influence the hiss the most and attenuate it.

 

You can also remove lows below 100Hz to get rid of the bass boom and maybe give a boost in the mid bands to make it sound like an electric guitar instead of an amplified acoustic.

 

What you're doing with the EQ is sculpting the EQ response curve of an actual speaker. You can even google up a speakers response curve of your choice and mimic that speakers response on the wave.

 

The speaker is the element you're missing recording from a line out. You could just record the signal and do all that frequency sculpting after you record it. Last time you mentioned you recorded through one of those portable Boss recorders so the ability to tweak the sound mixing is highly limited. I can do it easily in a DAW setup using any number of EQ's. I'd likely add some compression to because a speaker compresses the sound as well as changes the frequency response/

 

Many newer amps build in this speaker response curve. They know allot of musicians want to record direct from their amps, and they know a 100% flat line out signal isn't the best for recording so they add the coloration of a speaker to the line out which removes a good deal of that hiss and noise in the high frequency range.

 

I believe you also have a Digitec Pedal based on your past posts. That pedal has a setting that can be switched for Line level direct recording and for using the pedal into an amp. The setting rolls off a bunch of highs when plugged into a recorder.

 

Bass is often recorded through an amps Line out too. It doesn't have the issue with hiss because you don't normally drive the gain and increase the noise floor like you would with a guitar. You could use a fuzz with bass but you'd have to roll the noise off the same way as I suggested with guitar.

 

Bass isn't normally driven to saturate so the noise floor remains very low. Bass heads are built more like PA or Hi Fi to produce very clean sound. Many bass amps don't produce allot of high frequencies up in the range where the ambient transistor hiss occurs so its less of an issue in the normal bass ranges. Bass speakers rarely go above 3~4Khz so you could eliminate most ambient hiss and never effect the sound of a bass.

[Mr.Grumpy]

So, your signal chain is:

 

Guitar ---> boss distortion ----> boss distortion ----> guitar amplifier ---- [effect loop send] ----> recording input. ???

 

Yes, that setup will give you LOTS of hiss! Remember, guitar speakers really can't reproduce high treble frequencies, they start to roll off at 5kHz and are all but inaudible at 8 kHz and above. When you plug in direct, there's no speaker to limit the high frequencies, so with all that gain you have going, hiss is inevitable. Things you can do to help include:

1) run the signal through a hardware or software cabinet emulator

2) reduce the high treble (8kHz - 10 kHz) via hardware of software EQ

3) play with less gain

 

 

[DeepEnd]

The other guys are right, as usual. Here's what the "speaker emulated" headphone output from a Fender Mustang II looks like:

 

 

Note the rolloff above 4KHz or so and the dip at 600Hz. This is more-or-less what you want to achieve through EQ. Adding a cap, as WRGKMC suggested, will cut the highs but it won't do anything about the mids.

[SteinbergerHack]

the preamp out was connected straight into the console.

 

This is generally not the way to get a good guitar sound. The speaker/cabinet is a big part of the voicing of an amp, and bypassing it guarantees that it won't sound anything at all like what you hear in the room.

 

Use a mic if you want to record an amp, or use a modeller if you have to be plugged directly into the console.

[Chris Loeffler]

WRGKMC nailed it.

 

In TL/DR terms... you're missing most of what contributes a good electric guitar tone (power amp, output transformer, speaker, mic). Preamp distortion tends to be rough and tinny (in most cases, not all) and requires the rest of the chain to beef it up.

 

Maybe it would be more productive to ask what you're hoping to accomplish... what gear do you have and what sort of sound do you want? I bet we can get you there...

 

 

[mbengs1]

WRGKMC nailed it.

 

In TL/DR terms... you're missing most of what contributes a good electric guitar tone (power amp, output transformer, speaker, mic). Preamp distortion tends to be rough and tinny (in most cases, not all) and requires the rest of the chain to beef it up.

 

Maybe it would be more productive to ask what you're hoping to accomplish... what gear do you have and what sort of sound do you want? I bet we can get you there...

 

 

 

I basically use my pedals for all the sounds running into the clean channel of the amps. the amps are a bugera 6262 head and a marshall jtm60 combo. then the preamp out of both amps go into one of the inputs of my Boss BR-800 digital recorder. the pedals area mainly a boss overdrive, a boss distortion, and boss digital delay. the gain levels are set for high-gain type solo tone. I just use the volume knob on my guitar to lower the gain.

[WRGKMC]

One thing you need to wrap your head around. Recording is ALL about adaptation. You bend your abilities to get the best from the gear - NOT the other way around.

 

More then anything you have to educate yourself on how things can and cannot be done, and then go back and confirm what you learn through experimentation so you have some grasp on what those results mean.

 

Right now you are getting specific results for obvious reasons. You've been given the cause of your problem and you don't even acknowledge you understand. Giving you solutions therefore is likely a waste of time.

 

I'd first ask - why use the amp at all? Just plug your boxes directly into the recorder. You'll easily cut the noise in half.

 

If you want to record with line outs I have to take very specific advice to get the best results possible. You have to first understand what you're doing and what you're being told to do in order to get the best results.

 

You know its not easy trying to explain things to a dead phone on a forum like this. A person who lacks the common curtesy of responding to what they understand and what you don't doesn't make helping easy.

 

I'll give it one more shot and then I'm done with you. I'll explain it in kindergarten terms and hope it gets through. Please be adult enough to respond weather its helpful or not. This has to be a two way conversation, to work otherwise I'm just wasting my time.

 

If you want to use the guitar amps as monitors when playing then you have to dump the idea of using the line outs and record the amps with microphones.

 

If you want to use the line out the signal its not going to sound anything like what's coming from the speaker because there is no speaker. There are things we can do to get better results but never ideal. Please read carefully. My advice is highly specific so use what god put between your ears here.

 

As I said in the beginning - recording is all about adaptation. How do you get a line level out to sound like its a miced amp?

 

First off, if you were in a professional studio with engineers recording you, you'd be in a separate room. They would be monitoring you in the control room through monitors attached to the recorder.

 

If they were recording you from a line out, they could care less what you hear coming from the guitar speakers - they only care about what they are hearing in through their studio monitors because that's what actually gets recorded.

 

If you have tones dialed up that sound like crap and its beyond their ability to manipulate the signal to get a good recording, they will tell you what you need to do to get the best sound. You can either listen and get great tracks or you can ignore them and get crappy tracks. They don't care either way because you're paying for the studio time either way.

 

These are you're 4 options. These are your ONLY options in fact. Its up to you to choose which you want to use, but you have to choose if you want good results.

 

#1. You change the signal you're feeding the amp. You dial back the noise and gain from your pedals to reduce the noise going into and therefore coming out of the amp line levels.

 

#2. You change the signal passing through the amp my manipulating the amps volume levels and EQ to get rid of noise.

 

3. You add and additional EQ between the amp and recorder to reshape the signal to remove noise and boost the actual notes before it gets to the recorder.

 

4. You mix the tracks to remove noise after the tracks are recorded.

 

That's all you got to work with - and as a side note it not only can be done it can be done well if that's your goal. It usually takes a combination of all four of these which means you again have to adapt to get the best results.

 

Rule#1 T

 

he first two are going to change the tone coming from your guitar speaker and will likely make the amp sound like crap. Therefore, if you want to use your guitar speakers as monitors playing you only have #3 & #4 to work with.

 

If you are wanting to get the best recorded tone using your current setup - the conclusion is simple.

 

You CANT use your guitar speakers to dial up the sound and expect a good recording signal from your line out. You instead stick the amps in a closet and MONITOR THE RECORDER output using headphones or monitors instead.

 

You could care less what the amp sounds like - your goal is to get good tracks.

 

You'll hear the hiss there before you even begin recording if you're monitoring the recorder. You then have to tweak your pedals and go into the closet and tweak the amp using #1 & #2 to dial the noise levels down to get rid of the noise on recorded tracks just like the guys in a pro studio would when listening to you in a control room.

 

If you want to be able to monitor your amp speakers at some reasonably decent tones, then you have to use step #3 and get the line level signal to match what you hear coming from the guitar speaker.

 

I do suggest you use 1, 2 & 3 to get the best possible signal and save #4 for getting a good mix. There's only so much first aid you can perform on a track to get rid of noise. Its always best to fix the chain that comes before you record.

 

I'll give you one other trick which can help IF you have an EQ as I noted in step #3.

 

The trick is this. You set the guitar amp like you normally do for playing live.

 

You then run a line out AND you mic the amp and send each to two separate channels on the recorder.

Pan one to the left and one to the right using good isolation headphones.

 

This will make the differences between the two blatantly apparent.

 

Next you use that EQ between the amp and recorder to shape the line level signal to sound like the miced signal.

 

That's it. With a good EQ you should be able to get the miced speaker and line level to sound nearly identical.

 

The only thing you wont be able to get is any room reflection the mic picks up or compression the power amp and speaker produce.

 

The signal will be highly dynamic. If you want to get it even closer to sounding like a miced amp you must add compression and reverb between the amp and recorder, or simply add those when mixing which is the typical way of doing it. There are many amp emulator plugins you can use within a DAW that will make it sound even closer to an amp, but you're using a stand alone recorder which is highly limited.

 

 

 

 

[mbengs1]

darn, i thought i found the easy way to great recorded tone. but i'll have to go back to my old multi effects.

[1001gear]

Buy a speaker simulator. Oh and some Boogies have taps on the amp that bypass the output transformer. You get a line level signal that includes the output tubes.

[WRGKMC]

It can be easy if you take the time to learn. You cant just slap things together and expect them to work without taking the effort to learn how to do things properly.

[WRGKMC]

My Marshall Valvestate has a Speaker Simulated line output designed for recording. I've recorded the can and the output direct at the same time and the SS Line output sounds excellent compared to the miced cab. You wouldn't know it was recorded without a mic except bleed over and odd resonances from a miced cab are missing.

 

A number of amps have this feature built into them now because manufacturers know people want an easy method of recording and regular line outs fail to capture the power amp saturation and speaker coloration.

 

It only cost a few bucks to build a speaker output DI you can use to record off the power amp. It uses a couple of caps and resistors to drop the voltage and color the tone to emulate a miced amp. back in the day we'd use them all the time for recording bass and guitar direct, or running vintage amps through a PA. I actually built one into my Black faced Bassman just for that purpose because its an older amp with no line outs.

Mounting the components in a metal box with a couple of 1/4" jacks is very simple and you can simply plug it in between the head and speaker cabinet to record the amp.