Guitar tone via UAD arrow

danishbacon

I’m struggling to get a tone that I am happy with using my UAD arrow. That being said, I think I could also benefit from a crash course on monitoring/setting up levels, basic stuff. 

Could anyone point me in the direction of a useful resource on this subject?

thanks

octatonic

I have an Arrow as my mobile interface.
What plugins are you using for the guitar tone?

What monitors/acoustic treatment are you using?

This article on gain staging might be useful:

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/gain-staging-your-daw-software

danishbacon

Cheers @octatonic

Have got a pair of Genelec 8020d, no acoustic treatement - probably still need to calibrate them for the room using my 535 in ears as reference.

So far my most sucessful attempt has been using the 610-B in the Unison slot with RealVerb pro after it, but I get that into desk overdriven sound when I dig in, which I don't mind.

I'm trying to get something closer to my Princeton Reverb II cleans with the volume dialed to 8 and master at room volume.  Just breaks up with full volume on humbuckers.

I've got Friedman BE10,  Buxom Betty, DS40 and Raw in addition to the stock plugins.

octatonic

danishbacon said:

Cheers @octatonic

Have got a pair of Genelec 8020d, no acoustic treatement - probably still need to calibrate them for the room using my 535 in ears as reference.

So far my most sucessful attempt has been using the 610-B in the Unison slot with RealVerb pro after it, but I get that into desk overdriven sound when I dig in, which I don't mind.

I'm trying to get something closer to my Princeton Reverb II cleans with the volume dialed to 8 and master at room volume.  Just breaks up with full volume on humbuckers.

I've got Friedman BE10,  Buxom Betty, DS40 and Raw in addition to the stock plugins.

Yes Princetons are a tricky sound to cop digitally.
Why not stick a mic in front of the Princeton and feed it thought an API or Neve unison preamp?

Otherwise this is how I start my guitar EQing process.

Cut everything below 80hz.
3db boost at around 200hz.
Cut between 300-500hz (mud).
Cut 3-4k to let vocals in.
I push some of the electric guitar tracks back in the soundstage by cutting above 5k, perhaps even low pass at 5k.

If recording stereo guitars I'll often boost one side by the same amount that I cut on the other side to give them some variation.

danishbacon

Thanks for the advice @octatonic, very straight to the point and helped me get started.

I ended up hooking up the rec out of my amp into the back of the Arrow and was very pleased with the tone that I got. I lowered the volume on amp and upped the master a bit to avoid what sounded like some sort of scintillating clipping.

The guitar tracks are straight from the amp, no fx, just eqs.

Very rough, but just an idea.

octatonic

That sounds very good indeed.

Bron_Yr_Aur

danishbacon said:

Thanks for the advice @octatonic, very straight to the point and helped me get started.

I ended up hooking up the rec out of my amp into the back of the Arrow and was very pleased with the tone that I got. I lowered the volume on amp and upped the master a bit to avoid what sounded like some sort of scintillating clipping.

The guitar tracks are straight from the amp, no fx, just eqs.

Very rough, but just an idea.

Sounds good! It's got a nice 'Khruangbin' vibe.

Branshen

That's the rec out of a princeton rev 2 + EQ? really impressed if so. Nice clean tone!

danishbacon

Thanks @Bron_Yr_Aur. ;@branshen, yes it is, surprised me too, I wasn't expecting it to come out so close to what the amp actually sounds like.

Here's the clean track, no eq



The UAD Line in was set to 29dB. @octatonic, is there any difference or reason to plug the rec out of the amp into the HiZ (guitar) input in the front vs the rear inputs of the Arrow? I presume that the rec out of the amp is probably only sending the pre-amp and not power stage or is it the whole signal (forgive me if this is a dumb question)?

How the amp was set:

octatonic

danishbacon said:

Thanks @Bron_Yr_Aur. ;@branshen, yes it is, surprised me too, I wasn't expecting it to come out so close to what the amp actually sounds like.

Here's the clean track, no eq



The UAD Line in was set to 29dB. @octatonic, is there any difference or reason to plug the rec out of the amp into the HiZ (guitar) input in the front vs the rear inputs of the Arrow? I presume that the rec out of the amp is probably only sending the pre-amp and not power stage or is it the whole signal (forgive me if this is a dumb question)?

How the amp was set:

I'm not sure if the line out is at the preamp or rather at some sort of speaker output emulation stage.
Maybe @ICBM knows?

Anyway, assuming it is a line level signal it is sub optimal to connect it to the Arrow's Hi Z input.
Definitely connect it to the rear line level (1/4") input.

Branshen

I'd bet money on there being a speaker emulation of some sort on that output. Even the clean track without EQ sounds awesome! You may have stumbled on a well-kept secret..

danishbacon

Branshen said:

I'd bet money on there being a speaker emulation of some sort on that output. Even the clean track without EQ sounds awesome! You may have stumbled on a well-kept secret..

Agreeed, apparently Jeff Beck used one:

Jeff Beck used one in conjunction with a Twin to record his acclaimed "Guitar Shop" album in 1989.
"Beck chose not to go with his usual Marshalls when recording Guitar Shop, opting instead for a pair of eighties Fender combos - a Princeton Reverb II and a Twin. "The Princeton took care of tonal qualities that the other amp didn't have. It has an overload channel, so you can get midrange distortion. I tried recording using just the Twin, but without the Princeton the sound just vanished. (The engineer) noticed it right away and said "The sound isn't as good. You've got to put the Princeton back on". "
(ed. Jeff Kitts, Guitar World Presents the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time, page 178)

I've no idea about what actually comes out of the Rec output - here's a schematic

http://www.stratopastor.org.uk/strato/amps/prii/schematic/schematic.html

octatonic

That looks like a line out with no speaker emulation.
I've got PRRI style amps which don't have that feature so never tried it.

danishbacon

I got in touch with the founder of stratopastor regarding the Princeton Reverb II REC out:

PRII users hardly ever comment about the line-out feature, either good or bad. All I ever used mine for was to spread my guitar sound around the stage in the monitors because my old soul band took a lot of cues from me (the amp itself did the heavy lifting to reach the customers... We weren't exactly playing stadiums..)

To answer your question, all Fender did to create the output was to use two resistors to pad down the speaker output voltage to 10 percent and give an impedance of about 200 ohms. They didn't even add a capacitor to mimic the way a 12" speaker rolls off the highs, which is what others, e.g. Peavey did to be able to market it as speaker-emulation . 

So you are hearing the entire amp, from pre to power amp and power transformer, minus the speaker.

Again, nice work. It shouldn't sound that good.