Direct-in Recording

I started building amps to have a low volume alternative for home recording. However, sometimes even any audible sound at all is too much.

I added a bare-bones line out to the dummy load I use with my Moonlight. This is nothing but a 100K pot tapped off the signal, while the output power is soaked up by a purely resistive dummy load. It can naturally be improved quite a lot – I only spent as long as it took to solder a prototype together on it.

Recording Setup

The samples presented below were recorded using a 2000 Fender American Series Fat Telecaster plugged directly into the Moonlight, with no effects. The speaker output of the Moonlight was plugged into the dummy load + line out shown above. The line out jack from that was plugged into a low-Z input on my Tascam PortaStudio 424. The 424 is just acting as a preamp-front end for the line-in jack on my PC. The actual recording was done on the PC, with the Crystal Audio sound card built-in to it.

The recording was done in n-track Studio, which I highly recommend. Each sample is presented dry (with no processing whatsoever, just the raw direct-in sound), as well as processed with 2 different settings of the MDA Combo speaker-simulation VST plugin, and reverb. I used 2 different reverbs. One was n-Track Reverb, included with n-Track studio. The other was RoomverbVST, an excellent room simulator from Spin Audio.

For the MDA Combo plugin, I’ve included samples processed with 3 different settings – Small combo (close mic), Small combo (far mic), and Large stack (mic in front). So far my overall favorite is Small combo (close mic) – it’s got a nice fat, midrange-y tone that’s fun for soloing.

Plugins

Screenshots coming soon.

Samples

Coming soon!

Conclusion

I love free software :-). The direct-out plus digital speaker simulation combination is not perfect, but it makes a very satisfactory silent-recording setup. It maintains the responsive feel of the amp quite well. An attenuator is still a necessary tool for quiet practicing through a speaker, as VST plugins can’t be run in real-time (yet, anyway).

Links

• Software
  • Recording Apps
    • n-Track Studio
    • Tracktion
    • FL Studio
    • Sonic Foundry ACID
    • Ableton