right angle Posted December 2, 2011 Share Posted December 2, 2011 Hi, all—I was hoping someone could help me out with an issue I'm having. For various reasons, I am having to do most of my electric guitar recording direct, and I've been doing this so far by plugging in through the hi-z inputs of my Apogee Ensemble. The sound quality is very good, but I am still feeling a bit of that typical direct guitar deadness or "sponginess" while playing (and I can't really play through Logic's amp sims in real time with my current computer, due to latency). I am wondering if using a decent-quality direct box, like a phantom-powered Radial, would help alleviate this problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
born_hard Posted December 8, 2011 Share Posted December 8, 2011 tell us first the recording chain of the guitar signal. Which Plugins do you use? And which are the settings in Logic Preferences / how much is latency in ms? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
right angle Posted December 8, 2011 Author Share Posted December 8, 2011 born_hard, thanks for responding. I'm plugging my guitar directly into the hi-z input of my Ensemble. I have an original Intel iMac (2 ghz core duo) w/2 gigs of RAM, and am using Logic Pro 8. My buffer is set to 1024, with I/O Safety Buffer and Universal Track Mode checked. I have the Process Buffer set to "large" and Software Monitoring is off (as I am generally not trying to play through plugins). I can't figure out how to check the actual latency of my system at the moment, but I'm sure it's obvious . The only way I have been able to get an acceptable latency playing through an amp sim (I'm using Logic 8's standard "Guitar Amp Pro") is to reduce the I/O buffer to 128 or so, which makes my system choke pretty quickly. My goal for now is just to get as clean a guitar signal as possible into my computer without using any plugins, and I would like to be able to both practice & play along with multiple tracks in my projects. I'm not so concerned about having a Marshall stack sound while I'm recording as much as having the best raw guitar sound I can. I imagine that once I can afford to upgrade my computer, latency won't be an issue, but I would like to know if a $200 (or so) DI will improve my guitar signal/feel over the stock hi-z Apogee inputs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shivermetimbers Posted December 8, 2011 Share Posted December 8, 2011 Check into upgrading your memory from a third party source. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
right angle Posted December 9, 2011 Author Share Posted December 9, 2011 Check into upgrading your memory from a third party source. On my old iMac, I have maxed out the memory at 2 gigs (believe it or not). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shivermetimbers Posted December 9, 2011 Share Posted December 9, 2011 I had that problem on my old iMac (that half dome shaped thing) and I think it had less than 1 gig o Ram. I think I was lucky to max out at twelve audio tracks and freezing things. That was Logic 8. When Logic 9 came out, I was forced to get a new comp in order to use LP9. I am pretty sure the next version of Logic will require another new computer with Thunderbolt and all that. So ... we both better start saving up. In the mean time, you may want to freeze your tracks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
right angle Posted December 9, 2011 Author Share Posted December 9, 2011 Freezing tracks is a good suggestion. It's likely gonna be a while before I'm a able to swing a new computer. However, I'm still interested in picking up a good DI in the meantime if it will noticeably improve my guitar sound/feel over using the built-in inputs on my interface (I've read a few reviews that imply that it will). I'm assuming that it should last a lifetime in my home studio, so I figure it could be a worthwhile investment. Anyone with opinions about guitar DIs, good or bad? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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