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Old 09-10-2021, 01:27 AM   #1
XoechZ
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Join Date: Oct 2008
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Default Setting recording levels with hardware preamp and audio interface

Hello!

As the title says, I use a hardware preamp, a hardware cabsim, and an audio interface to record guitar in Reaper. My problem is that every device has volume controls and I am not sure how to set them properly to get a good and strong, but also noisless signal to record.

Here is my basic signal chain:

Guitar > Engl E530 preamp > Engl cabloader (poweramp/cab/mic sim) > Focusrite Scarlett Solo 3rd Gen > Reaper

As said before, every device has volume controls....

Can anyone give me some hints how and where to start setting the levels (gain) to get a good and noiseless signal in Reaper?
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Old 09-10-2021, 02:13 PM   #2
ashcat_lt
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In general, you'd like to get as much gain as you need as early as possible in the chain and then avoid turning things down just to turn them back up again. Start with your interface gain all the way down. Try to set the cab sim to unity if you can find where that is. Use the preamp output to set your input levels to Reaper. If that ends up causing unwanted distortion at the cab sim before it gets reasonable in Reaper, turn the cab sim's output up if you can and turn the preamp down just until it stops the yuck. If that still doesn't get "loud enough", there's probably something wrong, but I guess that's when you'd start turning up the interface gain.

Edit - Though if you get wanted distortion from the power amp/cab sim, you use the output from the preamp to dial that in, and then set the level to the interface at the cab sim's output.
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