Effects order for recording EGTR? I suck at this.

[Stonius]

Hi there,

I kinda suck 'tone' at this so apologies up front - hoping you guys can make me less sucky.

I have an Apollo twin and some amp plugins - superlead and fender 55 Tweed - but here's the thing:

I'm aware that most players have a bunch of pedals before the signal even hits the amp, so it doesn't make much sense putting the amp in the input section of the console.

So how do I go about recording Guitar and getting a decent sound out of those amp sims?

Do I record the raw audio onto a track and then build a bunch of inserts to simulate the pedals-amp-mic-desk-rack process that would be going on in the real world? So chuck in pedal fx first, distortion, overdrive, whatever, *then introduce the Amp Sim, then add like a neve preamp plug and compressors, eq, like you're taking the recorded signal through a desk?

And where in all this does the distortion get introduced mostly - the pedals? The Amp? Or the Tube Compressor and tape saturation? Or do you add a little bit at each stage?

I guess I'm asking because the Fender tweed doesn't sound that great on my guitar when I put it in the input section and the videos I watched had a guy with a bunch of pedals before the amp, so I'm like, wait - am I supposed to change the signal *before to make it sound good? (even accounting for my dodgy playing)

Many thanks for any advice

Markus

 

[rodd]

when you say "the input section", I assume you mean into the unison slot in Console. First, I'll say that the Hi-Z input provides the high impedance that a typical amp has, so that the guitar sounds like it is supposed to at that point in the chain (the input of the amp). Apollos also have the ability to adjust the input impedance of the Unison slot depending on the hardware that it is emulating, but it is not as important for hi-z because it will default to 1M ohm. Putting the Tweed in unison may change that, but again it's still going to be high because it has to be, and likely won't make any difference in how the guitar itself sounds. So putting the Tweed further down the chain, after your other effect plugins will give you the same (or very similar) results as using pedals before an amp. You could use real guitar pedals before the Apollo as well, but you may choose to use them into the line input, depending on the pedal (look up the output impedance; if it's higher than 1k ohms, use hi-z). You can also use the TS Overdrive or Raw plugins in the unison slot with the effect turned off, if you are concerned about the impedance. This will set the input impedance to what a typical pedal would be (not sure the exact number), but it doesn't really matter.

 

[klasaine]

I use pedals all the time into my Apollo with one of the UA amp sims in the Unison slot. It works great IMO.

 

[BeingHumans]

I use pedals all the time into my Apollo with one of the UA amp sims in the Unison slot. It works great IMO.

Very much that!

To the OP, just plug into your pedals or whatever you have that you’d normally plug into your amp. The UAD amp sims are pretty thorough in their execution and response.

Cheers!