yet another recording question

[skpr41]

i was thinking of getting a pick-up for my guitar and an ultrasound pdi, since it seems like the most ecomonic way to upgrade from simply using a built-in computer mic.

can i just plug in the pdi directly to the line in of my computer and sound good?

or should i invest in a good acoustic amp? a good mic?

i guess what i'm asking is how do you guys do recordings?

thanks for your help!

[geekmug]

a pickup plugged-in directly is a large improvement over a cheapo mic, but saying "good" is subjective.. to me, it will sound "acceptable" .. in that I wouldn't expect better quality than that from a struggling artist putting out their homemade albums..

A modestly priced mic is possibly an improvement, but there are a lot of factors into how good a mic will perform, far more than a plugged-in setup. Unless you are sure you want to invest in equipment, a pickup is a good plan.

[DT]

i bought a cheap pickup, just a soundhole dean markelely for like 60 dollars.... it is a huge improvement over the computer mic for recording but to be honest you lose all acoustic quality when plugging in to a PA live.... today i played someone elses guitar at open mic night and it had an under saddle with a martin preamp and everything- sounded a million times better than my under-saddle. I would reccommend getting one of the lower-priced under-saddle pickups with some kind of preamp, unless youre on a tight budget. The soundhole is good for practice on an amp or for recording straight to computer when all youre worried about is capturing what you can do- but for actual performace uses it falls well short of recreating the sound your guitar actually produces

[skpr41]

i don't mind getting a good pickup.

i guess my real question is, can i get by without getting an expensive acoustic amp?

i already have an electric guitar amp, but i know when you connect an acoustic guitar there's too much feedback.

if i put a direct box in between would it fix this problem? (that is, connect the di to the aux-in of my amp)

thanks for the help guys!!!

[geekmug]

depends on the amp, how "clean" the "clean" channel's reproduction is.. and the speaker will have a play in that as well.. if you have other equipment you can hook it, you can just try it, if you don't know what to listen for with an electric guitar being "clean". Most electric guitar amps that are popular with electric guitar players (and thus more likely to be a sound people seek to imitate) will not be clean enough to use as a PA-esque speaker.

it is usually easy to "dirty" the electric guitar sound (with some sort of an amp modeler fx processor or stomp) and have a clean PA amp/speaker.. 'cause you can use that same speaker for an acoustic guitar or a vocal mic or whatever and get good results.

[skpr41]

depends on the amp, how "clean" the "clean" channel's reproduction is.. and the speaker will have a play in that as well.. if you have other equipment you can hook it, you can just try it, if you don't know what to listen for with an electric guitar being "clean". Most electric guitar amps that are popular with electric guitar players (and thus more likely to be a sound people seek to imitate) will not be clean enough to use as a PA-esque speaker.

it is usually easy to "dirty" the electric guitar sound (with some sort of an amp modeler fx processor or stomp) and have a clean PA amp/speaker.. 'cause you can use that same speaker for an acoustic guitar or a vocal mic or whatever and get good results.

seems like my electric guitar amp is pretty clean, but i get what you mean by using it as a PA-esque speaker. it's never going to be near as clean, hence the need for PA's.

thanks!

[Devils08]

for recording a completely clean acoustic sound, you can bypass the amp and get a mixer for like 50 bucks and plug that into your line-in port on your soundcard. And if you want an even better sound, you can get a preamp (Tech21 SansAmp ACoustic DI is what I use...as well as Tim Reynolds ) to make it sound more miced too. In addition to the direct-to-board feed I also mic my acoustic and blend the 2 together. If you want, IM me at Devils08 if you wanna chat...