Electric Guitar Effects Software

[Mariu Carlton]

Triedall fixes I can find online and cubase user manual but simply cannot get this to work, only get dry guitar no matter what I try. I am a newby so easy instructions appreciated! I am on Windows 11 with M-TRack Duo interface. Electric guitar plugged in set to mono in, stereo out. Chose audio track and insterted vst amprack, picked distortion, activated effect. Monitor and record enable buttons make no difference. If i run guitar through same physical set up on Bias FX its woks but this is outside of cubase - just proving I have everything connected correctly. Hopeing there is a magic setting somewhere hidden away, any help gratefully received!

Thanks for you help. The M-Track duo has Direct mono/Direct Stereo and USB output options. I think I need USB but switching to this still changes nothing. I dont see any input signal in cubase from my guitar either which seems wrong. If you have any other ideas I would be grateful.

Hi Knopf, many thanks, I have changed my inputs and now I see signal in and out so some progress. However the guitar soud is still dry even though I have done all I can to have the amp and effects turned on. I will try to load a screen shot.

Is it intentional that you have the amp in an own FX track? Normally these kind of plugins are inserted in the audio track. The way you set it up you are applying the amp fx in parallel. That is, you will hear direct guitar sound and processed sound in parallel and you will need to find a good blend between both.

I am pretty new to gigging using an electric guitar, and wanted to know if its possible to get a live sound without using an amp (I simply don't want to lug around my amp while going for open mics/small solo gigs).

Will using an amp simulator pedal directly into the PA system work? The only effects I would need is some reverb and distortion, and want to know what's the minimum equipment requirement to achieve this?

'connect my guitar to the PA system'. We don't know what type of PA system it is. It might be a real PA, or it could be a glorified home stereo. So we're going to have to make an assumption that it's a real (or at least semi-pro) PA, with XLR inputs for each channel.

The problem with multi-effect pedals is that "Cheap" might not be cost-effective, if the only sound you can get out of it sounds like a tin box full of angry bees. You'll need to go to a guitar store and try some out.

At the lower end of multi-effect pedals, you generally don't find XLR output. So you'll also need a DI box to convert the multi-effect 1/4" output to XLR. And yes - you need to provide a balanced signal to the PA, which is why you need the XLR connection.

One year when we played a lot of small gigs and festivals in a row, my ideal setup was my Line6 multieffects board. I had my amp sim in it, I'd hook in to the house PA, and they'd give me a feed back to my monitor. No big amp/cab required. It meant we could keep the volume on stage pretty low (which was nice) and the only thing that was a bit trickier was tweaking the gain so I could induce feedback as needed using the monitor as my source.

But you have to bear in mind that live gig is all about reliability and cheap almost always means unreliable. You'll end up with flimsy connectors, consumer type cables ect. so it might be worth looking at more advanced versions of these products (integrated rack version, pedal versions ect.) so that everything is more gig ready

So this started off as an addendum to my piece on Guitar Pedal Tone Control Alternatives, but then very much became an article in its own right, and now precedes the article it was supposed to be a part of. The majority of guitar pedals usually have one or more tone control dials or switches to amend / tune the tone of said pedal. I started looking at different forms of tone control, before investigating what in fact were the key frequencies for electric guitar, and how was it best to control those.

Note also that within a band context this gets ever more complicated as each musician and vocalist operates within set ranges within compositional context many parts of which overlap - so that for ultimate clarity and fidelity to be maintained at all times, significant coordination is necessary.

Note that the below values are approximate, and depend to a degree on what equipment you are playing through, as certain pedals and effects / circuits will by default accentuate certain frequencies and boost the frequency range enormously from the clean electric guitar signal / pallet.

The most basic EQ you will find on a pedal is a single Tone control, which is usually a sort of High Pass Filter which cuts frequencies above a certain range, by use of electronic limiters such as resistors. These singular tone controls are classic shelf type EQs where their maximum values are achieved when filter is not applied / off. This means that a single tone dial of this nature will typically be set at circa 50% in the middle / centre position - fully off when fully clockwise, and fully on (max limiting) when fully counter-clockwise.

The Mesa 5-Band EQ you see on many of its amps and pedals has the great benefit of being square on the 2,200 Hz value for one of its mid centre frequencies. The frequency clusters here have been very carefully chosen.

This is my current EQ pedal of choice - in its Alchemy Audio version - and 7 Bands is about right for me, whereby overall I am really happy with how this pedal works. Its key downside as such is that it does not have a frequency band exactly within the key 2,000 to 2,500 Hz register which is deemed optimal for mid-hump and scooped tones!

So I am broadly satisfied with my Boss GE-7 - it is visually very clear, and ever so quick and easy to apply / deploy. Its key issue would seem to be in its choice of frequency bands to a degree, and its inability to store presets. Which is how I came about doing the above visual - where I was kind of looking for a better way for Parametric EQs to be displayed - as a series of concentric dials does not immediately visually communicate what the settings are.

The above prototype visualisation looks to tackle the key challenges and give you the best of all worlds - a highly visual graphic EQ / Spectrum Analyzer that is programmable and has presets, as well as the most powerful degree of parametric control!

In my visual I have laid out the default values as being the same as the Boss GE-7, but have then shifted the Centre Frequency values closer to those that appeal to me - i.e. 100 250 500 1000 2250 3200 6400. With Parametric control and presets - the idea here is that you have 100 presets to play with from 00 to 99 - with all manner of defaults pre-loaded with different Centre-Frequencies and Tone-Curves.

I wouldn't record using FX unless I was very sure about the end result I wanted and how it would sit in the mix, just to leave my options open since you can't go back and remove the FX. On the other hand, if the FX are an integral part of the performance then it might be a good idea to record after the FX. Sometimes the performer might hit a 'sweet spot'that's hard to recreate later or simply change the controls as part of his performance.

If you have a spare channel (if it's a mono source like a guitar) you could use one channel for dry and the other for wet recording - even just to 'keep a note' of the sound you're after when you add the FX later.

The sound quality difference itself is quite hard to make a guess on, but my best guess would be to run the lowest impedance source through the FX. That should be the Scarlet. I think mics and instruments almost always have higher impedances. This is if you run the dry instrument/mic through the outboard FX. If you're planning to use software effects, then it's too broad a comparison to make. The quality will depend on the quality of the effects used, both outboard and within the DAW.

Attitudes on this topic are going to be mostly religious, punctuated by a few facts. Some of these facts have already dribbled in...as Simon mentioned, some pedals may introduce unwanted noise. And as Schizo posted, you can opt to keep a clean copy of the track.

Another fact I'll throw in is that not all effects are created equal. For example time-based effects like delay, reverb, chorus, phase, flange, etc can be locked to the tempo track, so in some circumstances, it may be better to introduce them at the board/in the software, rather than have the guitarist bothering with their own effects. Meanwhile, effects a guitarist identifies with as being part of their "sound" are reasonable to keep in place as pedals, such as distortions, compressor/sustainers, EQs (some are groaning I'm sure), etc. Moreover, as a guitarist myself, I want my whole damn rig in the capture chain...my amp, my cab and its speaker response, my pedals. And I'd be shocked if this wasn't common.

You get interesting collisions within this philosophy when a guitarist uses a time-based effect as part of their signature...I'm thinking of U2's the Edge, who makes considerable use of delay. Or Van Halen, who at least early on applied alot of flange.

On the final analysis, we can debate this all we want, but a recording is a creative product that happens when you mesh musicians, tech/engineers, and/or a producer together, and there's no rule that says you have to stick to one recipe. Consider that Mutt Lange produced both AC/DC and Def Leppard. And he used very different approaches with those two bands. AC/DC was all about the sound and natural energy of the room, whereas Def Leppard was layers and layers and layers of production right at the board.

In terms of the sound quality of a particular effect, I would opt to use pedals instead of your DAW's digital effects. For me, I've noticed analog effects to be much more pronounced and soothing to listen to - it's hard to say precisely why this is.

Also, while it's true that your pedals' effects will be permanently imprinted, is this really a bad thing? I would rather be able to move on from a great sounding effect than constantly twiddle with my DAW's digital effects until the end of time.

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