Sample recording & demos

[selfdestroyer]

I love seeing builds.. I can sit for hours and look at pictures of pedals and especially ones from the DIY community. Not only for ideas and inspiration but also for the sheer fact that its art. I have been building a lot more but not boxing them due to the fact that I'm not 100% happy with the sound or combination of my gear the the pedal. A lot of times I look through the forums and Youtube hoping to find a demo of a pedal to see how it sounds after someone else built it and compare. I do know that not all videos are 100% exactly how the pedal will sound since there are so many variables, but it is fun to hear them. There is a good handful of people on here that will post sound clips of their pedals and especially the pedals that are submitted for the month build competition. Not only so I love to hear the members pedals but I also use it as a comparison tool.

Let me start off by saying I do not do demos because I have a hard time figuring out the best way to do it. I have many options and I think I am just overwhelmed and then laziness kicks in. It more fun to play with you pedal than it is to record a demo of "look what my pedal sounds like", or at least in my eyes. Here is a few things I have tried. I have plugged my guitar - effects - interface - mac book - Logic Pro  and used a cabinet simulator and had mixed results. I found that my ear is used to Fender Twin and the open air of my home office. So I then tried my guitar - effects - twin - sm57 (pointed to speaker) - interface - mac book - Logic Pro and got mixed results. Still did not sound like my room setup to me. Last night I tried guitar - effects - twin - sm57 (pointed to speaker) a condenser mic (cant remember which one I used off the top of my head) in the room - Mackie mixer - Interface - Mac book - Logic Pro and I got some decent samples. With the room mic hooked up I was picking up a lot of string noise since my home office is not that large of a space.

I am sure I am over thinking this since I have seen some great demos with just the iPhone 4/5 camera.

All of this to ask, what is your setup for doing demos? How would/do you do it? Do you work directly in to a PC or do you mic an amp? My goal this month is to get a place/procedure in place to do quick demos of pedals I have made to share with the community, family and friends.

[jkokura]

Something you can maybe consider is that Zoom and some other companies make combo mic and video units, precisely aimed at doing what you describe. They're gaining a lot of popularity, and my small town local store can't keep them in stock.

As for me... I'm boring. I've been doing iPhone videos largely. I would rather be doing it with a good condenser close to the amp, but I can't leave that up all the time, and the setup and teardown isn't worth the effort.

Jacob

[micromegas]

A friend of mine uses this: http://www.thomann.de/es/koch_amps_dummybox_home.htm for home recording direct from the amp and gets pretty good results.
It is not very expensive and can be used as an attenuator for the amp (there's a model with more features but it costs twice).

Then we "capture" the response of the power section + speaker of an amp with Matlab (as Telecommunication Engineers we don't need excuses to use Matlab,it is part of our nature ) and then run the recorded signal through it instead of a cabinet simulator.

We're playing now with this unit: http://ralaudio.com/sony-mue041-parametric-equalizer-used-pi-4343.html that our university was going to discard.
The actual setup is: Sony eq -> Carvin V3 micro w/ Celestion V30  -> koch loadbox -> M-AUDIO fast track pro -> macbook -> logic

I plan to record something with this setup as soon as I finish all the builds I have on my desk.

[junkemail86]

Obviously many options for this, but I have had excellent results using a Studio Projects B1 condenser, even draped on the grill, with multiple different amps. They are reasonably priced new and can be quite cheap used

[Bret608]

This is timely--recording some clips is my next big laziness to overcome (decal art on some pedals was the last one). Thanks for posting the question! I'm curious about the Zoom device Jacob mentioned.

[jimilee]

Here is the one that I use for demos and to record at rehearsal ( http://www.amazon.com/Zoom-Handy-Portable-Digital-Recorder/dp/B003QKBVYK/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1385067920&sr=8-4&keywords=zoom+h2+digital+recorder )so we can remember what we did. Also I use my iphone, seems to do the job.  Also I have been known to use logic pro through a firewire interface, but rarely.

[selfdestroyer]

Some great information here. Thanks everyone. I will also look into a portable recorder to give a try. I might have access to one from a friend before I commit to one.

[pryde]

I just use the SM57 with X2u (Shure sells as a bundle) direct to my computer and then use Audacity (free software) to record demos.

I think it does a decent job and captures the pedal tones pretty well.

[croquet hoop]

Here is a few things I have tried. I have plugged my guitar - effects - interface - mac book - Logic Pro  and used a cabinet simulator and had mixed results. I found that my ear is used to Fender Twin and the open air of my home office.

Maybe you just forgot to add it to the chain, but just in case: you need a cab sim, but you also need an amp sim in front of it.

My go-to computer setup (from which I'm trying to transition to a full hardware setup, coz turning pots in funnier than clicking them) uses Lepou's Lextac (yellow/clean channel) for the amp sim, and Redwirez impulses (4x12" with Greenbacks, which they offer for free if you want to try them).

Using more than one impulse for the cab is tremendously helpful to get your sound to "breathe" (especially when you listen with headphones), but you need an impulse loader that allows you to loead several at once and mix them (I use mixIR2, but Lepou's LeCab 2 is free and works fine). For solo playing, I generally use four impulses, two close to the speaker panned 35% apart, two ambient/room impulses panned 100% apart and mixed lower. That's not bi-amping, but it gives a much fuller sound than a single amp+cab sim.

It's not hard to setup, and all the stuff I mentioned is free, so I thought you may find it interesting.