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I'm totally new to all of this. I have 2 Sennhauser E609 mics on my Marshall cabinet and they are running through a Lexicon Lambda into a USB input on my computer. I am using Cakewalk Sonar 7 for my recordings. I have a nice tube amp that I use and high end guitars but my recordings sound very digital compared to what is actually coming aout of my cabinet. What is the problem? Is it the Lambda interface that is the weak link? Do I need to spend $600 on an interface that does a better job converting my sound? Which one would be worth the money? Everybody seems to like the MOTU Ultralite MK3. Would this just be a waiste of money? I hate dropping a lot of cash just to try something. I also have regular onboard sound. Do I need a great sound card too, or does that have anything to do with the digital sound? Please help! Thanks. :x

Comments

anonymous Mon, 12/15/2008 - 04:25

I've moved the mic around.

Before I mic'ed the cab, I moved it around to find the best place to record. I ended up putting the center of the mic right on the edge of the inner cone. Everywhere else sounded really thin. When I say digital I mean it doesn't sound like it is coming out of a $1600 tube amp. It sounds as though I am playing through a $250 effects processor with headphones on. It's not to that extent, but you get the idea. I'm hearing everyone is spending a lot of their money on an interface with a good A/D converter in it and was wondering if this would be a cure for my problem. does the cheap Lexicon Lambda do a crappy job of converting your analog signal and thus give you a digital sound instead of an acurate representation of what you are hearing coming out of the cabinet? Thanks for the replies.

anonymous Tue, 12/16/2008 - 12:15

Re: I've moved the mic around.

Ratt617 wrote: ... a digital sound instead of an accurate representation of what you are hearing ...

Actually it's the other way around. Digital is closer to a true representation, and analog has a colored sound. The thing is that the color that expensive pre amps add sound good!

bobbo Wed, 12/24/2008 - 10:50

the price of your amp doesn't mean anything. your a/d really doesn't matter that much for what you're trying to do. i think you need to look at the settings of your amp, which are probably the culprit, settings for recording are different when you are close micing, you can disagree all you want. but you're asking the question here, and i'm telling you my experience.

make sure you check your tone with the music playing, its got to sound good with other instruments, unless you're playing by yourself.

if you want the sound you hear in the room, then put up a condenser mic in the room. putting a mic in the speaker isn't going to give you the sound you "hear in the room", its going to give you the sound of what you hear when your ear is right up against the speaker.

i've owned a few amps bought just for recording, orange rocker 30, 6505, mesa stelleto, mesa solo rec, randall mts. (the randall the best option for recording due to its amazing tone options, and how well it cut through all genres, i still own it and won't sell it, even though i don't record with real amps anymore)

which brings me to the next thing. i don't record with amps anymore, everything is ran through my pod x3, why? because i have 78 amps to choose from, 24 cabs, 4 mics per amp to choose from. and you know what, they don't sound digital to me, i never wanted to stop recording real amps, but i can't own 78 amps, and 24 cabs, and have multiple mics that i can just swap with each other, to find the best match for the song or band.

imo i think your "digitalness problem" is just that you're not used to hearing the amp that way, and are not thinking of the big picture of the whole band.

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