Split or Direct box for recording guitar?

[goobaba]

Currently I am recording guitar direct into my interface and then adding amp/cab plugins. This sounds great but I turn off monitoring in my DAW because the latency is just way too high.

I would like to be able to simultaneously record my DI guitar track and send the signal to an amp, for either recording the amp or just for latency free monitoring.

What am I looking for? What can help me achieve the result of zero latency monitoring and recording the DI track as well?

 

[schwiz]

Hardware will give you zero latency, you mention an amp - not sure if you have a physical amp or if you were talking about plugins. Monitoring your plugins will never give you 0 latency. If you upgrade to something like Thunderbolt, youll get less latency than USB, but it will still be there.

I'd recommend a DI box as opposed to plugging right into your interface. Most DI boxes will have multiple outputs like a parallel out and/or an unbalanced out. You can split the signal and go into the interface, then into an amp and into the interface, therefore recording both your DI and amp signal, allowing you to monitor both with 0 latency.

I have a BOSS DI-1 and I really like it. I send the DI to my interface preamp, then send my parallel out to my Axe FX, then use SPDIF into my interface which allows me to monitor the digital signal without latency.

 

[axxessdenied]

http://www.radialeng.com/jdi.php
http://www.radialeng.com/j48.php
http://www.countryman.com/type-85-direct-box/
http://www.littlelabs.com/redeye.html

These are all great options. The last one doubles as a reamp box.

 

[bostjan]

I use a presonus Audiobox 1818VSL, and there is very small latency, even over USB.

And yeah, everything adds at least a little latency, it's just a matter of what you can and cannot accept. For me, it's more a hard wall than a gradual slope of annoyance.

If you look into any decent DI box manufacturer, there should be an option to get one with an output for monitoring, that you can run to a live amp.

 

[op1e]

I was gonna post a thread for this, but OP is on the same page kinda. If I wanted to to reamp something later for recording thru a different amp... Couldn't I just track with a vst amp sim, then turn it off and play it back and run the raw track thru the front end of my real rig afterwards?

 

[Descent]

Why get an amp when you can just get a box?

I've been recording all the way to the dawn of digital so back then we fed the returns from DAW into a mixer.
What we did with guitar was to take a DI and feed the XLR side into the DAW/PC interface while the other side (pass thru) into a Sansamp GT-2 or a processor of some kind, then the output of that went on another channel on the mixer. That was strictly our guitar "monitor mix".

Right now you can do it with a $50-60 mixer small mixer and a used direct recording box (Sansamp original, GT-2, TRI-AC, H&K Tubeman, Blackstar HT-2, Laney IRT-Pulse, Mesa V-Twin, POD bean, Behringer V-Amp, Boss GT series, etc...).

 

[goobaba]

So from what I understand, I would need a DI box with a pass through. That way I can have the guitar DI track recorded, either for plugins or re-amping, and have the pass through go to something else like my Mesa Boogie for zero latency monitoring.

Now to decide which one...

 

[goobaba]

Why get an amp when you can just get a box?

I'm not sure I'm fully understanding what you're saying. My goal is to basically get a zero latency dirty tone while recording a DI track.

I can already get a zero latency DI tone played back from my Scarlett 2i4 interface.

 

[goobaba]

Monitoring your plugins will never give you 0 latency.

And yeah, everything adds at least a little latency, it's just a matter of what you can and cannot accept

Yeah, with my current set up the latency is too high. I record mostly fast metal riffs and every time I monitor the plug in sound it throws my timing way off. I always monitor the DI sound or just don't monitor the guitar at all besides the acoustic sound it gives off.

I recently recorded in a professional studio. They had a 5150 mic'd up in an isolation room and we recorded guitar in the mixing room, only getting the live amp sound through the room monitors. I would say there was a very slight delay compared to standing right next to the amp, but nothing major, very acceptable. If I could achieve that amount of latency reduction I would be happy.

 

[goobaba]

I was gonna post a thread for this, but OP is on the same page kinda. If I wanted to to reamp something later for recording thru a different amp... Couldn't I just track with a vst amp sim, then turn it off and play it back and run the raw track thru the front end of my real rig afterwards?

I think the issue here is that the signal coming from your DAW/interface would be line level rather than hi-z/instrument level. That is where a re-amping box comes in, and puts the signal at the correct level.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but that is my understanding.

 

[axxessdenied]

Studio One has a low latency mode that lets you monitor with plugins with extremely low latency. makes a huge difference.

 

[Descent]

I'm not sure I'm fully understanding what you're saying. My goal is to basically get a zero latency dirty tone while recording a DI track.

I can already get a zero latency DI tone played back from my Scarlett 2i4 interface.

Basically split off your input signal into 2 - record the DI track and monitor the dirty track.
We did that before low latency interfaces became common and still do that today if the latency is too high.

Don't record the DIRT part, unless you want to. Apply modeling to the DRY part, keep the DRY on mute while playing. I use Sansamp GT-2 and PSA-1 for this or any dirt box with speaker emulation will do, cheap old processors or anything. It allows you to cut your part, don't have to keep the dirt sounds. When you monitor from the mixer you mute the DRY signal so it doesn't loop back in your monitoring chain.