Good guitar tone degraded after recording - Reaper DAW [SOLVED]

[Marwan Antonios]

Hello all,

I have been encountering an inexplainable problem lately, after crafting my guitar tone (With plugins) and being really satisfied with how it sounds (tight low end, no muddiness etc.) I record it and boom! the audio is degraded. Mainly, uneven low end & and weird resonant frequencies.

I have troubleshooted every possible step & scoured every forum but only to find answers directed more to the beginner producers such as ( check if you have your direct monitoring switched on at the same time etc...)

So in a nutshell when monitoring through my Daw the sound is tight & clean, after recording muddy & resonant.

Anyways here are all the details:

.Daw being used: Reaper 6
.Interface: Scarlet solo 1st gen
.Sample rate: 48000
.Buffer size:192
.Guitars with active pickups / single coils.

Honestly there is no logical reason for this to happen except some weird routing issue in Reaper on playback but if someone has any idea about this your help will be much appreciated.

Thanks alot guys! & have a good one!

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[MartinH.]

Honestly there is no logical reason for this to happen except some weird routing issue in Reaper on playback but if someone has any idea about this your help will be much appreciated.

It could be a routing issue where your record monitoring also feeds you the clean DI signal. Double check that both in reaper and on your audio interface. I think the interface has a direct monitoring switch above the headphone jack. Is that on or off?

 

[EanS]

Add an insert meter first in the track and check how is the (DI ) nput level, good levels are between -9 to -13 dbs, hotter will give you crap.

Now, your output Record, chose it to be the DI, not wav mono/stereo nor any format where the plugin is baked when recording. Record just the Di input while monitoring the plugin.

Then play it and listen how shitty it sounds just the DI, and then add the plugin, start from there tweaking the DI signal, yes, you need to use a Hipass Filter to cut 60Hz to 85 Hz because singles have always more bass than humbuckers. LoPass may be used too if you get some piercing high end.

And Finally, the essence, the Speakers or IR. Don't get stuck with one speaker/cab, try everything you think it will fit. A 4x12 with greenbacks is pretty nasal and boomy. V30's are loved by the high gain users for a reason, etc...

Last but not least, add a room or short eco, decide how much tail will have, I mean, repeats, I think max 3 so it doesn't mud everything.

Even with and RME and the good DI input it has (can't say the same for Scarlett), an all around solution is getting IK Multimedia's DI box, which will assist you (make more even for giotar/bass) with DI input gain, Z control, a fet switch (fets are used on gain applications) and a switch for Active pickups.

But still, and I denied for years, just care about a good DI input recorded with the plugin you'll use as monitor/ reference.

Don't forget to listening to the guitar track in a mix with at least drum and bass, you'll see how much low end is not needed from your guitar. For fattening up a guitar riff, rather than only doubling it, record a driven bass doing the same notes.

Something like that

 

[Marwan Antonios]

Thank you all for your responses, unfortunately I have already done all of them before posting here.

It could be a routing issue where your record monitoring also feeds you the clean DI signal. Double check that both in reaper and on your audio interface. I think the interface has a direct monitoring switch above the headphone jack. Is that o

 

[Marwan Antonios]

Thank you all for your replies, but as I said in my post all these steps are verified. That's the problem.

 

[dyross]

Maybe try recording the di into your daw and processing with plugins against that? Possible the experience of hearing the di in the room while playing is changing your experience?

 

[nas]

Are you using any room correction software on your mix bus? if yes then make sure to bypass it before you bounce.

Also check your amp sim plugins. Do they have over sampling settings for playback and rendering? Maybe you need to set higher over sampling when you render. I doubt that’s the problem but it’s worth checking.

Try tracking just the DI without any plugins and then re amp and render to see if that helps.

 

[MartinH.]

So in a nutshell when monitoring through my Daw the sound is tight & clean, after recording muddy & resonant.

Can you grab the intact audio for comparison by putting your guitar track into a track folder that you set to "record output"? It might have higher chances for us to figure out what's wrong if we could hear the difference.

Or is it possible you have the track that is supposed to record the clean DI set to incorrectly alter the recording file format to something with low quality? Reaper can store different settings for how to record files on per-track level.

 

[Marwan Antonios]

[ISSUE SOLVED]

All of the above details you guys suggested where already verified, the issue was coming from the rourting section, so even if you record in mono and pan hard left & right it still doesn't sound as good as it should.

The way I did it was that in the routing section I changed the parent channel on each guitar track from (1/2) to simply 1 or 2.

I managed to achieve a better stereo image this way & to reduce all
resonance issues, muddiness & uneven low end.

Thanks again for all your responses!