Problem Getting the Demo Started

[IsolatedMortality]

Originally Posted by zedhed

Plugins in the right hands will sound right in any DAW.
Conversely; Plugins in the wrong hands will sound wrong in any DAW.





This /\ /\

Ok, how am I the wrong hands?

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by IsolatedMortality

Ok, how am I the wrong hands?

Based on what you have said and what you are doing I'd say it's quite likely the case you are inexperienced and that's causing whatever problems you are having.

I was previously using Reaper but the plugins didn't sound right-None of them;

This is simply a completely impossible/illogical statement (they might all sound not-right, but it won't be because of Reaper). There is no way this can be a correct statement.

And then what you are doing... trying another DAW because of you believe the above. Is an illogical action. It makes great sense to prefer a different DAW for better compatibility with your workflow, UI/UX preferences, specific technical features, availability of third party plugins, less bugs, etc. but swapping DAWs because of how all of a DAW plugins sound makes no sense. Many of us here use more than one DAW, I use Pro Tools, Logic Pro, and occasionally Reaper. I have *never* had any problem where anything in Reaper including Plugins ever *sounds* wrong. And they all sound wrong to you? that's just makes absolutely no sense, you *have* to be doing something wrong. And I'd highly recommend Reaper as a DAW, and for new users, especially Windows users.

I am assuming you are a very new user, and that's leading you to make illogical decisions. You should be picking a DAW and getting started by following tutorials/courses. There is so much to learn. And trying to teach yourself to record and mix music with a DAW is not a great way of getting started. Groove 3 has good online courses, YouTube has many great specific tutorials, Alan Parsons has his Art and Science of Sound Recording course, some examples of good places to start.

You also need to have a suitable setup, even if beginning, you really need usable monitors, likely some room treatment, and you need to work on critical listening. Do you have a pair of reasonable powered monitors? Have you got room treatments in place to tame issues? Have you calibrated the monitor output level (esp. can the monitors produce sound at a suitable SPL for critical listening?)? Are you critically listening to music similar to what you want to achieve through the same playback path?

You need to develop a sense of how to describe what is wrong, you have to move your skills beyond things do "not sound right"? Is the sound too bright? Got some mid-level peak? Lacking bass? Something is phasing/comb filtering? You are picking up mic bleed? An input was clipping? An output is clipping? A plugin is being driven too hard it's distorting? The output just sounds too quiet/thin? And so on, and you need to work to understand how to address whatever is causing each of the things you can describe.

[Basslice]

Originally Posted by IsolatedMortality

Ok, how am I the wrong hands?

Well, for one, you have never really defined your problem. All you tell us is:

Originally Posted by IsolatedMortality

I was previously using Reaper but the plugins didn't sound right-None of them; If I purchase PT but I get the same result, what's AVID's policy on refunds?

I don't have any idea what you mean by "plugins didn;t sound right".

What plugins, what didn't sound right? You have not made it very clear if you have the right or wrong hands. That means, equipment, skills, etc

If you want free help from strangers you need to be very clear about the problem and as many details about hardware and software as possible.

[IsolatedMortality]

Ok guys, cool...

[IsolatedMortality]

Ok, how about providing a YT link to a tutorial about getting guitar effect plugins to work properly? Instead of insulting me.

[Darryl Ramm]

We have no idea what you are trying to do.

What are you trying to do with what guitar and what exactly you mean by a "guitar effects" plugin? Are you using an acoustic guitar? Electric guitar? What exact guitar? What exact pickups? (esp. if active pickups) What style of music? If an electric guitar are you recording the DI and using an amp sim or are you using a real amp/cab (what one?) and recording that with a microphone (what one?), or using a cab eliminator (what one?) etc. And you are using what audio interface? (Most interfaces will have a DI input which is find for most stuff if you want to record DI with an electric guitar, but if you are using a separate DI box say so, basically tell us all the gear you have related to recording guitar.). Like give us as much info as you can about you are hoping to do with what gear.

Start with as basic a tutorial as you can, e.g. if tracking DI from an electric guitar work though a tutorial just showing how to use that and use an amp and cab sim plugins. Worry about anything else than that later.

You really should be able to search YouTube or Groove3 and find something close to what you want to do. Then follow that tutorial exactly and make sure you can do what it shows and then find a more advanced one if needed and keep working through them. If you are totally new to DAWs then maybe step back and start with very basic intro to the DAW you want to use, so you'll pick up important concepts.

Groove3 stuff is well worth paying for.

[IsolatedMortality]

I already explained that I'm using Metallica's impulse responses as I've provided you my YT link to my album video which I used the responses to record.


My chain of plugins: Reagate, Noise Suppressor, T808 overdrive, Poulin LeGion, NADir IR loader

[Basslice]

I don't know or use any of the products that you are using. However, it should be able to work. I think maybe you are over-complicating things and maybe you should back off and simplify before using multiple products together. Start guitar into DAW. Then add an effect/VI to chain, see what it does.

When I started recording earnestly in PT I spent months/weeks searching YT and watching every video I could. It took a lot of time and I don't think anyone here can offer a golden ticket to get you where you want to be. Time and work. If I were you, I'd start here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoqhdR9yQtA

Good luck.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by IsolatedMortality

I already explained that I'm using Metallica's impulse responses as I've provided you my YT link to my album video which I used the responses to record.

My chain of plugins: Reagate, Noise Suppressor, T808 overdrive, Poulin LeGion, NADir IR loader

I don't see anywhere you have explained anything about Metallica IR or provided a YouTube link about anything, if you are posting stuff across multiple threads then I'm not spending my time tracking down your stuff.

Impulse responses are fine tuning stuff. We know is you've made seemingly nonsensical claims about plugins "not sounding right" with Reaper, we have no idea what exactly you are not happy with or if you ever got Pro Tools running.

We have no idea if you understand guitar DI tracking concepts, gain staging, etc. and there are many things you could be happening there that could cause problems. The questions about guitar/pickups/DI etc. might have all helped get you help if we spotted some possible common problems, but you don't want to provide clear info so I'm done with trying to help you.

Pretty much anything any other Pro Tools users here can do is keep pointing you at generic sources for guitar tracking tutorials and assume they are what you need. Maybe they are, maybe they are not.

[albee1952]

when things don't "sound right", the best way to troubleshoot is to break it down to the bare minimum. Start by importing an audio file(even an mp3 will work) of some piece of music and listen to that with no plugins. If it doesn't sound right, then I would suspect a problem with your speakers or headphones(maybe a phase issue from a bad cable?). We'd like to help, but there are a lot of ways for things to go wrong, but software is probably not the culprit