[cwsand]

Originally Posted by ramonetl

Hi all, I did some researching for the best practices for when I record guitar tracks from my Kemper regarding a clean DI track of the unaltered track. In the past I would run this one of the analog preamps channels in my apollo 8 and stick a unisom pre into it to boost the signal to be hot enough so later I could reamp etc if I so chose. The primary track is via S/PDIF btw. Recently after watching a video on an engineer saying always take a clean di of your guitar tracks (in case I suppose) I got to wondering if I should just be going in as is with no preamp boost since the level later may be rerouted to say an amp sim in UA plugin or back into the kemper as another amp rig. I think since I am not making it very hot I should be fine this way but figured better to ask that find out i am later gonna clip things. I did search for this but no one covered what to do with the signal past how to hook it up etc. Thanks. PD

Well I just record the direct guitar signal to a track at a good level that doesn't distort. If I go to reamp, I can adjust the level at different places - in the DAW, at the interface mixer, at the reamp box, at the effects pedal, or the amp itself. If you're running the signal through multiple pre's (real or virtual), the only reason I can think of for doing this is to alter the sound according to the preamp(s) you're running it thru. You should be able to get a good recording level with a single preamp.

If your signal is clipping, you should see it in the meters and/or waveform, and you'll probably hear it if you solo the DI track.

I wouldn't overthink it, it's really not that complicated of a process IMHO.