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  #1  
Old 01-07-2023, 12:13 PM
THRiLLZz THRiLLZz is offline
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Default Signal Chain mic-preamp-interface

Hello Everyone.

I am at the start of my sound engineering journey. Its taken me a long time to get Protools to even open. But now I am up and running thank god!

Excuse my inexperience, I would like to know the correct signal chain from

mic - lightpipe preamp - 192

protools - preamp - 192

I have no clue whether to input everything through preamp then into interface
or
out of interface - in preamp- optical back to interface.

Thanks in advance

ps. its taken me about 4 years to get the equipment and finally have it running. JOY JOY
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Cheers Glenn
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192-X3 | 96i | 002 Rack
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  #2  
Old 01-07-2023, 12:50 PM
Darryl Ramm Darryl Ramm is online now
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Default Re: Signal Chain mic-preamp-interface

Lets start with what exactly you want to record, what exact mic(s) you have, what exact make/model ADAT preamp, what cards are installed in the 192 IO(s), and what exact monitors/speakers you have. Include any other monitor controllers as well.

Quote:
protools - preamp - 192
I can not follow at all what you mean by this. You mean how to get Pro Tools output to your monitors? Or are you trying to do
Pro Tools hardware inserts? (why/for what? ... and if so leave that until you get experience with a basic setup working).

Since most ADAT preamps are output only, you normally could/would not go back out of an interface through an ADAT box to monitors. And especially not when your 192 typically has direct line outputs. Maybe you have a box with ADAT output and input, you have to tell us exactly what you have.

You list multiple systems/components in your signature. In this modern era I really have trouble seeing why somebody getting started would want to build a TDM/DigiLink system, when modern Pro Tools offers lots of new features, modern ASIO interfaces can provide more flexibility and modern well set up systems can track at such small HW buffer sizes. Professional studios on HDX (or legacy TDM) may be a different world. I would think carefully about the end-place you want to be and how hard you might be making it to get there.

Some stuff here may also be helped by reading a good book on audio engineering. The Recording Engineer's Handbook 4th Edition by Bobby Owsinski is a good place to start.

Last edited by Darryl Ramm; 01-07-2023 at 02:13 PM.
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  #3  
Old 01-07-2023, 03:24 PM
THRiLLZz THRiLLZz is offline
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Default Re: Signal Chain mic-preamp-interface

Quote:
Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm View Post
Lets start with what exactly you want to record, what exact mic(s) you have, what exact make/model ADAT preamp, what cards are installed in the 192 IO(s), and what exact monitors/speakers you have. Include any other monitor controllers as well.



I can not follow at all what you mean by this. You mean how to get Pro Tools output to your monitors? Or are you trying to do
Pro Tools hardware inserts? (why/for what? ... and if so leave that until you get experience with a basic setup working).

Since most ADAT preamps are output only, you normally could/would not go back out of an interface through an ADAT box to monitors. And especially not when your 192 typically has direct line outputs. Maybe you have a box with ADAT output and input, you have to tell us exactly what you have.

You list multiple systems/components in your signature. In this modern era I really have trouble seeing why somebody getting started would want to build a TDM/DigiLink system, when modern Pro Tools offers lots of new features, modern ASIO interfaces can provide more flexibility and modern well set up systems can track at such small HW buffer sizes. Professional studios on HDX (or legacy TDM) may be a different world. I would think carefully about the end-place you want to be and how hard you might be making it to get there.

Some stuff here may also be helped by reading a good book on audio engineering. The Recording Engineer's Handbook 4th Edition by Bobby Owsinski is a good place to start.
__________________
Cheers Glenn
____________________________________________
May the force be with you
___________________________________________
192-X3 | 96i | 002 Rack
HD3 ACCEL PCI-e CORE
3.2 GHZ i5 HASWELL 16GB RAM
DUAL OS WIN 10 & 7sp1 64 BIT
1TB SSD 250GB SSD 120GB SSD
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  #4  
Old 01-07-2023, 04:03 PM
THRiLLZz THRiLLZz is offline
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Default Re: Signal Chain mic-preamp-interface

Quote:
Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm View Post
Lets start with what exactly you want to record, what exact mic(s) you have, what exact make/model ADAT preamp, what cards are installed in the 192 IO(s), and what exact monitors/speakers you have. Include any other monitor controllers as well.



I can not follow at all what you mean by this. You mean how to get Pro Tools output to your monitors? Or are you trying to do
Pro Tools hardware inserts? (why/for what? ... and if so leave that until you get experience with a basic setup working).

Since most ADAT preamps are output only, you normally could/would not go back out of an interface through an ADAT box to monitors. And especially not when your 192 typically has direct line outputs. Maybe you have a box with ADAT output and input, you have to tell us exactly what you have.

You list multiple systems/components in your signature. In this modern era I really have trouble seeing why somebody getting started would want to build a TDM/DigiLink system, when modern Pro Tools offers lots of new features, modern ASIO interfaces can provide more flexibility and modern well set up systems can track at such small HW buffer sizes. Professional studios on HDX (or legacy TDM) may be a different world. I would think carefully about the end-place you want to be and how hard you might be making it to get there.

Some stuff here may also be helped by reading a good book on audio engineering. The Recording Engineer's Handbook 4th Edition by Bobby Owsinski is a good place to start.
Thank you very much for your reply Darryl,

So Ill elaborate a little more info. I am not aiming to be a professional studio in any way. I am simply a musician on a tight budget trying to record my tracks then go to a proper studio to have them mixed and mastered. I have very old recordings of raw guitar tracks. I have built my setup to complete about 12 songs with vocals bass and midi drums over the next year or so or how ever long it takes.

As far as the signal chain or flow is, Im just trying to understand how you take an existing raw guitar track and then send it out to my preamp as it was never recorded with a preamp to begin with. I believe this is done with an insert like you stated. I have everything plugged into my 96i and monitoring its outputs to the speakers. I haven't yet connected all the 192 in yet as I don't have the snake cables for it yet. I am wanting to understand the signal flow better so I know which cables to buy. I just need 2 snakes for inputs and 1 for outputs. Currently the signal is mic - to - preamp - to 96i. I just want to know if that's how i connect the 192 also or do I output from the 192- to - preamp input then back to adat in of 192.

I will definitely be reading and learning a lot from YouTube as I have done. I will try and track down the book you recommend Thank you.

Here is my hardware components

192 IO
1 analog input card
2 analog output cards
1 Digital IO :-
Adat in-out
AES/EBU
Tdif

Microphone
Rode nt 1-a
Apex 435
Apex 180

Preamp
Presonus Digimax 96k
2 Beringer Ultragain 2200

Monitors

m-Audio BX8a
Yamaha NS-10m
__________________
Cheers Glenn
____________________________________________
May the force be with you
___________________________________________
192-X3 | 96i | 002 Rack
HD3 ACCEL PCI-e CORE
3.2 GHZ i5 HASWELL 16GB RAM
DUAL OS WIN 10 & 7sp1 64 BIT
1TB SSD 250GB SSD 120GB SSD

Last edited by THRiLLZz; 01-07-2023 at 04:45 PM.
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  #5  
Old 01-07-2023, 05:49 PM
Darryl Ramm Darryl Ramm is online now
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Default Re: Signal Chain mic-preamp-interface

OK thanks for the extra information. But again there are fundamental gaps/confusion here. I can't tell if you are using a 96i IO or 192 IO here? What exactly is connected to what? Or even better you should get started with just one 192 IO. Just disconnect all other DigiLink interfaces. Connect one pair of monitors to line Output 1 &2. Use line Output 3 and line Input 3 for reamping aka H/W inserts (and use your preamps boxes as an analog preamp, but don't worry about that now, see below for what to do first with learning about H/W inserts). Keep stuff simple as possible, you should be focusing now on teaching yourself how stuff works. And the absolutely simpler you will make this the more useful help you are likely to get here.

Are you talking acoustic or electric guitars? If Electric what exact make/model guitar amp and cab (or outboard processor like a Fractal FX or Eleven Rack?) are you wanting to use to reamp that signal? While there are traditional ways of connecting electric guitar amps for reamping some newer products have additional connectivity. If you have a traditional guitar amp with only guitar level mono/instrument input you should be using a guitar reamp box. And digital processors are better off using digital interfaces. But again you need to explain *exactly* what you have.

If you meant an acoustic guitar how was it recorded (e.g. via a piezo pickup?) again .. details.

Quote:
...as it was never recorded with a preamp to begin with
"recorded with a preamp" especially for electric guitar is likely the wrong focus here, you should be thinking more "not recorded with a guitar amp and cab (or box that emulates any of that)". And your "DI" or guitar signal was almost certainly recorded though some sort of preamp as part of the DI input from the guitar into the interface. If you used a separate DI box (like say at Radial J48 or JDI) then that would normally feed into a preamp. If you used an interface with a "DI" (aka "instrument") input it was internally feeding into at least part of the preamp circuit. And while the mic and preamp can affect the sound of a guitar amp and cab when live tracking or rerecording it's the guitar amp and cab that typically by far has the most impact in the tone... and with the ADAT preamps you have you likely would not want to be using them to try to add any sonic properties. If you had some (typically much more expensive) gritty old-school preamps that might be a different thing. And likewise if it was a piezo pickup or similar in an acoustic guitar it would have been recorded though a preamp of some sort.

If reamping an electric guitar that is covered in well in some audio engineering books, but not really in the one I mentioned. There are also lots of tutorials on YouTube about reamping guitars. If you are indeed reamping an electric guitar you should find a lot of stuff by searching using "reamp" or "reamping". And yes this would normally be set up in Pro Tools as a "Hardware Insert", so you read all about that in the Pro Tools Reference Guide (make sure you are reading the correct guide for your version of Pro Tools). And you should play with the simple case of using an insert that is just a straight through TRS-TRS balanced cable fo the case of an analog insert... a 192 IO line Output to the exact same matching 192 IO line Input. Confirm you get signal though the insert and when you unplug the cable you get nothing.

Even though you have ADAT capable preamps I would start by reamping with this setup though the guitar amp/cab using a line level outputs coming from your 192 to a Reamp box (like a Radial Reamp JCR-1), that driving the guitar amp instrument input and then recording from a mic feeding into one of your preamps and taking that line out (not ADAT out) of the preamp box into the matching line-in input on the 192 IO. So just get inserts with analog line level I/O working here, ignore ADAT . And again when learning you do this as simplified as possible, one 192 IO connected to the TDM cards, no ADAT boxes connected and you are just goin to work out how to use line level H/W inserts in Pro Tools one line level output from a 192 IO going to it's matching input (the numbers *have* to match). But again what exact amp(s)/cab(s) do you have... that might change all this.

But having said all that, if you want to reamp electric guitar I'd actually start by using amp simulator plugins. You just insert them on the exiting dry audio tracks and hey presto now out of that track you get a wet guitar signal. Avid Eleven plugins were available in TDM and RTAS, I think Eleven Mk II was AAX only, but you need to check around. This is an example of how you've limited yourself by being on an old RTAS/TDM platform and don't have access to the latest AAX based guitar amp sim plugins. And if reamping/rerecording guitars is important to you there is no real need to be on TDM. Most guitarist handle the kind of latencies present in native DAW recording. Still if you describe the tone (give a song or artist?) you are after folks may have suggestions for old TDM and/or RTAS amp plugins for you. This will likely be easier to make progress doing this than physical reamping, and ofter sounds better for beginners. Yes reamping through real stuff can be great, but I'd not start there.

I don't want to harp on this but I am concerned you went down the TDM rabbit hole. HD3 and three (?) 192 IO (or by 3X did you mean one 192 IO and a 96i connected to HD3 system?) and a 96IO is the sort of system I expect to see racked in a tracking studio. Especially where folks have multiple rooms and want to keep legacy TDM/Digilink systems around. From the sounds of what you want to do it just seems a lot, and I have trouble seeing how it saves you money). And for things like MIDI drums you could be better off on a modern version of Pro Tools with more modern drum VIs available. And pro Tools just announced the end of sales of HD Native systems and HD I/O boxes. I expect this to start another slow wave of people selling off Digilink systems and eventual further collapse in price. It might not be too late to just sell what you have (including the 002?) and pivot to a modern small USB compact interface and potentially an upgraded PC. Can your existing PC run drum VIs OK? You happy with the product availability there (you might not be if you look at say Superior Drummer 3) Or are you going to use an outboard MIDI drum set? Right now you may not know what you don't know and may have not great surprises in your future as you try to finish this work.

You also want to check with whoever is going to mix your work. They may have strong opinions or at least some useful advice for you. I kinda hope it was not them pushing you to go TDM/old Pro Tools HD. If you work with somebody on a modern platform you may well end up not being able to work on those sessions on your rig, especially because of plugin incompatibilities. If the folks who are going to mix suggested you go this route they really really have some responsibility to be helping you out here. Again I expect you an much more easily do all you need with a nice simple ASIO interface, modern version of Pro Tools, and possibly spend money on upgrading your PC (which you _might_ need to do anyhow to support drum VIs etc.). I'm not sure why you could not just do all this on your 002 for example if costs were a real issue.

---

vaj taghDI' qo' DarurchoH

Last edited by Darryl Ramm; 01-07-2023 at 08:04 PM.
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  #6  
Old 01-07-2023, 06:44 PM
Darryl Ramm Darryl Ramm is online now
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Default Re: Signal Chain mic-preamp-interface

Traditional DI/dry guitar tracking using interface DI inputs or DI boxes, reamping using traditional reamp boxes. Recoding wet guitar signals by micing cabs etc. is stuff all covered in some books on audio recording. The book I recommended earlier actually is weak on this stuff. I don't have any specific recommendations, but there is a **huge** amount of stuff online you can search for, especially find tutorials close to what you want to do and try to follow that tutorial all the way though on your own setup.

Groove3 paid tutorials are good and I expect them to have good guitar recording coverage. https://www.groove3.com e.g. here is a start https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl3_UppYamQ
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  #7  
Old 01-07-2023, 08:11 PM
THRiLLZz THRiLLZz is offline
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Default Re: Signal Chain mic-preamp-interface

Wow Darryl. You truly are a wealth of knowledge. This guidance you have given me is very much appreciated. I will take on everything you have shared here and do a lot more reading and learning with your suggestions.

To sum up some of your questions on guitars. I have 6 and 12 string acoustics Australian Maton Guitars.
My old recordings include steelstring, classical, jap strat, and rickenbacker copy. These recordings were mostly recorded straight into a hard disk mixer that I don't remember. Non the less the raw tracks will lend very well to your reamping ideas. I have protools 10HD there is eleven rack in it I think. I know nothing of this reamp stuff but do believe plug-in reamp is suited to my situation.

Looking back at the start of this journey I do kind of wish I went with a modern interface with a much simpler approach then I could have afforded a nice quality preamp and outboard gear. I just seen the protools stuff be it old still a better quality purchase. I've had a lot to learn over this process but I can work with what I have to my goal.

I have no contact with an engineer or studio. I just realize that I may very well need to go to a studio for better equipment to add flavour to the raw tracks. I may just persist and do it all myself. I mostly just want to keep the structure or session tracks in a state that is usable and transferable to a modern studio. Your comments about bringing sessions into other systems and incompatible plug-ins is something I will need to overcome if I go that route.

I may just go down the path of mixing it myself with the limited plug-ins that protools 10 provide ultimately its my inexperience that will likely sway me to finish up the project in a studio with a professional.

Finally I feel I have a fairly good grasp of the interfaces and signal flow now. I will go over more carefully your instruction on patching the preamps in and the inserts ect. I mostly just used the 96i because I don't have the 192's DB25 snake cables yet. The 192 being the superior interface will be my primary system.

Once again I can't thank you enough for the time you have invested into my learning. I've seen a lot of your posts helping many people here. It does speak volumes to the community that protools engineers like you have created.

Sent from my SM-N975W using Tapatalk
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Cheers Glenn
____________________________________________
May the force be with you
___________________________________________
192-X3 | 96i | 002 Rack
HD3 ACCEL PCI-e CORE
3.2 GHZ i5 HASWELL 16GB RAM
DUAL OS WIN 10 & 7sp1 64 BIT
1TB SSD 250GB SSD 120GB SSD
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  #8  
Old 01-07-2023, 09:19 PM
Darryl Ramm Darryl Ramm is online now
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Default Re: Signal Chain mic-preamp-interface

OK so if you go with amp sim plugins there is no external routing needed for now. You can just play "in the box" (i.e. in Pro Tools software in the PC).

You have electric and acoustic guitar recordings, acoustic recordings don't normally get reamped, only DI/dry electric guitar recording. (would be a very unusual artistic choice to reamp acoustic/double reamp electric guitars). You might mess more with the dry signal from a piezo pickup in your Maton's but I'd suggest more trying to rerecord the guitars with some of your condenser mics, not using the piezo pickup.

The limitations of old acoustic guitars recordings may or may not be that they were recorded into a hard disk recording mixer.... I'm sure modern interfaces might be more advanced/sound better etc. but so much of recording an acoustic guitar is the mic and mic placement/technique. The condenser mics you already own give you a good start with recording acoustic guitars. If you are no happy with your old acoustic recordings you might end up retracking them, but I would try learning new stuff and movcing forward vs redoing stuff now.

And if your electric guitar DI/dry signal was not recorded on the fanciest gear I would not worry about that, sure not if you are going to send it though an amp/amp sim to add grit or distortion. As long as the recording was not clipped etc. Just spend time playing with the amp sim plugins... and do not expect you can just insert them and get the tone you want, or that you can listen to other folks (or website/forums) telling you about what settings to use to get a type of tone... they might be useful starting points but you will need to play with all the amp sim settings, input levels, etc. just like you purchased a new complex valve amp... you would spend some time.. hours.. days... playing with that to get the tone you want.

I'm familiar with Matron guitars, great stuff (I'm originally from Australia), and Tommy Emmanuel does a good job promoting them. I'm mostly into Telecasters (in multiple different pickup setups). I believe people have mentioned there are other types of electric guitars ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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  #9  
Old 01-08-2023, 02:21 PM
THRiLLZz THRiLLZz is offline
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Default Re: Signal Chain mic-preamp-interface

Great another Aussie that likes Fender. It's funny you know Telecasters are what I've wanted and have looked at as my next electric guitar. I grew up in Wollongong south of Sydney and married a Canadian then moved here near Vancouver about 6 years ago. When I moved country I had to say goodbye to my old fender Twin, strat, o1v, Seymour Duncan valve Amp. The things I couldn't sell I gave away like my whole PA system. Thankfully I never parted with my glorious Maton acoustics. My 6 string is like 26 yr old and my 12 string about 30. They do get better with age.

Thankfully the electric guitar tracks are clean dry and normalized. Perfect for your reamp suggestions. The acoustic sounds OK but many of those songs I no longer know how to play so I'll use them as is but tinker with some colouring of some sort.

Awesome to meet another Aussie on here. Take care champ

Sent from my SM-N975W using Tapatalk
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Cheers Glenn
____________________________________________
May the force be with you
___________________________________________
192-X3 | 96i | 002 Rack
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