Old Mac Donald Posted September 19, 2013 Share Posted September 19, 2013 Stumbled across this cool 'tone boost' thing. I record my guitar mostly DI using the amp modellers in Logic to sculpt my sound. To date I've been fairly happy with this arrangement but recently got hold of a Fender Jag and the tricks I use to get a good, workable electric guitar sound weren't really working with this Jag - it wasn't cutting it. Don't get me wrong, it sounded 'OK' just not as good as I'd hoped for. Thing is, I really love the guitar and I wanted it to work for me in my recording arrangement so I tried a couple of other ideas that I don't normally have to bother with where my other electric guitars are concerned. I got out my old pedals from my 'gigging days' and was trying a few in-line between my guitar and interface. I wasn't hearing anything better than I get with the Logic amp modellers so I gave up and just got reacquainted with my old Dunlop CryBaby pedal (it's been a while!) by having a little funky 'wah wah' jam with myself. Once I'd got the 'Starsky & Hutch' theme out of my system I disengaged the wah sound and .. "WHOAH! What's that beautiful clean guitar sound & where's it coming from?!" With the 'Wah' function disabled (so I'm just bypassing the effect) I'm hearing the guitar in a completely new way! All the lovely sonic tones of the guitar are jumping out at me and, for the first time, I am now hearing this particular guitar in a way I want to hear it. Of course I then took the pedal out of the equation and just plugged the guitar directly straight back into the interface for comparative purposes and there was noticeable ... I dunno, 'tone suck' would be a way to describe it. So now I have my sound (for Fender Jags at least). A simple CryBaby pedal unengaged between my guitar and interface and the guitar is now sounding great - a happy accident I thought I'd share with you. It worked for me! (One for the techies out there: Why should this be the case? It's not like the pedal is activated.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ankely Posted September 19, 2013 Share Posted September 19, 2013 That's cool. I have found, depending on the interface, guitar pedals make it sound better. It may be an impedance thing, although your Duet says that it has instrument inputs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olisidecar Posted September 19, 2013 Share Posted September 19, 2013 Thanks for the tip! I've found Jaguars and Jazzmasters to be pretty low output in the past...I should probably know why the Wah pedal helps, but I don't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ankely Posted September 19, 2013 Share Posted September 19, 2013 Boss pedals help a lot also. It may be because of the buffer in them. IDK. LOL. Sounds better though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fastfourier Posted September 19, 2013 Share Posted September 19, 2013 It's probably a buffer, which on many guitar pedals is in-circuit whether the pedal is bypassed or not. It will definitely provide a louder signal to your interface, and may be a better impedance match for your guitar circuitry as well. I always have something buffered between the guitar and the DI/amp/whatever. Usually it's the trusty Boss TU-2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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