Question for MW re: recording with RokPak

    I preordered the rokpak and although some have argued that it's overpriced, I feel it's worth every penny. Ok, moving along...


    I'm getting ready to begin tracking guitars for my first full album and will be using the RokPak profiles heavily if not exclusively.
    The one thing I was a bit surprised about with the profiles is the amount of gain that some of them are set at. I know that when tracking and stacking high gain guitar tracks, one doesn't want to use a ton of gain on each track that's going to be doubled etc. Many of the higher gain RokPak profiles sound like they're set more for jamming than for "push record and start tracking. I'm asking if MW will chime in here and maybe offer his 2 cents on how much gain to dial in when stacking double tracked guitars etc. I think I have a pretty good feel for this, but would love to hear from the man himself and if he has a suggested methodology for getting great results.
    MW, thanks again for the great profiles and could you spare a moment to share some insight on this for me?


    thanks,
    Steve

    Double track is fine to do at any gain range, as long as they are panned, if your doing double for each side then its not appropriate no. but if its a big guitar sound you are after, then look at the bass guitar, this is the most influential instrument to make the guitars sound Hugh..


    You will of course need to do a lot of tweeking to the profiles either pre or post to make them fit your mix, but that part should be easy enough for you to deal with.


    My best advice, use your ears as a guide and not from a text book & forum. if your happy, then your target audience will be too.


    Good luck with it. hope it all works out for you.

    Great advice from the others members above. When I double track (and I am no way as good as MW at recording) I try to find 2 amps that compliment each other. I'll sometimes use a JCM 800 which gives me the definition of the notes and the raw tone, while a 5150 will back this up with being higher gain and tighter sounding all round these will both be panned hard left and ill record another pass of each amp again and pan them hard right. What Andy mentioned about the bass guitar making the guitars sound bigger is defo a key element which I'm still practising :)

    Of course recording guitars is sometimes very different from listening to it.
    Normally I use low-cut's on my guitars, because in the mix I need to have enough space for bass, kick, keyboards ect. I like to have a clear, very defined mix, some profiles with a lot of bass might sound well alone, but not in the mix.


    If your gain-settings are too high, you also can reduce gain on the KPA itself, I'm changing gain-settings on my profiles all the time. The Über-pak offers a lot of low-gain and crunch-sounds, no trouble to find something interesting there. Low-gain and crunch sounds normally have much more "punch" in the mix than high-gain-sounds. Just take a look at AC/DC, Malcolm Young always used very clean, slightly distorted sounds.


    If you want to have a great sound with doubling guitars, your timing should be as good as possible. To play the tracks very tight is very important.

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    first name: Guenter / family name: Haas / www.guenterhaas.de

    Like 2

    Interesting thread! Since it's about tracking - could you guys share your cable connections and settings on Kemper for tracking guitars? Is it right to set Kemper's Master Out to Mono and then use only one cable (btw right or left - or it doesn't matter?) for tracking guitar in mono for panning 2 mono tracks afterwards?. Do I have to use an unbalanced cable for Kemper's OUT or it's still ok with balanced? (though I know that Kemper's OUT stereopair is unbalanced, only XLR outs are balanced)

    Very easy to answer: the best results you'll get with simple mono-signals, it doesn't matter if you use a balanced cable or an unbalanced one.


    I normally record 90% mono-tracks, the better the amp-sounds, the less effects you need. Mostly I'll add effects afterwards.


    Good cables are important, I'm using Fatsoflex and Vovox-cables.

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    first name: Guenter / family name: Haas / www.guenterhaas.de

    I use the Kemper SPDIF out to record the raw DI to DAW while sending the Kemper analog XLR out (amp stack) to a controller/mixer for mixing with my analog DAW output, then this combo to my nearfields. This way I can record raw DI while hearing a profile with no additional DAW latency. Then later I reamp the DI track from DAW thru Kemper via SPDIF, scrolling through profiles realtime via rig manager, tweaking in context, etc. It's really great. In Cubase, the Kemper can be set up as an external effect (i.e. insert like a plugin), including compensating for the 4.9ms Kemper latency. Very easy and fun to use that way.

    @Petrucci: if I want to record mono or stereo I always decide within my software (Cubase 7.5). My routing is always:
    KPA stereo out --> Mindprint DTC (Dual Tube Channel) stereo in --> SPL monitor controller stereo in + audio-interface (UAD Apollo Twin) stereo-in. My studio-monitors (Klein & Hummel O110 + Adam Subwoofer) are connected to the SPL controller.


    Often the DTC will be on bypass, sometimes I use the tube-opto-compressor or the parallel eq, both excellent tools. I'm only hearing the "musician"-output of my SPL-controller with absolutely no DAW-latency. At the same time the DTC is sending 2 stereo outs to the stereo-inputs of my Apollo Twin.


    Perfect setup for playing without any DAW-latency and very flexable, too.

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    first name: Guenter / family name: Haas / www.guenterhaas.de

    Quote from guenterhaas

    @Petrucci: if I want to record mono or stereo I always decide within my software (Cubase 7.5). My routing is always:
    KPA stereo out --> Mindprint DTC (Dual Tube Channel) stereo in --> SPL monitor controller stereo in + audio-interface (UAD Apollo Twin) stereo-in. My studio-monitors (Klein & Hummel O110 + Adam Subwoofer) are connected to the SPL controller.


    Often the DTC will be on bypass, sometimes I use the tube-opto-compressor or the parallel eq, both excellent tools. I'm only hearing the "musician"-output of my SPL-controller with absolutely no DAW-latency. At the same time the DTC is sending 2 stereo outs to the stereo-inputs of my Apollo Twin.


    Perfect setup for playing without any DAW-latency and very flexable, too.


    Thanks a lot for your answer! So do you actually track the guitar using 2 cables in stereo???

    Like I said there are always two cables connected, I decide within Cubase if I record a mono or stereo-track.


    I don't care so much about recording guitars in stereo, because most of my plugins will sound better than the KPA-effects, I'll add most of my effects later anyway. I like to have a really great basic amp-tone, if the effect is an important part of the guitar-sound, I will record it of course using my Strymons (Timeline + Mobius).

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    first name: Guenter / family name: Haas / www.guenterhaas.de