Recording - July 2020 - 54

INSIDE
THE BOX

with Joe Albano
GETTING THE MOST OUT
OF YOUR VIRTUAL AMP
More than twenty years have gone by since the first guitar amp
models were developed. There was some skepticism at first, but
today they're widely accepted. The experience of playing through
DSP is not the same as standing in front of a cranked amp on the
verge of feedback, but many recording sessions have the player
in the control room and the amp out in the studio anyway, and the
ability to control levels plus the flexibility of being able to swap amps
and tweak settings after recording have made the use of virtual amps
standard practice across the performance and recording spectrums.

PLUG 'N' PLAY
For the most part, virtual amps are dead easy to use-you
just plug in, open up the amp of your choice, and play. Of
course, there are still a few things that need to be taken into
consideration if you want to capture the best sound.

DI THE RIGHT WAY
When using a virtual amp plugin, you need to get the instrument signal into the DAW without compromising its tone. Plugging
straight into the audio interface or preamp seems easy enough-
most instruments use 1/4" cables which fit into any 1/4" jack on the
interface. The catch is, not all 1/4" inputs are the same, and 'instrument level' signals have their own specs that need to be followed.
Guitar cables carry low-level unbalanced signals that need
lots of gain and a high input impedance at the receiving end
for full-quality transfer. Line-level (stronger signal) 1/4" input
jacks may take the same size plugs, but these are not suitable
for guitar signals-there's a critical gain/impedance mismatch
that erodes tone and adds noise.
What's needed is a 1/4" input specifically designed for the
instrument level signals produced by electronically passive
54 RECORDING July 2020

guitars and basses. Audio interfaces label this input 'instrument' or Hi-Z (meaning, 'high impedance'). Sometimes, these
instrument inputs might be on separate jacks. More often
though, the same 1/4" jack will be selectable for either type
of input. If your interface doesn't include dedicated instrument inputs, then an outboard DI box (direct injection) will be
needed to make the appropriate electronic conversions and
physical connections.

CALIBRATE
When guitars are plugged into actual hardware amplifiers,
the gain controls determine how much level and distortion the
amp puts out. Electric guitars have similar output levels in general, and the amount of gain/distortion that can be dialed up
on the amp's front end will span a given range, from 'clean'
to 'crunchy' to 'distorted'-and all those mystical and delicious
little tones in between.
With virtual amps, the incoming level of the guitar signal may
vary to a greater degree, depending on the amount of gain set
for that input on the interface. As a result, the guitar signal that
hits the amp sim may be significantly higher or lower in level
than the virtual amp is expecting. If the incoming level is lower,

Recording - July 2020

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