Recording Pinch Harmonics [Archive]

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bassdrummer2333

08/22/08, 01:41 PM

I have an M-Audio MobilePre USB, how can I record pinch harmonics when I can't listen to what i'm playing through an amp. Basically I have one song that has like 4 pinch harmonics in it total, what do I do?

patrickhowell

08/22/08, 03:11 PM

The Boathouse

08/22/08, 03:52 PM

If you're playing the pinch properly you should be able to hear it even if it's unplugged. But, uh, there should be some way to monitor your playing using headphones or something so you could hear it.

bassdrummer2333

08/22/08, 08:03 PM

Yeah but it's really hard to tell when your unplugged if it was "good". just like a little beep. Can I monitor it with headphones?

AgainstTheOcean

08/22/08, 10:58 PM

really? the DI on that thing blows. i don't mean to come across as rude or condescending, but i can't see why anybody would use that unless you woke up with an idea at 3 in the morning and had to record without anybody hearing you.

If you're using it because you maybe live in an apartment or somewhere where you cannot play through an amp and mic it, then I suggest you return/sell it and get a line 6 toneport. i cannot think of many crummier interfaces than the quarter inch DI on that.

It's a sweet interface for the price for the mic inputs, though. I own it and swear by it. This post was entirely unhelpful and the result of me getting home at 2 in the morning and logging onto ap.net.

patrickhowell

08/23/08, 12:05 AM

Yeah but it's really hard to tell when your unplugged if it was "good". just like a little beep. Can I monitor it with headphones?

Yeah, you should be able to monitor with headphones, but your interface might have a lot of latency.

bassdrummer2333

08/23/08, 06:23 AM

AgainstTheOcean

08/23/08, 07:36 AM

latency? DI? Explain. thanks.

And yeah I can't afford much more and it sure as beats a computer mic because that's what I used to record these.

www.myspace.com/awakenthenight (http://www.myspace.com/awakenthenight)

I've gotten a hell of a lot better since then.

Can't afford much more? You could multiple toneports for the price of the m-audio box. DI is when you plug "direct in". instead of micing a guitar amp, you just plug the guitar into some interface and play. It almost always, always, always sounds terrible with guitar. The toneport at least comes with amp modeling software to give you lots of freedom with your tone to make it right.

patrickhowell

08/23/08, 09:01 AM

latency? DI? Explain. thanks.

And yeah I can't afford much more and it sure as beats a computer mic because that's what I used to record these.

www.myspace.com/awakenthenight

I've gotten a hell of a lot better since then.

Latency is the time from when you play the note until you hear it in your headphones. It's never going to be exactly perfect, but some setups are way better than others. I've only used the MobilePRE USB once, and the latency was really bad. But it also depends on the software and the computer (Processor speed, hard drive speed, RAM) that you're using.

What recording software are you using? What you need to turn on is software monitoring to hear back what you're playing in the headphones.

The Boathouse

08/23/08, 10:51 AM

Haha, ok, so I actually own this interface. Yes, the DI sounds GOD awful for overdrive. I will say that the clean modeling in garageband is relatively decent, and eq'ing carefully can rescue it. Anyway, you CAN monitor through headphones. Don't use the headphones on the box itself, you don't get a signal with the amp modeling, you get the monitoring coming directly from what you're putting INTO the box. So you put an electric in, clean, and it'll let you hear clean back. If you run the phones out of your computer headphone jack, you'll get the altered sound, assuming you're making one. I've found that the latency, if you adjust it to be as low as possible, isn't that noticeable.