Hi everyone, this is my very first post and first question on this forum.


I just gotten myself a Roland Duo Capture and Sonar LE comes along with it. I am a guitarist.
I am a fresh beginner when it comes to digital recording. I have my compressor, digital delay, distortion and octaver with me as my pedals.


When I recorded my guitar in clean tone, it works okay even though there is still a small buzzing sound.
However, when I turn on my distortion pedal the sound becomes very bad. Low quality, leveled and very different from the clean tone.


What do I do in this situation? Is it the Roland recorder that caused the issue, or is it my CPU which is using on-board sound card is not good enough to detect my distortion pedals?


A picture as reference. 

distortion pedal the sound becomes very bad.

Your distortion petal probably works by overdrivng the preamp on your guitar amp.  When you overdrive an A/D converter it just trashes the signal instead of producing an over-driven sound.  I'm not sure if turning down the input level on your Duo Capture will fix this with a tone that you are expecting.  This is one of the reasons that the preferred method of recording electric guitar is to mic the amplifier.
 
You can record clean, then use the distortion pedal in Amplitube or Guitar Rig to get the sound that you are after.  There is a free version of Aplitube and there ay be one for Guitar Rig.  I prefer this way as it lets me adjust the level pf the pedal effect without having to re-track (it is easier for me to twiddle bits than to play guitar).
 
Glen
 

"I'm not sure if turning down the input level on your Duo Capture will fix this with a tone that you are expecting."
Nope, it doesn't work for this issue. I tried it already.


Thank you so much Colbert !
Just asking if there is any way to improve this situation other than recording the amp with a microphone?
Now I understand that the problem lies with the distortion pedal itself, what do I do to produce a good sound if I need to switch on several pedals at once for this particular song?

(For example, turning on distortion while activating delay.)

I think the results produced will be very different in the end. Couldn't try it now because I'm at work for the moment ! :)

This is how I connect my Guitar to the Roland's DUO Capture.

Guitar -> Compressor pedal -> Distortion pedal -> Octaver pedal -> Digital Delay pedal -> Roland Cube Amp -> Roland DUO Capture Audio interface.

If I were to purchase a direct injector, will it make things better?
I don't really understand the uses of a direct injector after searching up on wikipedia. Can you kindly explain it to me in simpler terms?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DI_unit

With the exception of the distortion pedal, this chain should work for recording your guitar.  My hypothesis is that the distortion pedal is overdriving the input on your A/D converter in the Duo Capture.  If its audio effect is the result of over-driving the front-end of a guitar amplifier it simply isn't going to work.  The DI box won't do anything for you here.  Your best bet in this case is to add the distortion pedal after the A/D converter (in the box) by using a distortion pedal simulator.
 
Welcome to the forum by the way.
 
Glen

or is it my CPU which is using on-board sound card

 
Welcome to the forum.
You shouldn't use the onboard sound card if you have a superior device like the Duo Capture.
Use the RDC for both recording and playback.
Go to the Roland web site and download/install the latest drivers for the RDC and your operating system.
Use ASIO for the Driver Mode.
I don't know if that will cure the noise, but it will certainly improve performance overall.
 
"Roland Cube Amp"
 
Are you using a line out from the amp to the interface? 
 
 

What kind of amplifier are you driving?  Does it have a line level output?
 
DI units are for impedence matching or for transitioning from an unbalanced source to a balanced input (as well as some voltage isolation).  I really don't think it will make your distortion pedal talk more nicely to the duo capture.
 
 
Glen

Hi Glen,
I am using a Roland cube 15XL as seen above. I used the output for recording to connect with my Duo Capture.
Just curious - what does AUX in used for? Are they for digital keyboards?


Hi Greg,


Yes, I am using the line out from the amp to the interface. I did that because my friend suggested that the amp may provide better sound quality by using their chips to produce the tones. However, there are no difference whether I included the amp or not into the circuit because the distortion still sounds too distorted.

May I know what do I do with these settings? This is the driver settings for RDC.





Many thanks to the both of you ! I have learned something new today ! :)

I'm a little concerned that I may not be understanding what you mean by sounding distorted.  Can you listen through the amplifier with headphones to see if you hear the difference there?  How are you getting the sound out of your COMPUTER? 

I'm assuming that you are over-driving an A/D converter somewhere but I'm not seeing that from your photo.  Do the meters in Sonar EVER go into the red area?

Glen

Hi Glen, the sound coming out from my computer speakers and my headphones using the Roland DUO Capture output are the same. They sound really really distorted, and they don't get that clean tone (a little distorted) when I start everything with the clean. Then again, I was able to get the good record using the clean tone without applying distortion.

The meters do not go to the red. I'm aware of the peak level and such so I will try my best not to exceed to that limit. 

However, refer the picture back to my first post - the recording is really off. Like a good rectangle instead of sound waves, if you get what I mean.

Sorry for the reply though ! I will try to upload my recording tonight and see if that helps.
Thank you once again !!!