I am using the Presonus Audiobox 44vsl. I'd like to Run my guitar into input 1 on the audiobox and record it uneffected on Track 1 in X1. Then have that signal go out one of my 4 line outs on the Audiobox and into my amplifier's input. From there out the emulated cab's output into an input on the audiobox and record that on Track 2 in X1. Creating Two tracks of the same take, one dry and directly from the guitar and the other with the, lets say, overdrive channel of the amp. This would allow me to record any time the wife and kids are about the house without worrying about noises bleeding into a mic'd up cabinet. I could play and hear a decent tone then later when I have my takes perfected I can play the dry signal, via X1, routed to the input on my amp, mic it and record when its convenient, i.e. no one is home.

I think you will need to set up an External Insert on your "dry" track so that you can route that back out to your cab.

Please refer to page 846 of the X1 Reference guide.

If you have got that then search the Cakewalk site for it.

Most DI boxes have some way of splitting a signal. Although I use a BOSS GT-6 my routing is

Guitar-->DI in--->DI out 1 to Mixer-->Sonar
                      --->DI out 2 to BOSS-->Mixer-->Sonar

That's one way.

"What is the best way to record guitar dry signal and emulated cab signal at the same time?"

this is:

http://www.harmoniccycle.com/hc/music-18-Reamp.htm






best regards,
mike

What a great diagram. thanks for sharing Mike.

I wouldn't be surprised though if the OP thinks that it's possible to record the dry and processed signal in SONAR in one go; rather thanthe reality which is having to bounce/render the dry audio (through the fx) after the fact unless doing it as shown in your diagram, which adds a layer of complexity many don't understand.

I know that donkey's years ago coming from the analog world, it took a while to get my head around this concept.
 
BTW Mike: I notice the diagrams are copyrighted. May I have your permission to include them as they are (as you've presented them with the Copyright info) in my personal Knowledge base that I may share with others from time to time?

Hi Mike,

Yes please, share them at will... I just add the mumbo jumbo so that people will not present them as their own drawings.


The idea suggested by the illustrations is that the best direct box is a nice preamp. If you shop for direct boxes, when you find the best, it is usually and active unit that actually has a small preamp built into it to buffer the signal and the split. If you start thinking about active direct boxes... you may conclude that any nice preamp, one that makes your direct guitar sound seem very nice, is a good, if not the best, way to go.

At least that's the idea. :-)


best regards,
mike

Hi Mike and Mike,

I certainly understand the principles that are illustrated in the diagrams above, but would it not also be possible to DI the guitar to one track in Sonar, dry, via the Hi-Z input of a sound card like the OP has (I use a QUAD-CAPTURE which is very similar) to one track, and then take a send from that track and route it out to one of the USB sound card outputs, through the to the cab, in the OPs case, or it could be an outboard effects unit. he output of the effects unit could then be routed back into Sonar onto another track.

This is different if you are using onboard effects, like GR5 or TH2, but for outboard effects, you need, at some point, to get the signal out of Sonar and back in again.

I'd be most interested in your thoughts.

In the meantime, I'm going to give this a go myself. I've got a Lexicon MPX500 gathering dust at the moment, and it cost me a tiny packet. It's got S/PDIF I/O too so I'm hoping I can keep everything in the digital domain.

cheers

andy

A couple of points.
If you're going to use outboard fx then you can go straight from your guitar through the fx processor and then into SONAR.
You could split the signal before the exteral fx processor sending the other feed direct to SONAR as the dry signal while you simultaneously record the processed fx signal.

This way there is no extra latency to deal with.

If you feed a dry signal into SONAR and then take a send or use the External Fx send that SONAR proviides you have additional inherent latency by going out of the box, through the external processor and back into SONAR.

If you want to use SONAR's fx then you dont gain anything by taking the dry signal out of the box and inserting it again just to record the fx live.

You can monitor the fx live while you record the dry audio live then bounce the track to render the fx. You still end up with a dry track and an fx track with the ability to process the dry track any number of times with any fx you choose without having to record the audio again. For that great guitar lick you got right just that one time this is a tremendous help.

mudgel


This way there is no extra latency to deal with.

Of course Mike, I forgot about potential latency issues. I was just wondering.


thanks again

andy

If you use the External Insert plugin SONAR will do an automatic delay compensation setting. Manual over ride available of you need to calculate it manually

Look for it in Preferences/Audio/Sync and Caching/Record Latency Adjustment (samples)