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Hi folks.....I want to insert electric guitar tracks I play into some of my songs and I don't have a clue how to do it other than do an open recording through a mic.....is there some way to directly input into the DAW?  My wife will thank you if there's a way to do it without having the amp cranked up.  My DAW is Reaper 5.3 something.  Any help would be appreciated!

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Heya JH,

 

You need an audio interface that lets plug your guitar into your computer. Typically it's a a box box that on one end has a couple of quarter inch guitar jacks, and on the other end has a USB connection. You plug the guitar into the one of the jacks, plug the USB cable into your computer. Here is an example of one of these interfaces that a lot of people seem to like, you can get cheaper ones, but this one has a lot of fans.

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005OZE9SA

 

Once you've got this thing plugged into your computer, you should be able to configure Reaper to use it as an audio input. Then it's just a matter of making a new track, setting the input of that track to be whatever port your guitar is plugged into, and hitting record and rocking out.

 

You'll want to take a look at a visualization of the waveform that you get from recording your guitar and make sure you're getting reasonably sized set of waves, and you're not clipping all over the place. You'll want to adjust the gain, or your guitar's volume knob until you get a sound that doesn't clip or distort.

 

Now that sound you get out of your guitar is going to sound pretty boring. You'll want to download a free amp simulator to get some better sounds out of your guitar. You can get some free simulated amps from products like IK Multimedia's Amplitube 4, when you download their "custom shop" application. This will be a VST plugin that you can load onto the track that you recorded your guitar on. Other companies that sell virtual guitar amps/effects I think also have a free version that you can try out.

 

Good luck!

 

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Chumpy and Dave.....Thanks for the help!  You guys made my wife a happy woman!  It's the first time I didn't have have to 'convince' her I needed a music accessory.

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1 hour ago, JH Michaels said:

Chumpy and Dave.....Thanks for the help!  You guys made my wife a happy woman!  It's the first time I didn't have have to 'convince' her I needed a music accessory.

 

They're just yanking yer chain JH.

You were on the right road all along. You need to be bold and crank that amp up to No.11 man.

 

I know it upsets people and makes dogs bark, but just square it with the missus by offering to do the washing up and tell her shes lost weight. 

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lol .....good to know Rudi....I'll keep an eye out for those two from here on out!  and I'll tell her that the new travel guitar I bought was really a new set of diamond earrings when I left the store.....don't know what happened between there and home:eusa_think:

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Guitar Rig 

Amplitube

Waves GTR3

Overloud TH3

Should be free demos to try.

Plug any one of these into a track in your DAW software. Plug your guitar into your recording interface. Usually connects via usb. Put on the headphones. Simple.

 

Engage the monitor button while playing. If you notice latency make adjustments to the buffer for your audio interface. To avoid this play the track dry and add the amp sim after it's recorded.

This is my preferred method since it lets you listen to the different sounds after you record the track.

 

Here's a free amp sim Boogex mentioned elsewhere on SS. I'm sure there are more online. This will give you some idea.

https://www.voxengo.com/press/voxengo-boogex-2-2-free-guitar-amplifier-plugin-released-302/

 

One thing that really helps to get a more realistic sound is to also use guitar cabinet impulse responses. Some players will put a cabinet impulse response behind the amp sim or they put it in a seperate send. Some of the amp sim software includes impulse responses. If you want to get more creative, couple an amp sim to a convolution reverb using guitar cabinet impulse responses.

Convolution reverb can use a lot of CPU and not every DAW has a convolution reverb. This type of reverb can load signature audio responses from any space and you can put your mix into that space. It can also load guitar cabinet impulse responses, like, say, the sound you get from a Marshal 4x12" guitar speaker setup.

 

 

Edited by starise
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Thanks Starise.....good stuff....and free is usually a good price.

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