User manual LINE 6 POD FARM RECORDING SETUP GUIDE

[. . . ] RecoRding Setup guide Using Line 6 Hardware & POD Farm with Popular Recording Applications Table of Contents Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1·1 Installing Line 6 Audio Drivers and POD Farm Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1·1 About POD Farm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1·1 Updating & Registering with Line 6 Monkey. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1·1 Product Activation & Authorization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [. . . ] If the audio recorded in the audio track is already rather high, then adding some POD Farm Amp and Effects models (especially distortion and compressor effects) can raise the gain further, resulting in clipping. Use the Amp & Effects' volume and gain controls moderately, and then use the Input and Output knobs called out above in POD Farm Plug-In to keep the levels consistent. Monitoring with POD Farm Plug-In As described in the preceding Pro Tools LE recording setup sections, there are some specifics to configuring your audio track and Mbox 2 (or other Digidesign hardware) to monitor your input signal while recording. Here are a few options for monitoring when using POD Farm Plug-In. Pro Tools LE Software Monitoring One practice is to plug your instrument or mic directly into your Mbox 2 and record it's unprocessed signal into the audio track so that you can use a Plug-In on the track to then non-destructively add amp, cab and effects to it. For this setup you'll need to load POD Farm Plug-In on the audio track 5·40 Digidesign Pro Tools LE 7 Setup - Mac Insert, then arm the track and keep it un-muted so that you can adjust the Mbox 2 Mix knob to hear your input signal running through the audio track. Pro Tools LE audio track - armed, with POD Farm Plug-In loaded as an Insert You can use any POD Farm Plug-In settings you like since it is "non-destructively" effecting the track monitoring and playback. This allows you to hear your input signal with POD Farm applied, while the raw, unprocessed input signal gets recorded. The drawback with this setup is that it takes a fraction of a second for the input signal to pass through the Pro Tools software, through any insert Plug-Ins and then back out your speakers or headphones. This amount of delay is referred to as "latency" and what you hear all the computer recording geeks rant about on all the computer audio forums. You can minimize the latency by lowering your Pro Tools audio engine buffer size, but note that the lower the buffer setting the more CPU demands are placed on your computer. Using Line 6 Hardware for Monitoring Externally Another option is to use an external hardware mixing console as follows to allow you to split the input of your instrument or Mic into two signals. Then plug one of these inputs into your Line 6 device, and the other input into your Digidesign interface: · Plug your Instrument or Mic into a channel on your mixing console. · From this mixer channel, route the signal out one of the mixer's Sends so that you can then plug one into the Mic/Instrument input of your Line 6 hardware, and the other into the Mic/Line In of your Mbox or other Digidesign hardware. · Connect the Analog Outs from your Line 6 hardware back into another channel of mixing console and route the channel to your monitor system. This channel will monitor only the output of your Line 6 device. · Connect the Mon Outs from your Mbox into its own stereo channel on the mixing console and route the channel to your monitor system. This channel will monitor the playback of your Pro Tools session. · Launch the POD Farm Standalone application and dial in whatever tone you want for your monitoring signal, which you'll be able to hear with nearly zero latency. (Or, if you are using a PODxt or POD X3, dial up your preferred Tone on it). · Configure your audio track in Pro Tools to record from the Digidesign hardware's Mic/Line Input you are connected to and Arm the track for recording. You should keep the track Muted while recording since you do not want to hear the unprocessed signal coming into the track. · Once you are done recording, you can then un-mute the Pro Tools track and load POD Farm Plug-In as an insert on the track. It is now up to you to either call up the same settings you used in the POD Farm Standalone application (or PODxt/POD X3) to monitor with, or tweak the Plug-In to achieve any tone you want for the track. 5·41 Digidesign Pro Tools LE 7 Setup - Mac Using POD Farm Plug-In with Aux Sends Another method to using Plug-Ins in Pro Tools LE is to add one instance of a Plug-In as an Insert on an Aux track, and then route a Send from multiple audio tracks to the feed into the Aux track so that all the tracks can be processed with the same, single Plug-In. This can be very useful if you want to do something like use the same Analog Delay effect on several different tracks - it is a very inefficient use of CPU power to load several separate instances of POD Farm Plug-In as inserts on multiple audio tracks. The better practice is to load one POD Farm Plug-In instance on an Aux track, and then route a Send - this can all be done in the Pro tools LE Mix window as shown here. . . In this example, both Audio Track 1 and 2 each have a Send established, with the output set to Bus 1-2. [. . . ] See the Cubase documentation regarding creating a Project Template. Open or Create a New Cubase Project. . . Go to File > New Project to start a new Cubase Project. Once your Project is open, look at the bottom left of the Cubase screen to check its Sample Rate & Bit Depth. If these are not what you want, then you can go to the Project > Project Setup dialog. (Note that it is best to set the Sample Rate and Bit Depth first in the Line 6 Audio-MIDI Devices, as shown in the first step of this chapter - you did follow that step, right?) 6·82 Steinberg Cubase 4 Setup - Windows Look at the Cubase Project's Sample Rate & Bit Depth at the bottom left of the main Cubase window 44, 100 Hz is a good choice for your Sample Rate, or you can choose 48, 000, 88, 200 or 96, 000 Hz if your project specifically requires one of these higher rates. [. . . ]