I have a question for the Git-Pickers in the community that use an amp sim on stage. I have been using sims for quite some time without too much trouble. But, for some reason, I began having problems the past several months getting volume levels the same throughout song changes. A few examples would be:
Loading song 1- volume would be perfect, use my guitar volume to increase volume and get a little crunch out of the sim.
Loading song 2 - volume too loud, sim hums, have to reduce stage amp gain and balance volume on audio interface.
Loading song 3 - volume almost non-existent, sounds like it is not going through the sim at all. Increasing stage amp or interface gain does very little to change it.
At the most, I play guitar on stage about 1/4 of the time, so I am switching keyboard setups in between guitar loads. I use my custom guitar setup without effects, just amp and cab, in those 3 songs, but still get the problem. I was wondering if there is something I am doing wrong in the sim, in the interface, or something in my C3 setup?
do you use a volume pedal binding or other foot controller?
I use a linked rack for S-Gear and have rack states for any different tones and then trim the song volumes for the rack using the rack master slider. I don’t if that’s relevant but shows how i go.
Thanks for the response Dave. I narrowed my sim collection down to Overloud TH3 and Amplitube. The sim is in a linked rack, although I have also tried it out of a rack with same results. I do use a Line 6 shortboard to change states and activate a tuner, but do not use the pedal for volume, just occasional wah. I will try your suggestion on the rack master.
I also wondered if there was something I was doing wrong in the interface settings as well. BTW, loved S-Gear, just had a preset reload problem, but I may revisit it as a master rack with different states.
Line 6 has always had this problem in their stuff- no way to level match patches to each other. And they should know better. Are you saying this is a glitch or is it just that TH3 and Amplitube aren’t designed well?
It has to be a glitch, or pilot error. TH3 has worked extremely well in the past. Amplitube has always been stable as well. This started happening before I added the Line 6 pedal. It kinda feels like the sim is not in the chain to my outs, or is cranked up to the max and beyond.
Thanks for the try. I was on stage Friday night when a well known artist was invited up to perform. I switched to guitar and…ugh ! Wimpy little sound on a rocking tune. So embarrased ( or bare assed).
Hey there
Are there any conditions under which you can recall a setup and have it work correctly?
I presume you don’t walk on stage without having tested the various permutations and locking those down …
So is it something that happens on the way?
Is there sonething in the previous recall that impacts the next in the queue ?
I use my customized settings previously set and saved. Everything loads properly and I can verify the setting in the GUI, but it is as if I am only getting the unprocessed input only. My levels show to be good in the sim, not so much in C3. Then, occasionally, It will load and be to the max gain, even though the settings remain the same. I suspected my audio interface, but can’t verify it. Most of the time, my settings work, but I just never know when I will be Pete Townshend-ing or transitor radio-ing. I’ve checked cables also. This doesn’t seem to be plugin related as it has happened in other amp sims. I am narrowing it though. I will start checking your question on previous recall possibly affecting next que.
If you are having varying gain problems and sometimes you get the guitar input only, I would check the mixer software of your audio interface: does it maybe react to MIDI commands and is it receiving any from your foot controller (or from Cantabile via virtual MIDI cable)? Sounds like your signal routing gets messed up - this can happen at the audio inferface mixer level or within Cantabile
The alternative scenario is that your routing gets messed up inside Cantabile - have you looked at your audio routing to and from the guitar sim?
I use a linked S-Gear rack extensively in my guitar setups. I’ve leveled my guitar volumes with the help of some metering plugins - plus some leveling “by ear” against a backing track - and my guitar levels are very well under control.
I would suggest putting your guitar signal chain into a linked rack to help diagnosing your problem: route your guitar input to the rack (and only to the rack), then the rack output to main output. When looking at your various guitar songs, you can then easily check the rack output level and see if the issue lies with the guitar plugin chain, in Cantabile’s routing or elsewhere…
Diagnosing would be easier if you could share some screenshots of your song setups - with the routings exposed.
Here’s an idea… record some DI clean guitar and run it from a media player into your guitar racks. That way, the interface will have nothing to do with chain - even if you run on your laptop’s internal speakers.
Thanks for the insight. I am using the Scarlett Mix Control on my Focusrite interface, so I will monitor that. The audio routing looks good in Cantabile, but I will double check it. I will get back with some screen shots. Thanks so much !!
Torsten, I went to the specific song that hung me out to dry last Friday. I was using Overloud TH3 as my amp sim. It sounded weak and un-processed. I pulled up the plugin GUI and, sure enough, no signal in or out. I checked all my routings, and they looked good. I could not figure out why the audio signal was not being processed. So…I re-read your suggestions. Even though I had several of the sim settings in a rack, this one was was not in a rack. I deleted the plugin, and loaded my Overloud rack in it’s place. KA-CHING ! It worked just fine. I do not really understand why it worked out of a rack, but I will take it! I plan to do some leveling per your suggestion as well. I also plan to re-visit S-Gear again after having many problems loading presets in the past. I still have several songs to test to be sure this solved my problem. Many thanks for the help from you and the others. Hopefully I can mark this “solved” soon.
Corky
Edit:
@Torsten I started all over and created my rack with my personal settings in different states, instead of using all the available presets as states. Tried it live in 2 gigs, and worked very well. I now have to level my gains and should have everything working perfectly. This also solved my problems with S-Gear ! Thanks again for your help! As usual you are “Da Man”!