HOW TO USE GUITAR OVERDRIVE (with Free Vst effects inside)

Hello and welcome to this week's article!
Today we're going to talk about Guitar Overdrive Stompboxes!
Overdrive is the sligh distortion effect generated, at the beginning unintentionally, from the tube amplifiers used around the fifties/sixties on a live environment: in order to produce a higher volume, they were driven at maximum, and the musicians started to notice that the sound was changing: it wasn't anymore clean and full of headroom like it used to sound at low volume, it was angrier, with more harmonic overtones, more compressed and the hot rodded tubes were producing a roar-like effect on the lower frequencies.
This effect became more and more sought after through the years, so the producers started manufactoring tools to add Saturation to the amplifiers without driving their volume to the maximum, therefore preserving the life of the Tubes;
these tools consisted basically into adding an Overdrive Channel to the amplifiers, with a higher input level and a sequence of Gain Stages in order to make te signal more and more distorted, and also in creating Overdrive Stompboxes of various kind, in order to push the level before even entering in the amplifier input.

Today Guitar Overdrive stompboxes are used basically for two reasons:

1 - To add sparkle and a little grit to a clean channel, especially by blues, jazz players and anyone who is looking for a vintage sound.

2 - To boost an already overdriven sound, in order to make a guitar solo cut more through the mix, or to play with the interaction between the overdrive and the distorted channel of the amplifier. This last method is mainly used by hard rock and heavy metal players: to get in the amplifier input with an already high level sound, but with no distortion, adds to the distorted channel of the amp a pleasant boost effect on the mid-hight frequencies, helping to achieve the "chugging" sound requested by the most modern and extreme metal genres.

Focusing on a Rock-Metal sound, the boost effect is achieved setting the overdrive with the level at maximum, the gain at zero, or anyway very low (this control is often used when trying to drive a clean channel, not when boosting an already distorted channel), and with the tone control around 12 o'clock. You can anyway cut or boost the tone setting in order to bring out more or less the mid frequencies, especially when using a strongly mid-oriented overdrive like the most famous of all stomp boxes: the Ibanez Tube Screamer.

There are many Vst simulations of guitar overdrive stomp boxes, reproducing virtually any overdrive pedal on the market, included the legendary Tube Screamer, and among those, we suggest you to try these free ones, which are impressingly good, especially when used for boosting a virtual amp:

Ignite Ts-999, based on a modded version of Ts-9

TSE 808, very realistic, now version 2.0

TS Secret, another good Tube Screamer emulator

Fretted Synth Drive Stomp, a guitar overdrive stompbox emulation


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HOW TO RECORD THE ACOUSTIC GUITAR (free Vst Plugins included)

Hello everybody and welcome to this new tutorial! Today we're going to talk about how to record an acoustic guitar, an instrument that needs to be reproduced as natural sounding as possible to be good, and that is the reason why it cannot be digitally recreated via synth in a credible way.
First off let's say that there are two ways to record an acoustic guitar: using a microphone, or (if the guitar has a pickup), using the jack output of the guitar itself.

- Using the Microphone: first off you need a microphone suited to record acoustic instruments, such as the Shure Beta57, but there are many others very good and probably cheaper, for example made by Sennheiser. Condenser microphones may be even better, but they need an acoustically treated room in order to play at their best, so check the environment carefully before choosing.
Now we need to find the "sweet spot" of the guitar where to point the microphone, keeping in mind those rules: if you point the microphone toward the bottom of the guitar or behind it, the sound will result very deep and full of bass frequencies, same is if you point toward the sound hole: you will get a bassy sound that captures the internal resonance of the guitar.
The more you move toward the neck, the more you'll capture the strings sound, so the higher you will go in the neck, the more the sound will be brilliant.
Obviously you'll have to hear and decide for yourself, but I would consider a good spot the area near the 12th fret: this is where the neck joins the body and is usually regarded as the best place to record the acoustic guitar, since it is where we capture a full and even frequency response from the instrument; not too bassy and not too brilliant. If you need some extra string sound, you could also place another mic at the first fret to capture the nuances of the strings. Click Here for a dedicated article about how to microphone an Amplifier.

- Using the pickup: Many acoustic guitars nowadays, even the cheaper ones, have built-in a piezo pickup, and a battery-powered preamp, sometimes even with an equalization section too!
To record the sample in the video for this article, I have used an Ibanez V70 Cent, a cheap acoustic guitar with a built-in preamp, a volume, bass and treble control, and a built-in tuner too.
So first off I have found a good compromise in the built-in equalization, slightly cutting the treble and boosting the lows to give it a more "round" tone, then I went with the jack straight to the input of my audio interface.

- Once you have the signal on your D.A.W., is time to process it. You can use any plugin you want, usually any D.A.W. has some processing plugin bundled, but if you need some, I suggest you the Reaplug Suite, which is freeware and it sounds great.
First off I'd suggest to Equalize, but be very gentle: we need to preserve the naturality and the tonal richness of the acoustic instrument, so there's no need to overprocess the signal: we may just use a high pass filter to take away the lows we don't need, such as the frequencies below 50hz, and gently subtract a little (-3db) in the areas around 100-300 hz and 1-3 khz, if the sound is a little boomy or needs to be more open and transparent. Boosting between 5khz and 10khz will add sparkle, cutting between 1khz and 3khz will reduce harshness.
For the solo parts, we can instead boost some decibel (e.g. 3), to the 5-7khz area, in order to add some presence.

Now it's time for Compression, which can be normal or multiband. For the normal compression, just set a ratio between 4:1 and 12:1, according to the dynamic range of the song (the more volume differencies between quiet and loud picking, the higher the ratio should be), short attack (around 20ms) and medium release times (around 0,5sec), and a threshold set to around -15db.
The Multiband Compression, instead, gives you the opportunity to choose the amount of compression to apply to the single frequency areas, which can be adjusted through the controls.
This may be useful, since it can be used as a halfway between a compressor and an equalizer, and can help to reduce volume and presence of single areas of your signal (for example the lows between 100 and 300hz) and boost others (between 5 and 7 khz), without changing the overall tone.

Once you are satisfied with your tone, you can add (if needed, especially if you have recorded directly from the jack output) a Harmonic Exciter to add some sparkle to the tone, or a Reverb, like Freeverb, set very low, just to give to your sound that little resonance that it needs to be realistic; we can use for example a Plate reverb to add vitality, with a decay time of between 2 and 3 seconds.

So the Chain is: Guitar->Equalization->Compression->Harmonic Exciter (if needed)->Reverb (If Needed)

Cheers everybody and Merry Christmas!!

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THE BATTLE OF THE PODS (comparison)

Hello! Somebody asked me to write an article to explain more clearly the differencies between the various Line6 products, if you think that there is some mistake please report it and I'll correct it.

POD 1.0: the first, revolutionary amp modeling simulator, created in 1998, is a milestone in the world of digital sound processors, and set a new standard of digital tone quality, changing the perspective of digital guitar tone: not a stompbox that adds colours to the amplifier, but a digital workstation that simulates itself the sound of other amps. The technology comes from the knowledge accumulated through the two amplifiers created in the previous two years: the combos Axsys and Ax2.

POD 2.0: the most famous. Published in 2001, this device has updated the 1.0 version with newer technologies (32 amp models, plus various effects), and it's still considered by many a standard, though talking about accuracy and harmonical richness it's been already surpassed by many competitors. The pod "classic" has received severeal firmware updates through the years, one of which  very substantial in 2006, to add the floorboard compatibility, and still today its technology is used for the Pocket pod, the Spider Serie, the floor pod/floor pod plus serie, the Flextone serie, and the Hd147 serie. The particularity of the spider (and pocket pod) serie is only in the presence, instead of the base sounds, of numerous presets done by simulating the sound of many famous artists.
This unit works in 16bit and 44khz, which may result limited for today standards, when compared with other units.

POD PRO: a Pod 2.0 in rack version, which adds more input and ouput connections, like the XRL output, and features a 24 bit signal routing, instead of 16. It occupies 2 rack units. 

POD XT: it represents a further evolution of the Pod family, featuring a new and updated hardware and software engine. It contains more amp models, an internal 24 bit routing, and a lcd display which graphically shows the amp-effect chain. It also introduced the concept of downoadable content packs with additional amplifier models and effects, sold separately (for example, fx pack, metal pack...), which expands even further the simulations available, adding more contents. The Pod XT technology is also used on the Flextone III amplifiers, and there is a floorboard version too: the Pod Xt Live.

POD XT PRO: it stands for Pod XT as the Pod Pro stood for the Pod 2.0. It has more outputs, which makes it very useful in the recording studio, especially thanks to an out dedicated to the REAMPING. Clearly there are more simulations and functions too, compared to the "bean" version. It occupies 2 rack units.

POD X3: It's an updated version of Pod XT which uses the same models in terms of software, but adds the possibility to pile up the sound of two different amps for the single guitar signal (for example you can obtain a sound with a Marshall amp and a Mesa Boogie amp layered), thanks to a remarkable hardware upgrade. It features also for the first time some preset specific for bass and voice, expanding the versatility of the unit up to trying to make it a "swiss knife" for the studio, as a multi use preamplifier, and Di-box too. The X3 Live is the floorboard version of this unit.

POD X3 PRO: Is the 2 unit rack version of the Pod X3, like for the other pods.

POD HD (bean, rack, floorboard): It brings even further the Pod Family, thanks to a hardware consisting in an upgraded version of the Pod X3's one, and a completely new software dotation. New amp models (for a total of 22, with the 1.3 firmware update), a better interface and display, presets for vocals and bass like for the Pod X3, and like that unit is possible to connect both vocals and guitar (or bass) on the same Pod at the same time, or using two different amps for a single guitar signal. The rack version features a dedicated out for the Line6 Variax guitar, and severeal other ins and outs.

I hope I've cleared your doubts through the ocean of the Line6 Pod offers: in the end they're all different generations of technology used for all of the Line6 products of that particular moment (the same that happens for example, in the car industry).

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