Using ASIO for Gituar. Very Noisy

ROBSCIX

Hey guys, I am just getting into this ASIO thing I have a bunch of apps and free ware effects but when I enable the audio path to my guitar and turn the volume up it is like way to noisy to do any type of live playing any ideas guys?

TravelRec.

Is it a difference between ASIO and WDM or have you connected your guitar first time with the computer? In all cases you need a low-noise preamp to get a decent guitar signal without or with very low background noise. If you want to build a cheap but powerful module, you know....

dj_stick

Are you using a DI box, output from your amp, or one of the pre-amps on your mixer?

The DI box and the output from the amp are pretty much the same thing, and are the right way to go, to get the correct impedence and level

however if you using a mic preamp from a mixer, you get an impedence mis-match, which may mess up your sound…

ROBSCIX

I have a digitech RP100, I put it into bypass mode, this will give me a clean guitar signal into the PC, then when I add any type of distortion or such it is just TOO noisy. I have used many different types of distortions, and nothing ever sounded like this, I get some good sounds as long as I am playing but as soon as I mute it with my palm or such I can hear, just noise..what am I doing wrong..I figured it may be because I am turning the gain up on the sound card so much that I can hear all the nasty EMI going on inside my case. IF I just use WDM and RP100 using distrotion it's fine....any ideas? I am totally new to this ASIO thing..but I want to learn it, I definatley see alot of creative possibilities...THX for any help.
BTW would it be better to connect the bypassed RP100 to my mixer first and the use the mixer to adjust signal levels?..

ROBSCIX

I thought the card itself my be picking up noise and adding it to the signal, I am gonna mess with it today..I have been playing with amplitube and if I can get the noise gate set properly it's all fine....Why is it SOOO noisy though? I have used stop boxes and such and nothing ever sounded like this. Do you have any idea of a good way to set things up so I can keep the noise to a minimum?

Maddogg6

Use good cables, turn off tube tv/monitor, florescent lights, AC motors etc...
Try not bypass the rp100 - try instead set it to a clean sound - and use a noise gate.

OR - are you saying its noisier with ASIO than WDM with exact same connectsion? - if this is the case, Im lost.

Btw - its best if you can send SPDIF out of the rp100 to the soundcard - even still, tvs and such will still add noise.

TravelRec.

Try to make a recording and post the link here - it may be easier to find the problem if we can hear the kind of noise; make some different settings during recording.

dj_stick

if you can, send the guitar from a DI box to the mixer, and use your mixer's insert point for the RP100, see if that helps

ROBSCIX

it's like if I try to get a usable distortion like a metal type sound the distortion is so high gain that it's picking up everything...is that possible? like if you guys do something similar use a high gain distortion do you hear like constand noise and such?..I will try and make a clip and post later..

Russ

Do not use bypass mode. It raises the noise floor by about 10dB.
Set AC97 to 100% and connect a peak meter to it in the DSP. Disconnect the cable that you use to connect your guitar to the RP100 (at the RP100 end), so you should only see the noise floor on the peak meter (or noise added by the RP100 and the cable going to your sound card). Try enabling bypass mode, and try some clean presets on the RP100 and see how it effects the peak meter (I think you will find thet bypass mode is noisier, like it is on my RP200). Then re-connect the cable from your guitar, but turn the volume knob on the guitar all the way down. See if the cable adds any noise. Then turn your volume up and mute the strings and see if the pickups (hot pickups can be noisy) or electronics on the guitar are adding any noise. Any noise that is added to the signal in the beginning is only going to be amplied as you increase the gain, so start with as clean a signal as possible.

Russ

BTW: What VST are you using?

You might want to give Free AMP SE a try. It is a little heavy on the CPU, but it has some half decent presets, and lots of configuration possibilities (and it's free).

ROBSCIX

I was using a free one called nails pedal board I htink I have free amp around..Russ what do you use for a host? Like that nails pedal board I use then it lets me load up VST effects...how do you configure your setup. I like the Metal type saturated distortion...but I can't get anything useable...

Lex Nahumury

Why? Very simple and I don't see why that is so hard to understand.

The further down the signal chain a Distortion Section is placed, the noisier it gets!
Why? Because every single electronic part (all cables, passive electronics, active electronics)
in that chain produces noise which all gets accumulated.
Then you put a distortion section (which is actualy a high gain amplifier) behind
that accumulated noise which amplifies it approx. 500x!!
That becomes very audible.

Now look at your signal chain counting from your guitar;

cable->RPxxx->cable->LineIn->AC97_device->AD_converter->DSP+HighGain_Distortion.

I count 6 noise producing stages before High Gain occurs.
Now AC97 device produces quite some noise.
Add to that the accumulated noise from all other 5,
and there you are 'at the beach'.

I hope you see now why your RPxxx fuzz, or a stompbox doesn't sound so noisy.
That is because their High Gain Distortion section is placed right after the guitar
at the very beginning of the signal chain.

It's all about amplifying accumulated noise,
so keep the signal path before HighGain;
- as short as possible
- as noiseless as possible (low noise cables and equipment)

Never use more High Gain then you need.
Put a noisegate *before* the HighGain in DSP.

Done right one can get an almost noiseless metal shread sound.

HTH

Russ

I mainly use Kristal Audio Engine as the host.
It is hard to recommend specific settings, as different gear (i.e. different pickups, even different guitar strings) can have a big effect on the sound.

What type of metal music do you like (metal covers a wide range of sound these days)?

ROBSCIX

SO the how does one use a guitar and VST effects for distortion?..sounds impossible, you could use other effects but if you use distortion then you will get this noise correct? I am out of luck here then is that what your saying? how does one "do it right" to get a almost noise less metal shred sound? I understand what your saying but I am pretty new to ASIO, can you impart some wisdom as to how this noiseless setup would be acheived?

ROBSCIX

I will have to give it ago when in front of my machine...

Lex Nahumury

But is has nothing to do with ASIO!
It doesn't matter (regarding to noise) wheter you use a high gain clipper in ASIO or in kX DSP.
Both kX DSP and ASIO are DSP!
Once you are in the digital domain, the risk of adding noise (in the sense we talk about here) is very small.
That is one advantage of DSP over Analog signal processing.
DSP does not add 'analogish' noise, it merily amplifies the analog noise you put into it.

I, and the other guys who posted here, already explained how to achieve
"low noise high gain distortion" guitar sounds, so again:

1. Make sure your input signal path is as short and noiseless as possible.
Guitar->Cable->LowNoise Pre-amp ->Cable->LineIn ......

After the bold printed section there's little you can do or change
because that's all on the card.

Now you may see why NI's Guitar Rig and Waves GTR Rack comes with a piece of hardware.
Those are basicly 1 single LowNoise Pre-Amps with Impendance conversion to achieve the same as I depicted above.

2. Once the signal is in kX DSP and/or ASIO DSP, there's no more noise added
no matter how much EQ's or whatever you put before the HighGain stage.
But since HighGain happens here in DSP/ASIO, it will amplify all the analog noise you have put into it.
Well, if you did step 1 correctly, that input noise will be acceptably low but still audible
when you don't play and there's no other music to mask it.
A properly set noise gate *before* the HighGain stage will deal with that bit
and voila,... there you have a quiet High Distortion Guitar sound.

Btw; There's no such thing as "Noise Free", only "Low Noise".
Noise will always be present.
The big trick is, 'how to keep that noise as low as possible compared to the actual signal".
That is called SNR, Signal to Noise Ratio.
That applies here as well as in HiFi or Pro Audio applications.

HTH,

/Lex

Maddogg6

A noise gate after the preamp can help a lot for palm mutes & rests

Lex Nahumury

Yes, but that does not gate the noise coming from AC97/ADC device circuitry
and will add an extra noise source to the chain.

Better is to use a DSP Noise gate *before* HighGain in DSP (like I mentioned 2 times now)
which is free and does not add extra noise.

ROBSCIX

I know it is not the ASIO technology causing this...I don't mean to upset people. OK so your saying the way I am doing it with the RP 100 in either clean or bypass is probably a no,no becuase it is adding alot of noise..then it gets to the ASIO host where I use a high gain distortion and it's boosting my noise as well? So if I add a noise gate first off in the ASIO host the my Distortion would that help? I am thinking maybe this RP100 is just a little to cheap to provide a low noise signal...do you think I should get another device? I like the idea of having all these effects at my finger tips...so I will do whatever I have to to get it working right....Do I have what I need to get it running right?
basically I have Guitar>cord>RP100(bypass/clean)>Cord>linein, I need the RP100 as a level converter for the guitar...thx for the info guys I appreciate it..
I will put your advice into practice today and see how much lower I can get the noise floor..thx

Russ

Do the tests with the peak meter that I mentioned previously, to see what the noise level you are starting with is.

I get good results with my RP200 (It adds very little or no noise to the signal, unless in bypass mode). i.e. (no difference on the peak meter, if it is powered ON or OFF. Additionally my guitar and cable adds little or no noise to the signal.

Try this setting:
RP100 set to some accoustic preset (I have a built-in preset called accoustic on my RP200).
AC97 connected directly to ASIO in the DSP. (use a peak meter to adjust the level of line in, so that it max's out at around -3 to -6 dB).
Use Free AMP SE set to the Harmon 2 preset (but turn off the reverb (the green pedal on the bottom right), and turn up the gate (near the top right of the VST window) threshhold (around 60%) and turn down the decay (to 0)).
Use the bridge pickups on the guitar with the tone controls up all the way.
See how that works for you (play with the gate settings to find what works best for you (you may want to disable that gate and use the one in the DSP instead, as I think it is probably better)).

TravelRec.

In my opinion it´s not that complicated as it seems to be, so all is a thing of signal level and matching - like said above. I don´t know the RP100 - if it´s good, why not. The only thing I know is, that a simple and hyper-cheap operational amplifier TL071 and some resistors and good foil capacitors have such a great performance specially with electric guitar - you don´t need any other thing to get a fat and clean signal into your computer. If you have a soundcard with the UDA second codec, switch the line input to this codec and you will get also 10 db lower noise on the input stage.
Greetings.

ROBSCIX

OK, so I should load up the ADC connect that Directly to the ASIO module?...which inputs?
My host has options for setting ASIO in's and ASIO out's..sorry I am a bit of a noob when it comes to ASIO..I really appreciate the help though...Also is it possible just to use my mixer instead of the RP 100? or would I get a impedance matching issue?

Russ

I would do as TravelRec says, considering you seem to not want to use the RP100. I use my RP200 because I like it (I mean I actually use it), but if I did not want to use it, I would build something to do the job.

As for which ASIO inputs, it really doesn't matter, so long as you select the correct one's in your host.

Maddogg6

I like using SPDIF out of my guitar effects processor - I avoid ALL the noise intruduced post preamp. - So just from the guitar to the FX processor - is my only real concerns for noise. The PC itself is capable of adding ALOT of noise in itself. (CD ROM/HDD/Fan motors, CPU RF emmissions etc..) As, I find I get WAY more noise when I plug directly into the PC - as opposed to using a pre-amp first.

Also - does the RP100 have LINE and AMP outputs - if so use LINE.
Or maybe you can set this in software - adjusting the output levels higher maybe??

ROBSCIX