Preset needed for recording acoustic guitar with Amplitube

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Preset needed for recording acoustic guitar with Amplitube

Postby Henry90 » Wed Jan 23, 2019 11:03 pm

Hello guys,

I am new to Amplitube! I am into recording some music in FL Studio and I am using Amplitube with my electrical guitar, but also my acoustic one, which I am recording to mic . What I would like to ask you is if you have some preset (I couldn't find any on internet) that sounds good with acoustic guitars. Can you please help me? Thanks a lot in advance!
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Re: Preset needed for recording acoustic guitar with Amplitu

Postby garfy » Thu Jan 24, 2019 11:38 am

Henry90 wrote:What I would like to ask you is if you have some preset (I couldn't find any on internet) that sounds good with acoustic guitars.


By recording your acoustic guitar with a microphone you are getting the sound as it is meant to be. As long as you are recording in a fairly good acoustic environment, you shouldn't need to use AmpliTube presets as these are amplifier simulations.

You may want to experiment with some light compression and a short reverb in FL to enhance the acoustic guitar.

However, if you actually want to run your acoustic guitar through an amp sim (nothing stopping you) be aware that it will radically alter the sound of the guitar.

I guess the question is, what are you hoping to achieve?
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Re: Preset needed for recording acoustic guitar with Amplitu

Postby Henry90 » Thu Jan 24, 2019 12:01 pm

garfy wrote:
Henry90 wrote:What I would like to ask you is if you have some preset (I couldn't find any on internet) that sounds good with acoustic guitars.


By recording your acoustic guitar with a microphone you are getting the sound as it is meant to be. As long as you are recording in a fairly good acoustic environment, you shouldn't need to use AmpliTube presets as these are amplifier simulations.
...


Hello Garfy,

first of all thanks a lot for your answer! Well, my electrical guitar is a good one (tried everything to get a nice acoustic sound out of it using multiple plugins and libraries and so on but at the end I gave up, opting for mic recording) but my acoustic guitar is not such an amazing guitar. I can change strings and so on to make it sound at its best but still the sound can never be that amazing. What was I hoping for is using some effect in Amplitube to enhance its sound. Some reverb and compression indeed.. maybe a nice amplifier that enhances the high and brilliant frequences, something like that. Do you have anything in mind?

And in case we stick to the reverb and compression you suggested, can this be applied in Amplitube?
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Re: Preset needed for recording acoustic guitar with Amplitu

Postby garfy » Thu Jan 24, 2019 1:00 pm

Henry90 wrote:maybe a nice amplifier that enhances the high and brilliant frequences, something like that. Do you have anything in mind? ?


Having never needed to attempt something like this I'm afraid I can't give you any specific suggestions.

The issue you are going to have doing this is that you are imparting the sound of an amp/cab onto your acoustic guitar, which it was not designed to do. The only time I've heard a band do this with any great success was Wheatus, but they did it to become part of their sound, not because the acoustic sounded bad (some might say it sounded bad because of it ;) )

You can switch the amp section off in AT, leaving you the mic'd cab and the room mics to play with so, in theory, if you can find a flat sounding cab you might be able to change the sound of the acoustic into something more usable, but it might take a lot of time.

Without hearing what the acoustic guitar sounds like, it's difficult to suggest how to fix it but here's somethings to consider:

1) It might not sound great by itself, but how does it sound in the mix with other instruments - this is more important.
2) Consider what doesn't sound amazing about the guitar? Is it the guitar itself or is it the recording? If it's the recording then change the mic you use, the position of it, the position of the player in the room or the room you record in. These will all have an effect on the recording. Take the time to experiment. For example, if you are recording in quite a dead room so the high frequencies come across as dull, place a sheet of hardboard shiny-side up on the floor underneath the guitar position - this will reflect the sound and bring some life back to it.
3) If it's the guitar and the recording you have made is the best you can get, then I maintain that using EQ, compression and (probably) reverb in your DAW will yield better results than anything in AT as it's an amp sim and not designed for anything else.
4) If you've tried all these things then I'm afraid it perhaps comes down to saving some money for a new acoustic guitar. But I think this will only need to be a last resort, there's plenty you can do to get a better recorded sound.

Hope that helps.
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Re: Preset needed for recording acoustic guitar with Amplitu

Postby Henry90 » Thu Jan 24, 2019 3:45 pm

garfy wrote:
Henry90 wrote:maybe a nice amplifier that enhances the high and brilliant frequences, something like that. Do you have anything in mind? ?


Having never needed to attempt something like this I'm afraid I can't give you any specific suggestions.

The issue you are going to have doing this is that you are imparting the sound of an amp/cab onto your acoustic guitar, which it was not designed to do. The only time I've heard a band do this with any great success was Wheatus, but they did it to become part of their sound, not because the acoustic sounded bad (some might say it sounded bad because of it ;) )
...


Couldn't hope for a better explanation!
I will try first of all to turn off the amp and use only the cab and mic (if I manage to find a good one since you said it may take a while).
If it doesn't work I will record anyway my track and apply some reverb, compression from FL Studio on top of it.
Plus all the possible modifications you listed. In case I am not satisfied I will try to post a sample here so maybe you can give me some tip.. for now I thank you big time :)
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Re: Preset needed for recording acoustic guitar with Amplitu

Postby carlaz » Fri Jan 25, 2019 6:55 pm

Amplitube would not be my first choice for processing "standard" acoustic guitar sounds recorded with, say, a condenser mic. (With piezo pickups only, it might be a different story, at least if you wanted to do something perhaps a little weird!) Still, yes, you could turn off everything but the rack section and load in the Tube Compressor and some reverb unit ... and that might work, who knows? But it's not really what Amplitube was designed to do.

To be frank, if you are recording into a DAW, then your DAW probably has stock compressor and reverb plug-ins that would probably offer you more flexibility for the purpose than what's in Amplitube (which, as the name suggests, is really aimed an electric guitars!). For that matter, if you want to go more "upscale", T-RackS has lovely compressor plug-ins (and probably reverb plugins, but I'm not a big reverb guy, so I don't know those very well), as perhaps do various other manufacturers.
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Re: Preset needed for recording acoustic guitar with Amplitu

Postby Anthony57Newcombe » Tue Jan 31, 2023 12:22 am

Another option available to you might be trying "Amplitube Accoustic"

https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/acousticios/

It seems to have a nice suite of effects tailored to the sounds you may be looking for.
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