Neural DSP and the myths about input gain and why I'll not turn my gain on the interface down to 0.

Подписаться 10

Просмотров 1,1 тыс.

50% 1

A lot of smart guys (‪@johnnathancordy‬ ‪@RabeaMassaad‬ ‪@NeuralDSP‬ ‪@eds4754‬ ) recently made some videos about the appropriate input gain when using Neural DSP plugins. The consent seems to be: turn your gain knob down to zero. And maybe even reduce the input gain in the plugin a little further.
I'm not sure if this is really needed or even the best you can do. There are some sources which tell you about the sweet spot of THD+Noise of ADCs depending on input levels and also there are still trustworthy sources out there (like ‪@Bernthguitar‬) who made videos about this and leveled their signal up quite a bit. And you can always turn down the gain level in your plugin right before it hits the virtual preamp section of the modelled components.
I did an (pretty obvious) comparison and then showed how I did it before and probably will keep it doing.
References
support.focusr...
unity.neuralds...
neuraldsp.com/...
unity.neuralds...
www.reddit.com...
www.reddit.com...
www.reddit.com...
www.reddit.com...
www.reddit.com...
www.reddit.com...
www.reddit.com...
www.reddit.com...
www.reddit.com...
www.reddit.com...
www.reddit.com...
• I Finally Learnt To Li...
• How to set the PERFECT...
• We've ALL Been Using G...
• Neural DSP Has A Problem
• You're Using Guitar Pl...
• I Finally Learnt To Li...
• How to set the optimal...

Опубликовано:

1 окт 2024

Ссылка:

Скачать:

Готовим ссылку...

Добавить в:

Мой плейлист

Посмотреть позже

Комментарии : 23

@whenifeellikeit 10 дней назад

Your B input signal is clipping...I see it on the bottom left of the screen. That's why the sound is distorted in B clips.

@eds4754 5 месяцев назад

If the noise of the pickups is 20dB louder than the self noise of the interface, turning the preamp gain to minimise the interface noise is going to turn up the pickup noise so you aren’t really going to hear a benefit. If your interface noise is close to the level of the background noise of the pickups, and there is available headroom, then it would be worth increasing the gain to improve SNR. But this is rarely the case. Regarding the rest of your video - it is based on “which sounds better?” rather than “which sounds most accurate to plugging your guitar into the real amp?”. No matter what input level you use, you can boost and adjust settings creatively to get what you need. The goal of using a calibrated input level is so you can achieve an accurate gain response from any amp model.

@eds4754 5 месяцев назад

The other point, is that it’s less about turning it to 0 and more about knowing what amount of headroom you are recording at. You can record at any level and adjust accordingly if you know the headroom. In reality, most users won’t have the tools to measure their headroom (requires a reamp box and multimeter). Most interfaces these days purposefully spec their DI inputs so there is a healthy level signal at 0 gain, and they also provide the maximum headroom specs at these settings. 12dBu is commonly used, because it’s equal to about 3V, which also happens to be the maximum level you can get from high output humbuckers. This would give a signal that is just below clipping, so there is no need to boost any higher.

@gainlovingcriminal 5 месяцев назад

Thank you @ed4754 for clarification. I really appreciate it. So you'd recommend to turn the gain all way down to zero (at least for the focusrite interfaces) to get an accurate response from the plugin? That's pretty reasonable to me. But why not just reducing the input gain in the plugin instead? I feels so counterintutive (at least for me) to have a nearly dead peak meter and waveforms that look like silence.

@eds4754 5 месяцев назад

@@gainlovingcriminal Well, in the instance of something like a Focusrite that has 12dBu of headroom - to avoid clipping with humbuckers youd have to keep the gain near 0 anyway. 12dBu is approx 3V - high output humbuckers and 9V pedals will be JUST below clipping already. Also, as I mentioned above, the signal to noise ratio can only be as good as the loudest source of noise in the chain. The background noise of the pickups is going to mask over any interface noise. There is nothing stopping you recording louder and lowering the level in the DAW - to do this accurately you either need an interface with stepped gain so you can work out how much to attenuate by, or you’d have to measure the headroom by sending a known voltage sine wave in and working out what dBFS level it corresponds to. I don’t actually record with my interface at 0 as I use an external DI box that I have measured the headroom of. As long as you know the headroom you’re tracking with you can accurately calibrate. Having the gain at 0 isn’t a requisite, it’s just a sensible, accurate and quick way for most people (and the interface will usually provide an ideal signal like that). Hope that helps!

@gainlovingcriminal 5 месяцев назад

Thank you so much for your insights!

@rudycastillo6369 4 месяца назад

so so this is confusing with the scarlett 2i2 gen 4 when u hit the instrement input it auto goes to 7 what would be a good gain range for nueral dsp

@burchwoodstudio2548 4 месяца назад

When you played a clean tone without input gain on Scarlett you couldn't see the audio signal. I'm having the same problem. Any ideas to be able to see the audio signal without increasing the audio interface gain?

@gainlovingcriminal 4 месяца назад

That's one of the problems. As long as there's no way to scale up the waveforms only visually you have no other chance than to normalize the signal. And then you must lower it again in the channel strip with a gain plugin or the input level in the amp simulation afterwards. But in this case you'd be better off with recording the signal with gain as it's the same (even slightly better) result with fewer steps.

@rudycastillo6369 5 месяцев назад

i have a scarlett 2i2 gen 4 and i use neural dsp plugins what should i put my input gain on my plugin at

@gainlovingcriminal 5 месяцев назад

If you turn down the input gain on your scarlett to zero you do not need to change the input gain on the plugin. If you raise your input gain on the scarlett, you need to reduce the input gain in the plugin for the same amount. You probably need to eye- and earball this as the scarlett has no way to exactly set the amount of gain.

@rudycastillo6369 5 месяцев назад

@@gainlovingcriminal see the thing is when i click on the instrement input on the scarett 2i2 gen 4 it brings it to 7 automatically

@gainlovingcriminal 5 месяцев назад

⁠@@rudycastillo6369That's what @eds4754 had mentioned. What's your DAW and which kind of pickups are you using?

@rudycastillo6369 5 месяцев назад

@@gainlovingcriminal studio one and seymour duncan nazgul and sentent set

@rudycastillo6369 5 месяцев назад

@@gainlovingcriminal duncan nazgul set with studio one daw