Edit: Mark Day over at Fractal guided me via email. After some resets and testing, he ended up recommending me to contact G66 for a warranty claim. He said
FM3 is running 4.00 beta 2.
TL;DR
Direct signal gets distorted during recording in DAW when using input pad above 0db no matter what guitar I use. Direct monitoring sounds just fine, only the recorded sound gets distorted. 0db input pad no longer has me tickling the red but actually mostly being in the red, which probably is an issue. I was on 6db pad previously which had me tickling the red.
I edited this post to remove mention of another issue regarding recording latency that was solved
___
While trying to see if the latency compensation worked, I made a preset with nothing but INPUT1 -> OUTPUT 1 (no amp, cab or anything) and tried to play as tiiiiight as I could, just to verify.
What I noticed was that the audio recorded in reaper was distorting when I played it back. I rendered it and listened to it again and it was still distorting. I was surprised because it sounds just fine when playing it straight to the speakers. It's just the recording that sounds funky and distorted.
Because of this, I messed around with the input pad which I previously had set to 6db (which was perfect for just tickling the red) and by setting the input pad to 0db, the distortion in the playback from Reaper stopped. It sounds just fine. Or well, more like how I expected a direct signal to sound.
Anything above 0db on the input pad makes the audio distort when playing anything above moderate attack when playing it back in Reaper. The problem is that with 0db I'm not just tickling the red, I'm full on assaulting it. Nearly everything I play puts me in the red, and striking any kind of chord has it staying on red for quite a while. That can't be good?! Although it does sound the same coming straight from FM3 to my speakers as it did with the 6db pad.
I have attached a picture of the waveforms of my two recordings where the first one sounds distorted and the second one sounds fine. They both look like they're clipping or maxing out but Reaper isn't registering either of them as clipping.
Here's an audio clip of what attached picture sounds like (VOLUME WARNING):
My guitar is a Strandberg Boden 7 Original with Fishman Fluence modern pickups. I know they're pretty hot pickups, but it kinda doesn't feel right. Tried changing the battery of the pups just to make sure and it did nothing.
Putting an amp and a cab and making a normal clean preset sounds fine with both settings. Maybe I'm just inventing a problem that has no real effect, but I just want to make sure that my input isn't clipping even though I can't hear it. I assume that would make me lose a lot of headroom and detail.
I tried recording with my Ibanez RGA121 with Bareknuckle Blackhawks (passives) and the problem is actually persistent on that guitar too! Soundclip of chords being strummed at moderate attack. VOLUME WARNING!
Same issue there regarding literally murdering the red at 0db and just tickling it at 6db. Any tips? Should I keep the input pad at 0db even thought it's nearly always on red? Why is this happening?
Sorry for the long thread, I suck at keeping things short. Thanks in advance for any replies.
__The Input pad setting should have no effect because as you probably know when we PAD the INPUT to the convertor we inversely boost the OUTPUT of the convertor. If the input pad setting is causing distortion it could mean that the unit requires service, please work with G66 going forward.
FM3 is running 4.00 beta 2.
TL;DR
Direct signal gets distorted during recording in DAW when using input pad above 0db no matter what guitar I use. Direct monitoring sounds just fine, only the recorded sound gets distorted. 0db input pad no longer has me tickling the red but actually mostly being in the red, which probably is an issue. I was on 6db pad previously which had me tickling the red.
I edited this post to remove mention of another issue regarding recording latency that was solved
___
While trying to see if the latency compensation worked, I made a preset with nothing but INPUT1 -> OUTPUT 1 (no amp, cab or anything) and tried to play as tiiiiight as I could, just to verify.
What I noticed was that the audio recorded in reaper was distorting when I played it back. I rendered it and listened to it again and it was still distorting. I was surprised because it sounds just fine when playing it straight to the speakers. It's just the recording that sounds funky and distorted.
Because of this, I messed around with the input pad which I previously had set to 6db (which was perfect for just tickling the red) and by setting the input pad to 0db, the distortion in the playback from Reaper stopped. It sounds just fine. Or well, more like how I expected a direct signal to sound.
Anything above 0db on the input pad makes the audio distort when playing anything above moderate attack when playing it back in Reaper. The problem is that with 0db I'm not just tickling the red, I'm full on assaulting it. Nearly everything I play puts me in the red, and striking any kind of chord has it staying on red for quite a while. That can't be good?! Although it does sound the same coming straight from FM3 to my speakers as it did with the 6db pad.
I have attached a picture of the waveforms of my two recordings where the first one sounds distorted and the second one sounds fine. They both look like they're clipping or maxing out but Reaper isn't registering either of them as clipping.
Here's an audio clip of what attached picture sounds like (VOLUME WARNING):
My guitar is a Strandberg Boden 7 Original with Fishman Fluence modern pickups. I know they're pretty hot pickups, but it kinda doesn't feel right. Tried changing the battery of the pups just to make sure and it did nothing.
Putting an amp and a cab and making a normal clean preset sounds fine with both settings. Maybe I'm just inventing a problem that has no real effect, but I just want to make sure that my input isn't clipping even though I can't hear it. I assume that would make me lose a lot of headroom and detail.
I tried recording with my Ibanez RGA121 with Bareknuckle Blackhawks (passives) and the problem is actually persistent on that guitar too! Soundclip of chords being strummed at moderate attack. VOLUME WARNING!
Same issue there regarding literally murdering the red at 0db and just tickling it at 6db. Any tips? Should I keep the input pad at 0db even thought it's nearly always on red? Why is this happening?
Sorry for the long thread, I suck at keeping things short. Thanks in advance for any replies.
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