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Hi, I'm in the process of doing a new CD......and this time I have a few 'country tracks. I'm using my Martin for the acoustic sound & my Telecaster for the soloing. The only pedals I've ever used have been, Wah-Wah, Phaser, Chorus & Delay.......most of the time I go for a 'clean sound.
Now with this project I'm trying to play the Tele into a Behringer mixer......then try to create a "chicken pickin" sound in Sonar 8.5...and RealBand. Is there a "plug-in" that would help with this....or should I try and do it with EQ?
I can use a Fender Amp sim in Sonar.....and I have a few "plug-ins"....incl. Vintage 64. But can anyone advise the best route to take? Any....& ALL suggestions welcomed! Thanks, Joe G.



Hi Joe,

Perhaps the "classic" chick'n-pick'n sound is best defined by use of the Fender "Tweed" series of amplifiers along with the Tele. The early Tweed designs did not incorporate the higher fidelity negative feedback amplifier circuit that came along later. This allowed for a rather desirable situation where the amplifier could be set to be riding just on the edge of distortion, allowing the guitarist to em;phasize the "edge" by picking harder at certain times.

Therefore I'd be looking for Amp/Speaker simulator plugin that leans toward the Fender Tweed amp first, a close second and easier to find in plugins would be the infamous Fender Bass amp head with either a dual 12" cabinet simulator, or, if available in the plugin, the open backed 4 10" cabinet.

With the above in mind, let it be said that the art and science has evolved over the years and I think you will find that most modern players today will be using the more modern amplifier designs that do indeed incorporate the internal negative feedback anwyay. This is indeed a case where 'its in the fingers' more than anything the amp brings to the thing, give or take. Heck, last summer I enjoyed playing keyboards on a call gig with a young fellow who was using a Marshall and halfstack with a rather "goth" looking Les Paul hangin' around his neck - and he was quite adequately providing the chickpick solos when the songs on the band's playlist demanded that. *grin8

But first a word about using the mixer for direct injection of magnetic pickup electric guitar is in order.

Your Tele pickups demand a very high input impedance.

Many mixers built for home recording purposes or live sound reproduction do not feature an input impedance that is high enough, no matter which input you try to use.

For the righ sound, the electromagnetic guitar pickup should be driving into an input that is up around 1 MegOhm Impedance (That's 1 MILLION ohms) or half that figure at the least.

Most mixers will only provide about 10K of input impedance on the 1/4" Inputs, which are NOT instrument inputs for guitar, but actually LINE inputs for things that are powered, such as keyboards. The MIC inputs may have preamps in them to overcome the lack of gain that you will find when your guitar is plugged directly into the 1/4" line inputs - but the MIC inputs are LOW impedance, typically down around 600 ohms or so.

Plugging your guitar pickup directly to the mixer results in what we call, "LOADING DOWN" the output, which affects frequency response to the bad side of things. Not desirable at all.

Best to feed your DAW and its fine Amp/Spkr simulation plugins the proper signal so that it will have the proper frequencies to do its thing with in the first place. Also this means the proper signal amplitude as well.

A mic preamp that also includes a high impedance instrument input can be used and I have found these to be the most desirable choice. Something like the ubiquitous ART TUBE preamp works very well and is available at attractively low prices. A plus here is that you also gain a rather nice tube mic preamp for your srsenal. If looking for something a bit better than that, actually a LOT better, it may cost as much as 4 to 5 times the low price of the ART tube, but well worth it, check out the Studioprojects VTB-1, a little mic/instrument pre that can hold its own when up against very expensive "boutique" designs.

Some folks use a passive or active Direct Box for impedance matching of their Direct Injected e-guitar to the mixer, this will work also, I prefer the tube preamp method as the little things have much more use and versatility in the home studio.

Also - you could use a guitar amplifier that has solid state transformerless output so that you can disconnect the speaker and run the amp without damage (do NOT do this with a tube amp!!) and if the amp has an Effects Send or Line Output on it, you can run that to your mixer and it will provide the proper input impedance for your guitar as well. Then add the amp/speaker simulation plugin to the sound recorded.

Guitar jacked directly into mic mixer sounds like poo.

--Mac

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