Gear Review: Line 6 Pod Studio UX1

If you've been reading here for a while, you know that my previous guitar recording interface, the Lightsnake, had some serious limitations and generally left me pretty unhappy with the results. I can say now that the Lightsnake has been retired, and has been replaced with a Line 6 POD Studio UX1. After playing with it for about a week, I think I've seen enough to give it a proper review.

The Hardware
To kick things off, let's look at the box itself. The UX1 connects via USB, and all power is handled through the USB cable - no additional power supply needed. On the front of the box, there are 3 ports; one XLR jack, one 1/4" unbalanced instrument input, and a 1/4" headphone jack. On top of the box are a power light and 2 knobs: Mic Gain and Output. No big surprises in the function of each of those items. The back of the unit has jacks for two 1/4" analog outputs, two 1/4" Line Inputs, one 1/4" Stereo Monitor line in, as well as the USB socket.

As you might imagine, you can record from any of the inputs, except the Stereo Monitor line in - that acts as a pass-through for anything you want to show up in the mix but not be part of the "recordable" input.

Sound Card
Oh, did I mention it functions as a complete sound interface, including output? That's right. It comes with its own ASIO driver which you can easily tap into with most any audio software that supports ASIO. When I connected REAPER to the "ASIO UX1", then ALL of my audio output from REAPER was directed at the UX1. I have read where this can be confusing if you don't think about what you're doing, but it's a good thing. In my case, I have a moderately cheap sound card in my PC. With this, I don't really have to worry about upgrading that card, since I'm bypassing it for my audio work.

Latency? We Don't Need No Steenking Latency...
One admirable trait of the UX1 is that it is able to pass through the input audio to the output WITHOUT waiting for the PC to handle it directly. This gives you effectively zero latency in the monitors, even if you have a relatively high latency setting in the ASIO driver itself.
From my testing on an existing project, I have reduced the slips and stutters in my system from being a frequent occurrence to flawless audio by incorporating the UX1 into my setup.

Is It Clean?
If you read my review of the Lightsnake, you'll know it was a dirty, dirty interface, with odd pulses of interference and general noise. The UX1 suffers from NONE of those problems. Line 6 boasts a greater than 100 dB signal to noise ratio, and I believe it. Running the same spectrographs on the signal from the UX1 yielded a much cleaner signal, with a slight noise level in the lowest extremes of the graph, but nothing audible and it was a steady baseline, so it essentially vanishes when you record.

Bundled Software
The POD Studio UX1 comes bundled with 3 programs: Riffworks T4, Ableton Live Lite 7 Line 6 Edition, and POD Farm. I haven't played with Riffworks yet, and I already know that Ableton is a very cut-down version of that program, supposedly tailored to the hardware bundled with it. Considering this is stripped even further than the LE version, I'm not too interested in it. POD Farm is where the real second stage fun comes in.

POD Farm
POD Farm replaces the former Gearbox software that used to be bundled with Line 6 interfaces. The idea and many of the features are the same, but POD Farm has a much slicker interface. POD Farm includes a stunning array of software models of amps, effects, and cabinets that you plug together in a very obvious signal chain on screen. These are mostly based on real gear, including Marshall's JCM-800, Fender's Deluxe Reverb, and even the Orange AD30TC. They give cute names in the program, but they are very forthcoming on what the sounds are modeled after on their web site. Anyway, you have pretty much the gauntlet of gear to work with - certainly more than the home studio could ever hold much less afford - and there are additional model packs available to buy from Line 6 in case you are craving more gear. While more options are always better, I'm sure what I have will more than meet my tonal needs for quite some time to come. POD Farm also allows you to break your signal into dual signal chains, so you can get some really powerful and wild sounds going.

Playing Standalone
POD Farm works great as a standalone program. It gives you some nice options - like sending not only the fully processed signal out (to your DAW), but also sending the unprocessed/raw signal out (to your DAW) at the same time. So you can record the completely dry signal at the same time you record it fully effected, and also be pushing the signal out to your studio monitors via the 1/4" outputs in back. I'm loving it!

Playing As A Plug-in
Pod Farm as a plug-in needs a little work at this point. As of this writing, POD Farm 1.02 is the current version, and it has a problem in about half of the major DAWs on the market. Apparently, if your DAW has a 64-bit plug-in host (and no 32-bit host as a fall-back), then POD Farm will crash. Yes, REAPER is one of those affected. The workaround to this is to use a VST Wrapper to act as a middle-man between REAPER and POD Farm. I've been using ACON's EffectChainer, and it works OK, but you are left with the inability to use any Automation ("knob twiddling") on anything inside POD Farm, since the DAW can only see the EffectChainer, not POD Farm itself. Line 6 has posted in their forums that this issue has been logged and is on the "to do" list. Hopefully this problem is resolved soon, since "knob twiddling" is often needed.

Standalone and Plug-in Together
I like to use both versions together. I record through the standalone version into REAPER (monitoring the processed signal and recording the dry signal) and having a plugin on the recorded track with the plug-in version of POD Farm replicating what I was doing with the standalone version. This gives me the flexibility to change the sound after recording, but not having to rely on just hearing the dry tone while playing. In this fashion I can also record the wet signal at the same time, so it gives you a lot of configuration possibilities.

Tone Port vs. POD Studio
If you've looked around, there is a TonePort UX1 as well as a POD Studio UX1. The hardware is exactly the same, except the TonePort has a red faceplace and the POD Studio has a black faceplate. The only real difference is in the bundled software. If you have a TonePort, it comes bundled with the standalone version of GearBox, you can upgrade for free to the standalone version of POD Farm, but you'll have to buy the plug-in version of POD Farm. Both versions (standalone and plug-in) of POD Farm come bundled with the POD Studio. To save yourself time, I'd suggest the POD Studio UX1 over the TonePort UX1, not only because it will save you some time, but also because the black faceplate looks much cooler than the red.

Bottom Line
The bottom line is that you owe it to yourself to buy a POD Studio UX1 (or the big brothers UX2 and UX8). The Line 6 POD Studio UX1 is a simple box with a simple purpose - which is does amazingly well. It sells new for around $149.99 at most shops, and it is fabulous. The hardware is solid and very clean, and the software so thoroughly exceeds my expectations that I am becoming inspired by the wide variety of tonal possibilities. The only difficulty I've found at this point is that POD Farm offers so many options, I'm spending more time fiddling with new sounds and not enough actual work on recording. If you need to record audio, you need one of these. Trust me.

Read the full post here!

Tutorial: Fixing a Noisy Line, Part 2

In Part 1 of this tutorial, we looked at gear and line investigation techniques to try to identify and/or minimize the problem. Here, in Part 2, we will focus on software solutions to handling a noise-laden signal.

REAPER Tools
While using REAPER, I have found 2 viable options to cleaning up a noisy audio track bundled with the program itself. ReaGate, and ReaFir. We will look at both of these options in turn. But first, we need a good way to see the sound. REAPER comes with a good tool for just this purpose: "JS: Analysis/gfxspectrograph". Add this into the end of your FX Chain, and you can use it to visually monitor what is coming across on your line. Totally black means it is totally silent. You can use this to gauge the effectiveness of your cleanup methods.

ReaGate
ReaGate is the bundled VST gate that comes with REAPER. A gate is essentially an automatic on-off switch for the audio. When the overall level drops below a certain threshold, the line is silenced. Gates usually have a bunch of other features, but you probably don’t need them forthis situation. To use ReaGate, add it to your FX Chain. It should be in the top slot, before any other plug-ins are used. This will keep the other plug-ins from amplifying the noise problem.

On the left of the ReaGate interface, you have a vertical slider that measures dB (decibels). The higher you move the slider, the higher the threshold for the gate to turn off the sound. Move the slider up until the background noise disappears. For my situation, a setting of –37.8 db was the lowest point where the noise dropped off. The green bars beside the threshold reflect the incoming signal. You can watch the Output mix meter on the right hand side to see when the Gate turns the signal off.

To Gate or Not To Gate
Gates are a tricky thing. On one hand, they stop the low-level noise from coming through very well. But when you have a gate in your chain, ANY sound below that threshold will be cut off as well. So if you’re letting a guitar ring out, when it hits that threshold your sound is completely dropped out. Depending on your style of music, this clipping could sound really strange and unwanted.

ReaFir
Another option is ReaFir, with is identified as a FFT EQ+Dynamics Processor. This is a tool with quite a few modes, including a gate. The gate in this doesn’t work quite the same, and is not as effective as the standalone ReaGate, in my opinion. Change the “Mode” to “Subtract”. There will be a new check box beside it labeled “Automatically build noise profile (enable during noise)”. This feature can be your new best friend. Make sure your equipment is connected and that the track is armed, with monitoring on. If you are combating line noise, turn your instrument’s volume to zero. If your trouble is from the instrument itself, silence it as best you can with the volume at your normal recording levels. (For guitars, you can loosely tie a bandanna or other soft cloth around the neck so it mutes the strings.) You should see the noise profile pulsing in the window.

FFT Size
This setting is essentially the size of the “chunk” of data it will evaluate at a time. A smaller number means it pushes your computer harder, because it is evaluating a lot of data. A larger setting is more economical on your system resources, but it also causes a lot of latency while monitoring. Personally, I usually set mine to 512, and it is a good balance between the two.

Build A Noise Profile
Mark the check box beside the “Build a noise profile” option, and let it run for a few seconds. A red line will begin to raise from the bottom where it is detecting noise. After it stops adding to its height, click on the check box again. That’s it. You have now build a noise profile that will be applied to the audio signal passing through this VST. This is basically a frequency-reactive gate, where a traditional gate is volume-reactive.

ReaFir or ReaGate?
Both ReaFir and ReaGate suffer from the same problem with sustained audio levels. Neither one is actually removing the individual components of the noise. They are both removing the audio when there is little or no instrument audio. If you have sustained sound coming through, like you would with a rhythm guitar passage, then the noise might be evident within the sound of the guitar itself. This is because gates are trimming the quiet levels noise, but they do nothing to actually stop the individual elements of the noise. I personally prefer ReaFir's "subtract" mode to a traditional gate, because the sound doesn't just stop when it reaches a certain point. Individual frequencies do, but not the entire sound. It sounds like a more natural fade than what you get from a gate crashing down on your sound.

Other Options
Depending on your noise source, you can also investigate notch filters to try to remove individual offensive frequencies, but these will impact your overall tone significantly. In my situation, I have such a wash of noise across a lot of frequencies that it is impossible for me to take this approach.

Do you have other software tricks that you’d like to recommend? Post a comment!

Read the full post here!

Tutorial: Fixing a Noisy Line, Part 1

Something I’ve been combating lately in my recording is line and interface noise. As I mentioned recently, the Lightsnake USB interface I’ve been using worked OK with my acoustic, but once I started recording with an electric guitar, the noise is much more prominent. There are 2 ways to correct a noisy interface: 1) Buy Better Gear, or 2) Use the tools you have to try to minimize the audible noise coming through.

Since we are about frugality, we will assume that you don’t have the scratch right now to pick up a better interface. (I’m crossing my fingers and hoping a better interface box is under the Christmas tree, or at least some cash to buy it guilt-free.) That leaves us with the duct tape and chewing gum solution (i.e. a non-ideal solution) to cleaning up your audio.

Check Your Wires
The first thing to check when you’ve got excess noise coming on your input is to check the connections. Do you get pops and crackles when you touch the cables while connected? You might have a broken wire that is adding noise when it is flexed. It might be cracked shielding in the cable that might be picking up interference. Try to eliminate as many sources of noise. And remember, an incoming audio source MUST be plugged in to something when you’re testing. A cable end dangling on the floor usually will pick up a little charge from the air, perhaps a little extra hum from finger grime on the plug ends. Also, make sure the volume on the instrument is turned all the way down. This will help you isolate whether it is the instrument’s electronics causing the noise or something with the line/interface itself. If you identify a possible broken wire, try to swap it out and see if that helps.

Check Your Gear
If you have a clean line when the instrument’s volume is turned off, then you might have a problem in your gear itself, or interference causing problems with the gear. I have found that CRT monitors will cause a little extra hum on some lines. If you can, turn off the CRT and see if the sound goes away. If this is the case, then see if you can re-route things to keep the lines further from the monitor.

Another source can be some fluorescent light fixtures. I have used a couple that will generate a lightsaber-style hum on lines nearby. Turn off the lights and see if that helps.

If you can determine that the instrument is somehow at fault, but you can’t identify anything else reacting with it, then you may want to consider borrowing someone else’s similar instrument to see if it exhibits the same problem, or take the instrument to a qualified tech and see if there are modifications you can make to reduce the noise. (For guitars, these usually either means replacing pickups, switches, or at least having the wiring re-soldered to make better connections.)

Extra Hardware
Sometimes you can isolate that it is the instrument, but there’s nothing you can do to directly fix it. There are some line filters and power filters that might be able to help fix your signal. Frankly, most of those are out of my price range, especially for a “it MIGHT fix the problem” potential solution. If you have friends with this type of extra gear, by all means borrow their equipment and see if it cures your ills. If it does, start saving your loose change to buy one for yourself. Again, this falls under the “Buy Better Gear” option, which isn’t always a viable course to take.

It’s the Interface!
In my situation, I was able to isolate it to the Lightsnake itself. As I explained in my post “Eating My Own Words”, it became more evident with the electric guitar than with the acoustic, but it is definitely the interface itself, since I don’t get the same problem with other line or microphone inputs on the same computer.

Software Solutions
If your final verdict is like mine, then the garbage on the input can’t be directly avoided without buying new hardware, so you have to try to clean up the signal after it has been received. In Part 2 of this tutorial, we will look at software solutions to this problem.

Read the full post here!

Eating My Own Words - Lightsnake Review Updated

Well, I'll be the first to admit that having to eat your own words is not too tasty, but sometimes it is exactly what you need to do.

Recently I posted a review of the Lightsnake USB Instrument Cable. In that review, I gave it decent marks in my experience - no errant line noises like some people claimed to have heard (I even parroted the corporate "must be a bad cable" approach to people's problems.) I have once again proven to myself that you will get different results with different gear. At the time I wrote that review, I had only one guitar to try with it, a Daisy Rock Wildwood Electric/Acoustic Guitar. So my review reflect my experience with it at that time. The extra environmental noise normal with an acoustic guitar in a non-soundproofed environment caused me to always put a gate in the effects chain to clean it up. The natural fullness of sound from the acoustic guitar came across nicely and I was satisfied that the (gated) recorded material was fairly accurate to the original sound.

I recently picked up an Epiphone SG Special, which is an admittedly low-end electric guitar. Of course, I plugged it into the Lightsnake. My first reaction was "what in the heck is that racket?" The racket was, unfortunately, an electric pulsing noise over the monitors I never noticed previously (thanks to the gate). Okay, fine. I put a gate in the chain, and did some trial recording with the SG. The gate worked to take off the noise in the silent sections. But as soon as you hit anything loud and sustained (like a chord progression), the noise was embedded in the louder sections. I also tried using the ReaFIR VST in Subtraction mode to build a noise profile. Again, it works fine for trimming the noise off in silent or very light, quick notes, but if you have any continuous playing, you can hear the noise interlaced with your guitar sound.

I took a shot of a spectrograph of the line noise with the Lightsnake plugged into the SG with the volume knob set to zero. What you see is a wash of noise, with a lot of other structured pulses embedded in it. I checked old recordings from the Acoustic - I see the same "pulse signature" in the signal. I think the reason I never noticed it with the Daisy Rock on recording is that the acoustic is naturally a very full sound, so the noise was actually getting lost in the sound of the acoustic. Since the electric doesn't have the same wide-spectrum wash as the acoustic, the noisy cable is laid bare for all to see and hear.

So here I sit, eating my own words about my value shopping, and have to say I spent my money poorly. (However, I have been using it for 6 months or so before I came to that conclusion, so maybe it wasn't a total waste.) I heartily recommend saving your pennies (as I am) and save up for a more "pro" box. I'm currently looking at the Line 6 TonePort series, since it is more of a name brand with a lot more positive reviews.

Since this is the net, we can rewrite history, so I plan to. I have added the core of this post into my original Lightsnake review, so folks stumbling across it will be wiser that I was when I first wrote it.

Read the full post here!

Gear Review: Lightsnake USB Instrument Cable

THIS GEAR REVIEW HEAVILY REVISED ON 10/12/08. See here for details why.

One of the initial challenges of getting started with recording your own music with non-virtual instruments is that you have to get them connected. When I first started recording guitars on computers years ago, I would usually record to cassette first, and then patch the tape deck through my sampler. Did it work? Yes. Was it good quality? Absolutely not.

I needed a good solution to hook in my guitar to record some tracks, but I wanted the best quality for the cheapest price. After looking at the various options, most entry-level devices are $150 or more. That's a little richer than I had in my pockets at the time, so I found this odd little device, the Lightsnake, at Target for around $40. I knew nothing about it, had not done any research (like I normally do), but it was a gamble.

So What Is It?
The Lightsnake from SoundTech is best described as a "sound card in a cable", with a USB plug on one end and a 1/4" instrument plug on the other. There is also a 1/4" jack splitter, so you can send the audio signal to another destination (like a monitoring amp). The Lightsnake comes with a CD of drivers if you're running on antique version of Windows (i.e. Windows 98), but newer computers should run fine without special drivers. Interestingly, SoundTech themselves recommend the use of ASIO4ALL as the best driver to use with their product. (The company is completely unrelated to ASIO4ALL, except as fans of it.)

How Do You Use It?
I have tried the Lightsnake in a number of audio programs, including REAPER and Audacity, and I am pleased with the results. The Lightsnake must be plugged in to your USB port BEFORE you start your software, or it will remain unrecognized by most programs.

Every time I run REAPER with the Lightsnake, if turn on monitoring on a track and play through, I get horrible latency (nearly a second delay!). But after I open up the ASIO Control Panel and just LOOK at the ASIO4ALL options, and then close it out, all my latency issues disappear for the rest of the session. I think it may be caused because I don't have the Lightsnake plugged in every time I run REAPER. It is a minor inconvenience, at best.

How good is it?
Originally, I thought the Lightsnake had a fairly clear sound without additional line noise. That was when I was recording with my Daisy Rock Wildwood Acoustic/Electric guitar.

I recently picked up an Epiphone SG Special, which is an admittedly low-end electric guitar. Of course, I plugged it into the Lightsnake. My first reaction was "what in the heck is that racket?" The racket was, unfortunately, an electric pulsing noise over the monitors I never noticed previously (thanks to the gate). Okay, fine. I put a gate in the chain, and did some trial recording with the SG. The gate worked to take off the noise in the silent sections. But as soon as you hit anything loud and sustained (like a chord progression), the noise was embedded in the louder sections. I also tried using the ReaFIR VST in Subtraction mode to build a noise profile. Again, it works fine for trimming the noise off in silent or very light, quick notes, but if you have any continuous playing, you can hear the noise interlaced with your guitar sound.

I took a shot of a spectrograph of the line noise with the Lightsnake plugged into the SG with the volume knob set to zero. What you see is a wash of noise, with a lot of other structured pulses embedded in it. I checked old recordings from the acoustic - I see the same "pulse signature" in the signal. I think the reason I never noticed it with the Daily Rock on recording is that the acoustic is naturally a very full sound, so the noise was actually getting lost in the sound of the acoustic. Since the electric doesn't have the same wide-spectrum wash as the acoustic, the noisy cable is laid bare for all to see and hear.

Pretty, Pretty Lights
One of the interesting features of the Lightsnake is the odd green glow that emanates from the entire cable while it is plugged in. This shows that it is connected. But it also pulses and flashes when it is passing data through the cable. This "pretty" feature gives you a clear visual indication that it is doing its job.

Bundled Software
The Lightsnake comes with a throwaway DVD containing 30 day trial versions of pretty much all of the Sony audio programs like ACID, Sound Forge, Vegas, and others. Time-limited trial demo versions don't interest me, so I've never even put the CD in my machine. I was hoping there would be an unlocked/non-trial version of something in the bundle, but instead it is all demos that are available on-line already.

Other User Opinions
The opinions on their forums are very mixed, and it sounds like there may be the occasional manufacturing defect, but more likely there is some level of compatibility issues on some systems. I have heard allegations that the pulsing light can actually affect your audio streams. I believe the type of instrument you plug in (acoustic vs electric) can play a big role in whether any excess noise is noticeable. I believe laptop (on batteries) vs desktop (on AC power) makes a difference in the amount and type of line noise. I bring these items up as a constructive caveat: I've had some good experiences with the cable and some very bad experiences with this cable.

Bottom Line
The bottom line on the Lightsnake is OK for beginners who don't care about the subtle nuances in their sound (like electronic ticking noises), and also for those NOT playing electric. I would recommend looking for something from a larger, more established company. Even though it was substantially cheaper than most entry level input boxes, ultimately you are NOT getting a good deal with this cable.

If you're still interested in trying it out, with these warnings being known, you can find it at most major online retailers.

Read the full post here!

Gear Review: REAPER

The most essential tool in your home studio is the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). Sure, there are other dedicated hardware solutions, but those can be pricey. There has been an explosion of DAWs on the market in the past few years, which is good thing. The bad thing is that most of them are out of the range of a sensible budget. ProTools and Ableton Live are two of the good old boys of the DAW market, but the are pretty pricey. (The "discount" versions of both programs are so crippled that they are virtually useless.)

A fairly new DAW on the market for Windows is REAPER. REAPER plays in the same category as ProTools and Ableton, but it doesn't require specific audio hardware (like ProTools), and you can download a non-crippled, non-time limited version. The only difference you see as an unregistered user is a 5 second nag screen when you load it. To register, it's $50 for a non-commercial license, and $225 for a commercial license. There's no "spyware" aspect; it's all based on the honor system. Price definitely played into my first experimentation with REAPER, and after I started ripping into their sample project, I was hooked.

What is it, exactly? To quote their site: "REAPER is a fully featured multitrack audio and MIDI recording, editing, processing, mixing, and mastering environment."

REAPER is built on a solid end-to-end 64 bit audio engine, so you don't have to worry about quality degradation. It allows unlimited Audio tracks (recorded audio) and unlimited MIDI tracks. REAPER allows you to use DX, DXi, VST, VSTi, and JS plugins, so you can use (nearly) all virtual instruments and virtual effects you come across. Here's the nice part: once a piece has been laid down in whatever fashion (recorded audio, external MIDI, soft-synth MIDI, etc), then all pieces are treated equally. You can dump additional effects or effects sends on any track and they still function the same.

REAPER supports a wide range of control surfaces and external interfaces, so you can integrate whatever hard gear you have directly into REAPER. At this point, I regularly use an M-Audio KeyStudio 25, guitar via Lightsnake interface, and a microphone all jacked in simultaneously to REAPER, and I haven't had any problems. REAPER does support "MIDI LEARN", so within your project you can individually map pretty much any controls to your external control surfaces. I map the knobs on my KeyStudio to whatever VSTs I'm working with, so I can "knob twiddle" without having to control them with the mouse. Yes, it's a common feature on a pro-grade DAW, but it is nice to know you can get the same level of interaction when you're using cheap hardware.

This is such a big program, it's impossible to go into all the features that make it "pop" for the user. It has piano rolls, extensive routing controller - you can have unlimited parallel sends and up to 64 UNIQUE send paths, normalizing and quantizing individual elements, recording automation to capture pretty much any "knob twiddling" and parameter changes you need (recordable realtime or simply by moving lines to represent the values), a great pack of 64-bit VSTs and JS plugins to start your collection, and a lot more. Can you tell I'm loving this program? One of the other significant targets of the development of REAPER is to make sure the commonly used features are not buried too deeply in the UI. Most of the features you will commonly use are either available from the UI itself or from a simple right-click popup menu.

I only have one real gripe about using REAPER, but it is a common problem across pretty much all DAWs: some plugins are highly unstable and can crash the entire project. (I use mostly VSTs, so I can only speak to that) Most of what I use are freeware plugins, so they haven't gone through as rigorous testing as "professional" plugins, but even there you occasionally find one that doesn't work with a specific DAW. The unfortunate side of this is that I usually only discover a VST to be bombing out on me when I go to save the project. Then you're left with a trial-and-error to see what plugin crashed it out. So long as you do some testing with any new plugins before you commit trying to build seriously, you'll be fine.

The team at Cockos who is developing this DAW definitely stands behind their product, with new updates sometimes weeks apart as they respond to the user community and roll out new features and enhancements. There's also a great user community who does a good job of helping you keep on your feet.

I'm sure I'll have more to say about REAPER in the future, but you should consider checking it out.

The homepage is at: http://www.reaper.fm/

Read the full post here!