Horrible tone out of my new Schecter with HB 105/8 Duncan Designed pups.

[saurion]

Hey everyone, I've recently bought a Schecter Demon 8 with Duncan Designed HB 105/8 active pickups and a Behringer UMC22 USB interface because I wanted to write and record some djenty riffs, but no matter what I try, my tone is absolute trash. Sounds overly distorted, with little sustain and canny (if that's a thing). The lower 7 strings sound somewhat acceptable, but the 8th string has absolutely no tonal definition, everything sounds like a huge noisy mess.

I've tried both inputs on the interface, different cables of varying quality, lowering the pickups, and changing the battery. All this gave me minimal improvements.

These are a couple sample riffs I've recorded with the Ignite Emissary, all knobs at noon. My chain is Interface > Ignite TSB101 > Ignite Emissary > NadIR, recorded in Reaper. I've also tried the Amped Roots and STL Will Putney amp sims, and they sound horrible too.

https://soundcloud.com/user-937268719/bfg-division-riff/s-8t7DvmsP0FM
https://soundcloud.com/user-937268719/at-eternals-gate-riff/s-EszGPfG61WX

Im not sure wether the problem is the guitar preamp/pickups or the interface. I dont know what else to try, other than returning/replacing the gear.

Any and all help will be very appreciated! Thanks!

 

[Mincer]

Re: Horrible tone out of my new Schecter with HB 105/8 Duncan Designed pups.

Welcome to the forum!

Do you have an option other than software for recording? An amp or preamp with a direct out generally sounds better than any amp sims I come across.

 

[saurion]

Re: Horrible tone out of my new Schecter with HB 105/8 Duncan Designed pups.

Welcome to the forum!

Do you have an option other than software for recording? An amp or preamp with a direct out generally sounds better than any amp sims I come across.

My only guitar amp is a Peavey Rage 158 so I doubt it's gonna be better lol.

 

[RexRemus]

Re: Horrible tone out of my new Schecter with HB 105/8 Duncan Designed pups.

You should only be using the "INST" input for directly connecting a guitar as, if it's designed/working properly, it'll provide the proper impedance (Hi-Z) for directly connecting your guitar to it.

I use ampsims quite often in the same way you are with quite good results so I don't think there is anything inherently flawed in your signal chain.

I don't have a ton of experience with the Emissary, but one question, does it have a standalone mode? Can you run it outside your DAW and set it up to take input directly from your interface? Just use the included cabsim/IR(s) don't worry about the full chain you were using in Reaper. Just go straight to the ampsim. Does it make any difference?

If it doesn't support running in standalone mode, I'd suggest grabbing some demos from Neural DSP which should run for 14 days I think and definitely do run in standalone mode. Make sure to use ASIO (I assume the interface you have came with ASIO drivers?) and not DirectSound if you're on windows.

That aside - Mincer raises a good point - if you have a real amp, no matter how good/bad, does the guitar have problems there too? Can you try a friend's amp, or even just go to alocal music store and plugin? If so, then maybe it's just a bad apple and you can stop chasing other issues. If it sounds ok (normal output/tone) through the amp then it's just figuring out what's wrong in your DAW signal chain.

Have you recorded just the straight DI signal off the INST input? Are you setting gain properly through the entire signal chain? Is there a high-pass filter being inserted somewhere in the chain? What does each element sound like on it's own in your signal chain? Just the boost pedal, just the amp? Do you have a DI (or can you borrow one) to try to use and go in via input 1?

I'd honestly suggest following Mincer's advice and try it on some physical amps first to see if you just got a dud somehow. Then go through the signal chain carefully, try some of the Neural DSP ampsims standalone and inside Reaper and see if you can find the problem in the signal chain.

 

[Erlend_G]

Re: Horrible tone out of my new Schecter with HB 105/8 Duncan Designed pups.

Use thick enough strings for the bass ones!!!

rock on \m/ -Erlend

 

[Erlend_G]

Re: Horrible tone out of my new Schecter with HB 105/8 Duncan Designed pups.

^^ this comes from a 20 year experienced bassist, who uses 0,11's on his standard E wildkat .

rock on!!

 

[Metalman_666]

Re: Horrible tone out of my new Schecter with HB 105/8 Duncan Designed pups.

Lots of good questions from @RexRemus and I think the main one is about gain staging. Are you certain your signal is not clipping at any point before it hits Reaper?

The other day I was hearing some gross, gritty distortion only on certain parts of videos online and realized I had set the output too high. Same with my amp direct into my interface, if the input clips at all, it sounds like trash even with a not-so-dirty tone.

And of course - what gauge strings are you using? I found on my 7-strings I don't like the stock sets because the low strings are too light, but going too heavy can sound muddy and boring.

Give the guitar a test through your Rage 158. I had one of those as my first practice amp! Looking back it was pretty decent, but I ended up blowing the speaker on mine - ironically it was too many high school Jazz band gigs playing basic chords at max volume!

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