Delta 44 Sound Quality

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a.k.a. Porp & Mr. Muffins
Member Since: Oct 09, 2002

I've always been impressed with the overall sound that I get recording with my Delta 44. I have noticed, however, that it doesn't really capture what I put into it as well as I would like it to. The other day, while I was fooling around with guitar tones, I noticed that while I was playing through my speakers the sound was great, but when I recorded it and played it back it lacked body, presence, and the EQ sounded a lot different. I had my guitar going direct into my mixer, through the Delta 44, out to my SP-5B monitors, so I was monitoring through the card. I was recording in 44.1 16-bit, so I decided to up it all the way up to the highest sampling rate at 24-bit. I didn't notice any difference in quality. This leads me to believe that either my Delta 44 is not performing like it should be, I have some strange setting on somewhere, or this is normal. It's very frustrating to get a really good sound and not be able to capture it accurately. I don't usually notice this as much on other instruments, but I really notice in on guitar. Please reaffirm my faith in the Delta 44...

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Contributor
Since: Dec 30, 2002


May 01, 2003 07:31 pm

You see porp, you are forgetting one very important factor - when you are playing the instrument you are hearing the sound generated by the instrument itself as well as the sound that is being captured by the soundcard.

As a result, when you play it back, it is missing the sound that the body and strings of the instrument generated - this is easily solved by Mic'ing it up.

Just to go back to your original query, I have seen the frequency plot diagrams for the delta range and they are pretty damn flat with only tiny weeny deviances - so if things are really sounding odd when you record something like a keyboard (which has no "acoustic" sound to it) then you know something is wrong with the card.

jues.

Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002


May 01, 2003 08:30 pm

Ill back jues on that 100%. It can be very misleading and tough to get the sound you hear in the room while playing or singing. That said, a mic added to the guitar will always help the situation. Even for vocals, I will most often add asecond mic behind the vocalist or somewhere in the room to pick up that little extra something. And with guitars it is the same. I have even put a condensor out with an electric when using the POD to pick up some of the bocy sound that jues refered to. It is only a small deviance, but sometimes it is just enough to make the differance in what you hear, and what gets recorded.

a.k.a. Porp & Mr. Muffins
Member
Since: Oct 09, 2002


May 01, 2003 09:57 pm

Thanks guys. You're probably right, but I wouldn't think that just the sound coming from the body of an electric guitar would make that big of a difference. When you say it's solved by micing it up, are you referring to the amp, or the body of the guitar? I don't think micing the body of an electric guitar would be a very desirable sound-- I usually like to keep the sound of the pick hitting the strings to a minimum :-) I'll have to try some more tests and see if that is the case (I'll have my brother play in another room with the door closed while I listen in on the monitors). Well, thanks for putting up with my spur-of-the-moment ranting again. You guys are always a major help as I hope I am to some of you.

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