Guitar Interactive Magazine | 3 years ago

We’ve all faced this dilemma at some point: you have a killer valve amp that you just love, and you want to record with it. But it’s loud - really loud! You could mic up the cab and record the traditional way, but you’re certain your neighbours will be at your door pitchforks in hand before you can figure out the sweet spot for the mic.

You could buy a load box (like a Two Notes Captor, or my personal favourite, a Boss Waza Tube Amp Expander), but they’re expensive and besides, you want to record RIGHT NOW! Well, here’s a simple little hack that just needs your amp, an audio interface, some free software and a cable.

We’re going to call this the “FX send recording hack”, and it’s exactly as simple as it sounds: take your amp’s FX send (which every Victory amp has) and plug it straight into your audio interface. Load up your favourite IR (more on that in a moment) and you’re good to go!

HOW IT WORKS:

Your amp is made up of two parts: a preamp and a power amp. The preamp is where all the tone comes from - especially if you’re using amp gain. The power amp does add a little “colour”, but it mainly just makes things louder. But we don’t want “loud”, we just want the tone.

Luckily, your amp’s FX loop comes directly between the preamp and the power amp. The signal from the preamp comes out of the FX send, and whatever you plug into the FX return gets fed straight into the power amp. So if you take the FX send and plug it into your interface, what you’re actually doing is taking a direct send from your amp’s tone-generating preamp.

BEFORE YOU START:

Be sure that your amp is plugged into a speaker if you’re going to try this, otherwise you might just blow up your amp! You can turn the master volume all the way down if you want silent recording - on Victory amps, the master volume comes after the FX loop, so it won’t affect the level coming out of the FX return. Alternatively, you can sneak the master volume up to bedroom level if you want to hear your guitar through your own cab while you record.

I should also point out that you can use any pedals you want with this setup! Pedals you’d normally run in front of the amp can be used exactly the same way, and any pedals you’d normally run in the amp’s FX loop can be plugged in between the FX send and your audio interface.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE IR:

Because we’re not running through a speaker cab, it’s very important that we simulate the way a cab sounds of we want our guitar to sound “right”. Guitar speakers filter out a lot of the nastier high end information that all guitar preamps produce, and this will stop our newly recorded preamp tone sounding like a bag of wasps.

There are tonnes of IRs to choose from, but I’ve decided to use Celestion’s excellent (and free!) Cenzo Townshend V30 Mix. You’ll need to load the IR using a plugin, and for this I’ve used the equally excellent and equally free Poulin LeCab2.

POWER AMP TONE:

Now, you may be perfectly happy with the results of recording with just an IR, but if the results are just a lad on the thin side, you can use some poweramp modelling software to fill in the missing puzzle piece. I used TwoNotes outstanding Wall Of Sound plugin, but Ignite amps make a fantastic free alternative in their TPA-1 plugin. Insert this before your IR plugin and tweak to taste. If you’re at all worried about how authentic these poweramp simulations sound, be sure to check out the section of the video for this lesson where I compare this method to my Super Kraken’s actual power amp, captured using a Boss Waza Tube Amp Expander - you’ll be pretty hard pressed to tell them apart.

So there you have it! A method for recording with your amp that won’t cost you a penny and won’t upset the neighbours. I’ve used this method countless times myself with great results, and hopefully it’ll help you produce some great sounding music.

Links:

Celestion Cenzo Townshend IR: https://www.celestionplus.com/free-download/
Poulin LeCab2: https://vst4free.com/plugin/958/

TwoNotes Wall Of Sound: https://www.two-notes.com/wall-of-sound

Ignite Amps TPA-1: https://www.kvraudio.com/product/tpa-1-by-ignite-amps

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