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Roland JC-120 Line Out for recording.

Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 8:08 pm
by Dramatis Persona
Yes, I know that this isn't the right section of the forum, but it has more appeal than Tech and Recording. :D
The other day, after I'd downloaded the pdf of an old Roland Jazz Chorus manual, I saw that If I plug a tape recorder (and now, in the XXI century an audio interface), I can record directly guitars.
Obviously I tried to record something: with cleans the sound is awesome (very ethereal),but with dirt pedals it sucks, it's too trebly and buzzy.
I use modelling amps for recording, and I think that they sound very good, too good, too unreally good (and a bit compressed), JC's line out sounds more natural , it has less presence than a digital modelling amp, but it is totally uncompressed. The con is that dirt pedals sound too weak, without any bass frequency. Any doom fuzz became a musquito fart. Are the speakers the secret ingredient of the JC sound? :?:
Shit, I'd like to record with my amp, but I don't have the space for record with mics, my neighbors want to screw my ass.

PS: is emproved my english? :hug:

Re: Roland JC-120 Line Out for recording.

Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 8:14 pm
by sonidero
Yeah the English is fine...

Try recording from the Line out and using a speaker or cabinet simulator on your computer... The secret of the 120 IS the stereo speakers...

Re: Roland JC-120 Line Out for recording.

Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2014 4:55 am
by goroth
Image

Ok, this is a couple of 10inch speakers but anyway, you can see that guitar speakers are really non linear. The frequencies that are affected the most is all of the treble. After about 7000 hz you don't really hear much with a guitar speaker.

Fuzz of any kind adds harmonic content. We hear this as more treble. Lots more.

A guitar speaker gets rid of lot of this extra treble, which is great. If you use the line out you are getting all of the tone shaping from your amp but none of the treble roll off from the speaker.

Which is a long way of saying what Soni said - use a cabinet emulator!

Re: Roland JC-120 Line Out for recording.

Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2014 11:05 am
by excane
You need a cab/speaker sim as stated above.

I'd really give the Torpedo Live a look - I had a chance to use one and it really impressed me.

Re: Roland JC-120 Line Out for recording.

Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2014 4:14 pm
by Dramatis Persona
Thank you for your advices! Unfortunatelly I don't use pc\mac for recording, but my ipad, I have had great results with BIAS, with the good tweakings it's possible to create a pedal-eater amp, but actually it's impossible to use only its speakers.
If I have more free time, I'll try to do a comparison between recordings with modelling amp and with jazzchorus, maybe with a mic too.

Thank you!

PS: but an EQ after the line out?

Re: Roland JC-120 Line Out for recording.

Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2014 4:24 pm
by sonidero
EQ after Line Out won't really give you the same results... Speakers/cabinet sims is what you want...

Here are some things to check out...

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ampkit/ ... mpt=uo%3D4

Re: Roland JC-120 Line Out for recording.

Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2014 5:26 pm
by goroth
You could try maybe using a parametric eq and some low and high pass filters in your audio editor. You could get pretty close to one of the ten inch speakers above with I reckon about 6 bands, somewhat close with as few as three. Vary the Q to get sharp dips/boosts or broad ones. Put a HPF at 30 HZ and fairly drastic LPF at 7000 hz.

Re: Roland JC-120 Line Out for recording.

Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2014 3:24 am
by rfurtkamp
Yea, the line outs on the JC work fine for clean stuff, but past that, just run it into something in your existing amp sim plugins - see if there's a faux mic pre or 'studio' setting, the old PODs, the Mustang Floor etc have them in hardware sims, and I can't see why the software ones wouldn't.

I'm a hardware guy myself.

That said, the speakers on the JC-series amps, especially the early ones, are very bright, punchy speakers, more hi-fi than say a Celestion. My best guess if I wanted to run the out on my JC-50 is I'd use a Twin Reverb-type amp sim with the EQ flatish, then dial in from there.

Re: Roland JC-120 Line Out for recording.

Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2014 4:18 am
by goroth
Yeah, but even a flat eq on a fender (most amps really) isn't flat. It'll no doubt get him a good sound, but it won't be a jc120.
Meh, what do I know. Have a crack, it could be rad.

Re: Roland JC-120 Line Out for recording.

Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2014 9:27 am
by Dramatis Persona
I'll try with speaker sims!
With modelling amps I'm obtaining very good sound, but it isn't "my sound", it is similar, maybe is better than my amp, but definitelly it isn't my sound!

Thank you!

Re: Roland JC-120 Line Out for recording.

Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2014 7:43 pm
by rfurtkamp
The "dial it in from there" is key to it. But I dial in my Jazz Chorus on the EQ section to be more more Fender-like, so it's going to be different for various applications.

Re: Roland JC-120 Line Out for recording.

Posted: Sun Jan 26, 2014 1:15 am
by gunslinger_burrito
goroth wrote:Image

Ok, this is a couple of 10inch speakers but anyway, you can see that guitar speakers are really non linear. The frequencies that are affected the most is all of the treble. After about 7000 hz you don't really hear much with a guitar speaker.

Fuzz of any kind adds harmonic content. We hear this as more treble. Lots more.

A guitar speaker gets rid of lot of this extra treble, which is great. If you use the line out you are getting all of the tone shaping from your amp but none of the treble roll off from the speaker.

Which is a long way of saying what Soni said - use a cabinet emulator!
I've had a similar issue recording direct in and such. I wish I would have thought of this ^^^^^ a lot sooner. Thanks, Mr Goroth

Re: Roland JC-120 Line Out for recording.

Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 5:52 pm
by patrick
Get a DI with speaker simulation. Joyo makes one for $50 new.

Re: Roland JC-120 Line Out for recording.

Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 7:42 am
by Dramatis Persona
I tried with cab\speaker sim, everything sounded like the "amp" was far from the mic, with all of mid frequencies killed and an annoying hiss, I can get better results with modelling amps :/
Maybe the line out signal is too weak. :idk:
What a pain in the ass, maybe I should kill my neighbors and buy a couple of SM57 (but I'll continue to have the hiss problem). :facepalm:

Re: Roland JC-120 Line Out for recording.

Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2014 6:28 pm
by gunslinger_burrito
Bumping this one back because I tried EQing my DI signal to one of those charts Goroth posted, and with just a tiny tiny bit of reverb it sounds almost exactly like I'm micing my amp. I switched between a recording of the amp and the signal I was working on to get it and it's really close. I would recommend this.