Hi everyone. I’ve only got one plugin; Archetype Rabea. I’m desperate for this plugin to sound good but after almost a year of trying seemingly everything I’m on the verge of giving up. Anything that isn’t the Overlord Synth sounds terrible. And by that I mean the synth sounds stellar. Really ‘3D’, and full. Studio-quality sound. But anything else in the plugin sounds awful - I have what I believe is a ‘decent’ setup too which I’ve bought this year under the assumption my previous gear was the issue.
I now have:
Adam Audio T5V monitors
Focusrite Scarlett Solo 4th Gen
Mac Mini M4
What could I be doing wrong?
I’ve watched Ghost Note Audio’s recent YouTube video debunking some common misconceptions of input levels, and must admit it pretty much went over my head. I’ve lowered/raised the interface input levels, lowered/raised plugin input, lowered/raised output levels. Nothing seems to work. I’m just after the searing high gain sounds that have been demonstrated time and again with this plugin.
I’m no idiot, but maybe I’m expecting things to be easier than they actually are?
I am new to this particular forum, so I haven’t read any of your previous posts on the issue, if any…
Since there is no such thing as a dumb question… Is your audio interface set to “Inst” (button pressed to the IN position) on the front panel? And you are using a standard instrument cable to the front 1/4" input correct?
By the way… to clarify Ghost Note Audio’s video for you in particular, having a Scarlett Gen 4…
Turn your plugin input volume to -0.2 (or leave at 0, it’s close enough). Turn your input level (on the hardware preamp) up (or down?) to just before clipping.
Trim your plugin input (from -0.2) to compensate for your hardware input.
As an example, if you had to turn your hardware pre to +10 to arrive to “just before clipping”, set your plugin input to -10 for compensation.
Hey man. Thanks for replying. Really appreciate it. Please do assume that I am dumb on this topic because clearly I’m in a minority that can’t figure this out
Yes, I’m using a standard Ernie Ball instrument cable from my guitar into the front of the interface.
But, I’ve had the ‘Inst’ turned on but may have reverted back to it being off. I’ll make sure it’s green when I sit back down at my desk again later to have another go at this.
That’s really useful as well, thanks. I think I’d been reducing the input on the plugin to about -6 so not quite enough.
Do I need to mess around with the output volume of the Adam monitors at all? They are both flat at 0DB and I haven’t activated either the Hi or Lo cuts on either monitor. I could share images if that’s at all useful at any point.
The monitors should be fine, especially if other music sounds normal coming out of them. The high/lo stuff is just compensation for your environment, not at all like normal high/lo knobs on a piece of guitar gear.
When you say most settings sound terrible… too distorted or not distorted enough?
I have a Mac Studio, similar computer, and Adam monitors have a great reputation… so it is something else.
How does music sound in your system? As expected I assume?
How are you recording? How many times are you recording one riff? I don’t know your experience level, so I’m assuming you don’t know about double tracking or quad tracking. What style of music are you playing? if it’s rock or metal and you need a “big” rhythm section, you want to hit the “doubler” button, in Rabea. Or keep it off. you’ll then want to Make 4 blank tracks and group them together. On the group main track(Title this DI Guitar Bus), add the Rabea. Then record your one rhythm track 4 different times (in mono) and then HARD pan two tracks all the way left, and the other two tracks all the way right.
I also think a huge misconception with “guitar tone” actually comes from the what the bass guitar sounds like. Every guitar tone i’ve ever loved, was mostly because the bass guitar filled in the frequencies between 20 hz and 150 hz.
So absolutely make sure you’ve got a good bass tone. If you solo your guitar track and that’s the only thing playing, it most likely will sound like shit (sometimes). It will come together nicely when you play it with all of the other instruments and after doubling or quad tracking your guitar parts. Alot of people used to roll off (turn down) the gain on rhythm guitar tracks; becuase it helps with clarity and when you quad track the gain somewhat “multiplies” and once all 4 are recorded it will sound like you originally had the gain set to.
If yoiu know all this then i apologize for repeating anything. Not trying to be condescending either. Rabea is my main go to ever since i got it. It does have a more digital sound to it though.
Edit: i forgot to mention too. After tracking, you’ll want to Create 4 new empty audio tracks and group them together (Guitar ReSampling) Group) and you’ll want to solo each guitar track and “resample” them on to one of the new empty tracks. Do this for all 4 layers and then mute the Di Guitar Bus.
So when I say it sounds terrible, I mean the distortion/high gain tones are like a wet towel has been thrown over the speakers. I’ve watched hours of YouTube videos (including Rabea’s) and the sounds straight from the default presets couldn’t sound more different to what I’m expecting. Also further compounded by the fact that Rabea doesn’t play around with the input/output levels on the plugin - both are at 0DB.
I’m committed to figuring this out though, just really surprised that I’m struggling with it.
To be honest I’m only wanting to use the plugin for practice. I don’t (yet) do any recording, it’s all purely a hobby that I squeeze into my rare spare time.
I was hoping for more of a plug ‘n’ play with these plugins - but I can see most people don’t have the issues I’m having, so happy to admit I’m doing something wrong. The problem is that my setup is simple, quite a common rig, and therefore nothing obviously in the way of me getting the tones I’m expecting from the plugin. I can play one of Rabea’s demo videos on his YouTube channel and have my plugin open at the same time. I’ll be clicking the exact same presets that he is - and yet couldn’t be more tonally different.
I too have now become committed to helping this be sorted out. This should be a plug and play situation.
Let’s start at the beginning…
I assume that music you play from your computer sounds as expected through your Adam monitors, correct?
If so, move on…
Your plugged from guitar straight into the front of your interface with an instrument cable (we covered that), your interface input with the “Inst” button engaged.
*** Make sure your interface’s input preamp/level is turned all the way down. You should be able to see some type of an interface mixer view (Focusrite Control 2) to show you that your instrument input is not clipping (an occasional peak into red is okay).
If all this is okay then we need to assume some type of guitar or cable issue. Though if there were an issue there then there should be an indication from looking at your input level via the Focusrite Control 2 software.
Sorry for taking so long to sit down and answer this one: I’m currently sat at my desk with Focusrite Control newly installed so I can get some accurate readings. Hadn’t used it before now.
So:
I managed to capture a screenshot one-handed whilst chugging away, using a typical pick attack for me - you can see it sat around -11.5db
Back to your questions:
Yes, music sounds otherwise perfect coming from the Adams.
Correct. Inst button definitely now ‘on’
Input on Focusrite is turned completely down. I’ve noticed when taking the screenshot that it definitely veers into red when I’m playing. I can start to hear that raw DI sound coming through.
So now I know the compensation from Focusrite Control, do I need to reduce the input on Archetype Rabea to a new number?
If you haven’t tried uninstalling and reinstalling the plugin, or repairing the VST using the most up to date installer, you might give that a try. I actually had a similar issue when I first got the original Rabea VST and “repairing” or reinstalling the plugin is exactly what fixed my issue. (the post is around here somewhere - I’ll link it so you can see if you’re getting the same sounds as I was. I had linked a soundcloud recording of what was happening.
Here is a link to the topic I had started regarding my sounds not sounding correct. My plugin sounded like it had a “blown speaker” and it was really thin sounding. None of the distortions sounded like the presets i was hearing on youtube. So this very well could be what’s going on with yours, too.
tbh i only use the Rabea plugin for the Synth Sound. The high gain sounds are terrible compared to the Nolly plugin, as much as i love rabea.
Even dialed in the right way, nothin is really tight (again compared to the nolly x plugin). It also feels less direct imho.
I tested this via my interface and directly through the QC as interface. While the QC is sounding stellar as usual and the Nolly Plugin as well, i guess it is how the Rabea plugin is supposed to sound.
That’s great advice, I’ll give that a go in that case. To be honest I’m a little sceptical that it’ll fix it though as I was having this issue already on the old version, and it’s persisted on the Rabea X version I downloaded before starting this troubleshooting thread.
I think for me because I’m so far from the tones promised in Rabea X, that’s how I know something’s flat out wrong with what I’m doing. It’s not that the high gain stuff is a little bit off, it sounds worlds away from what’s advertised, but the Overlord Synth sounds perfect. Hopefully I can figure it out My band mate has Nolly and he loves it.
Everything looks normal to me… depending on your pickup, you should get close to red (or even in it) if your playing hard enough… Even if I am playing with PAF pickups, I hit red.
As far as your levels, if you did not change your input level, then there should be no need to change the plugin’s input level. As your using the 4th Gen Scarlett, as far as I can see it, you should be good at setting the inputs both at 0.
It’s a bummer. It SHOULD most definitly be plug and play with your setup. I use the Apollo and it is straight plug and play for me, though I have not tryed the Rabea plug.
Can you make a recorded track and post it somewhere?
My band mate has Nolly and he loves it.