I’m working with archetype Plini, and as with all VST I always have this question:
How to set up correctly the input level?
We know it will have many impacts on the tone:
input clipping
compression (from the compressor)
overdrive/boost pedals (unwanted?) saturation
amps gain stage
…
So how to make the best usage of input level? Which kind of instrument output level is expected by the plugin?
Is there an official procedure to calibrate it to a given guitar output level?
Most of the time you only need to make sure you’re not clipping on the way in (from the guitar to the interface/from the interface to the Plug-In) while maintaining a healthy amount of signal. You also need to check the mic level in the cab section and the global output to avoid clipping. In both cases, you will see a gray indicator at the top of each meter when your signal is clipping.
Regarding Compression/Overdrive saturation, there are a couple of tips to get a better tone, like turning the gain on the overdrive pedal all the way down or avoiding the use of too much compression from the pedal with a heavy rhythm tone since it will raise the noise floor. These are not rules though, there could be certain cases that require exactly the opposite.
I thought I would share in case you are like I was up until 10 minutes ago - in the dark about the importance of input volume. It’s so obvious it doesn’t deserve a mention, really, and I’m embarrassed for not looking into it sooner, but I suspect it’s often overlooked by guitar players. Anyway, try this: Tweak the input volume to suit the guitar you are using. Try to hit the clipping line without going over with the hardest strum on your highest output pickup. It really improves tone, and feel!
Increasing the input is essentially increasing the drive into the first block in your signal chain. That will likely eventually drive whatever dirt pedals or amp models you’re using a little higher, making your guitar louder and more responsive. That certainly works, but there might be better ways to achieve the same results. Getting the input hot increases the risk of clipping the A2D converters. Digital clipping is never a good thing. You could get the same effect without increasing the risk of digital clipping by raising the output of some block early in your signal chain. This would happen after the A2D converters where there’s plenty of digital headroom and no risk of bad clipping.
It’s commonly recommended to set input gain on modelers to a level where loud strumming or aggressive “chugging” on the guitar’s hottest pickup will result in almost hitting the clipping point. Not using the available dynamic range of the input stage apparently results in a worse signal to noise ratio and analog noise is more amplified when raising the volume at stages further down the signal chain.
It would be interesting to hear official advice from Neural DSP for the QC regarding adjustment of input gain.
There have been multiple threads on this topic already, but sadly NSDP hasn’t chimed in yet. I also contacted them directly, but they didn’t provide any information on this. So I don’t know the “right” answer to this from a technical view point.
However in practice it seems the most logical to me and also I get the best results when
a) Instrument —> Amp
and
b) Instrument —> Quad Cortex DI* —> Amp
result in the same volume and tone.
*empty line, no blocks activated, outputs set to default (+0dB), volume wheel turned up to 100
I found that with the input level of the QC set to default (+0dB), my amp doesn’t behave as it does without the QC in front of it. So I turned the input level of the QC to about +4dB and then it sounded the same to me.
Going from there, if I would use a preamp(-pedal) in front of my amp, to hit it with a hotter signal, I now add a preamp block in my QC. Same with overdrives, distortions, boosters, etc. and the output level is never clipping.
If the input level is set very high like you suggested, the output signal is very high too. That way you have way less room to play with when adding overdrives, distortions, boosters, etc. or even amps and cabs if you use the QC at home for recording.
Interesting method. Based on advice for other modelers it might be better in this case to still set the input level as high as possible without clipping and then reduce the gain after AD conversion to achieve unity gain before hitting virtual pedals in the modeler. It’s not only recommended in audio but also in other AD conversion like photography to utilize the whole dynamic range of the input stage.
Maybe it’s worth a try for you to increase your input level as far as it doesn’t clip and then adding a gain block at the beginning of the FX chain to reduce the level until you reach unity gain. It would be interesting to know if it makes any difference in noise floor.
