Recording Electric Guitar With Preamp

OP-1
#1

Bought an OP-1 recently and am absolutely in love with it. Fantastic piece of kit! And can’t believe how user friendly it seems compared to trying to do stuff with software programmes (I like having real buttons to push!)


One of the things I’d like to try is adding some heavily processed electric guitar tones to my more electronic tracks, so that they have a bit of an organic texture. I was wondering if anyone’s tried this already, DI-ing a guitar (via preamp) rather than recording from a mic’d amp? Is it possible?

Thanks
#2

Definitely possible. I’ve recorded an electric guitar through a DI into the OP-1 and an electric bass with active pickups directly in, with no DI. Do it.

#3

Thanks Sammyjams. Did you use a preamp, or did you literally DI the guitar right into the OP-1?


I’d guess you’d need the preamp, but the OP-1 seems like such a box of tricks that it wouldn’t surprise me if it worked without!
#4

I’ve plugged guitar/bass into an iRig HD and Sonic Port, processed with JamUp and then out of the iPad headphone out or Sonic Port into OP-1. I’ve plugged my EWI 4000S directly into the OP-1 and an active bass.

#5

you can connect passive pickups directly to the OP1 crank up the gain and they sound decent! CWO is alot of fun on instruments!

#6

Thanks masterofstuff124. Any experience of DIing guitars with Active Pickups (cause they have an inbuilt preamp, don’t they?) direct into the OP-1?

#7

Check out the Mixing Link by Eventide. I love mine and use it for all sorts of stuff including as a preamp with the OP-1.

#8

@Cityscape. I have no experience with active pickups but to my understanding they should enhance the straight signal to the op1. I use a 1//4 in to headphone jack converter to a regular headphone cable. Recently I’ve been using my iPad as the pre amp for my guitar into my op1 and it works great!

#9

Thanks all. I’ll give it a go soon and let you know.

#10

I had good results with either a direct connection with my guitar and the tech-21 sansamp and the iphone via JAM and tonestack app.

#11

I wonder – could something like a Zoom H5 be used for this purpose?


https://www.zoom-na.com/products/field-video-recording/field-recording/zoom-h5-handy-recorder
#12

I use one of these little guys - works well - has headphone out that feeds straight into the OP-1 input


http://www.korg.com/nz/products/effects/pandoramini/



#13

Finally tried this, and it does indeed work DIing an electric guitar into the OP-1 via line in, no pre-amp required… Although I imagine I’ll be able to get an even better sound with a pre-amp.

Can’t believe I started this thread on July 16th, and I’ve only just got round to trying this, almost exactly 2 months later! I’m a slow worker…