User manual

2 - Using AmpliTube™
14
Using AmpliTube™
Connect your guitar to your computer
To achieve the best input signal when using AmpliTube™ be sure you have
an "instruments input" on your audio card (or a guitar dedicated input - fig.
6). The “instrument input” needs a gain control and commonly is an high
impedance input, this means that the pickups of your guitar will find an
input that matches that found in guitar amplifiers.
NOTE: Normal +4 dB low impedance line input (i.e. the ones you would
normally use for a synth or a keyboard) are not ideal for directly connec-
ting the guitar because guitar pickups are not designed to deliver such an
high level and on a low impedance load, in these conditions the guitar
sound will be poor.
If your card does not have a high impedance input you will need to use a
small mixer with a good high-Z line input to which the guitar can be con-
nected. The best quality connection is obtained using a very good micropho-
ne preamplifier with the addition of a quality D.I. box to which the guitar
will be connected. This setup will deliver the best possible sound because
the signal from the pickups will be treated with extreme care by the D.I. box,
as it is designed expressly for these needs.
Input Level optimal setting
For an optimal sound quality the signal that’s fed into AmpliTube™ from
your audio system should be within a certain level range. AmpliTube™
shows the input signal level with a very simple three LED meter (fig. 7):
- the yellow one shows that a too little signal is present
- the green one tells that the signal is OK
- the red one which should light only occasionally, shows that
the input is close to overload.
Chapter 2
2.1
2.2
fig. 7
fig. 6