Eleven LE Review

Last week I picked up the "Digidesign Music Production Toolkit 2" which features a bundle of plugins, virtual instruments and software upgrades for Pro Tools LE and M-Powered.

One of the plugins included is an RTAS guitar amp emulator called Eleven LE which is a similar product to that of IK Multimedia's amplitube and Native Instruments guitar rig 3.

The first disadvantage has already been made clear, because it is an RTAS; it is unusable in any other DAW apart from Pro Tools. Upon opening the plugin, its visuals quickly remind me of Amplitube and it is just as easily used. You have the choice of 16 amp models, which emulate several classic amps from the last 50 years, including: The Vox AC30, Marshall JCM, Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifiers and more! Having played through all of these amps in real life, I can say that the representation of them is fair.

You have the choice of 7 different speaker cabs, all with different characteristics, from 1x12's to 4x12's. You can choose 8 different types of microphones to be placed on or off axis; the suggested models include Shure's SM57, Sennheiser M241, AKG 414 and more. To top it off, there is a noise gate which to me is genius, so many of these types of plugins create incredible amounts of hum when using distortion and it’s about time something was done to combat it.

So with all these features, you're asking - is it actually any good?

Yes and no, the sounds I was able to get with my Fender Telecaster were very satisfactory if you’re hoping to do a quick demo to show band mates. The tones are probably not good enough for a commercial recording though but if you’re looking to build your first demo with your band at home where you do not have the location to crank your amp, this is the next best thing to try. The presets which come with the plugin are decent - with a little bit of experiment with the amps I easily managed to find tones I was happy with.

Here are some audio examples I worked on last night, comparing the plugin for different styles of music.

Hard Rock/Metal - mp3 876kb

Here are the settings I used for the Rhythm guitars (click to enlarge)



Here are the settings I used for the lead guitars



Pop Punk - mp3 658kb

Guitar settings



Pop Rock - mp3 544kb

Rhythm guitar



Lead Guitar



Pros:

• Good range of options which you can customize to come closer to the sound you want.
• No integrated hardware needed.
• Excellent if you do not have an amp, or neighbors that appreciate loud amps

Cons:

• Only available for Pro Tools systems.
• Tones are not realistic enough.
• CPU usage is a little too high over several tracks.

Overall, this is an excellent tool which I will be using to get down ideas, but sadly, that’s all I'll be using it for.

More info and audio samples can be found here.

RRP £250

Jamie x

Steal The Smile

Last week i began to record a band called Steal The Smile who are from the Reading and High Wycombe areas. Me and my friend Bridgeman went to one of their house's in Marlow to record the drums because they had transport issues with the kit. So we packed up all the gear into my tiny Ford KA and headed off!

After setting up the drum kit, we miced it up using:

• A Shure PG 52 for the kick drum - not my prefered microphone but its all ive got for now!
• A Shure SM57 for the snare drum
• A Shure SM58 on each tom - I took off the heads of these microphones after hearing from countless places that without the head on, they are essentially SM57's so decided to give it a try and i was pleased with the results, although I did not compare with the head on and off.
• A Rode NT5a for the hi hat
• 2 AKG C1000's for the over heads - not everybodys cup of tea, but ive always had good results using them and for now I have nothing better to use :)

We decided not to use any room mics because the room was pretty small. We used the pre amps from the M Audio Profire 2626 which apperently use technology taken from M Audio's award winning Oxygen pre amps. This was the first time id recorded an acoustic drum kit using these pre amps, I have recorded alot of drums before using the pre amps on an Alesis multimix 16 and can say these new ones on the Profire rock the socks off the multimix!

Tuned up the toms then we were ready to roll.

After tracking several takes on several playlists we decided that we had enough takes to comp a good drum track so headed home.

The guys came to my house the next day where I am alot more comfortable working to be honest. We recorded the bass guitar and all of the electric guitars, a good days work!

Meanwhile ive been editing the drums to line them up exactly with the grid on Pro Tools. In my mind, having super tight timed drums makes a demo CD sound one step closer to the professional studio sound. I have been trying to do most of the work with Beat Detective LE but sometimes have to get down and dirty and do it myself where the tool fails. Beat Detective LE does not work with more than one track of audio at a time (unlike its full version brother). But a clever man on the internet came up with a work around which I have been using, here is a link to it:

Beat Detective LE Multitrack Workaround

Doing it this way does slow down the workflow, but I believe it is alot quicker than me doing it myself, and lets face it. Im pretty lazy! So far I am 2 songs done on the drum editing, with 3 left to do, then we begin recording the vocals and putting the finishing touches to the songs :)



Will post the next blog soon with audio samples and my mixdown report!

Jamie x