Bea didn't shine more light on it. He just said everyone was dumb for touching their interface. I was not impressed. I appreciate the effort you and others have put into sorting this out.

Ed S has changed how I use plugins so much, I already loved his shootout videos before he started this.

That bea vid was bollocks.. THIS video shows that the whole industry and community was not doing/been told what was „apparently“ sooo „obviously correct“…. wtf.

Yet another advantage to having kids. As well as all of the other moments of joy they bring, they can help you dial in great tone.

Damn I gotta have some kids, thanks guys@@DrProgNerd

Has yer man Rabea not perhaps jumped on this to make himself a wee bit more relevant by implying that this is old news, he's been ahead of the game as hes always done this and always known about it .

@@jimsmith4611 he possibly has I'm not sure. I give him the benefit of the doubt in that maybe that's how he set his levels all along. It didn't look like he needed any more gain anyway. But it was the lack of empathy for the other side that I had issue with. Not sure why you said "yer man" though?

I like Rabea, as a guitar player, and a person. He seems like a genuinely nice guy. But I found his video, about this subject, to be pretty condescending. My reaction was about the same as yours. Also...on my Presonus Quantum 2626, if I set the instrument input gain to zero, THERE IS NO SOUND AT ALL. I MUST increase it, to hear my guitar. So Rabea's implication, that all modern interfaces "automatically" set the correct level, is false. Unless, I suppose, my 2626 is not modern enough? I believe that I am more confused now, than I was before...

And just to be clear here...I am NOT using Neural DSP. So if this conversation is JUST about THEM, then I will sit down and be quiet.

Nothing is obvious in the world of a moron. I am one and I can't point it out enough: many manuals simply suck when it comes to giving clear instructions. Ok, it made me decent at figuring out stuff myself, but that cannot be the intention of a manual.

Felt the same even he was my guitar influence, for me it was arrogant of him to say that.

I felt like IK was shaming me for Suggesting this is how to set up your interface (the clipping method)

I was going to comment, but you said everything I was going to say. Exactly. Why? Because we were all told to do that....

Ah, the artist presets still suck when using line level tbh

I'm not convinced every artist preset was made with that in mind

Hey Rabea! Hopefully this cleared it up a bit, since until we made the videos this was explicitly "the Best Practice" that Neural DSP themselves have told plugin users - taken from "Tips For Using your Plugin" "To Set up the input level, you need to adjust the gain knob on your audio interface. The best practice is to set the input level as high as possible without causing any distortion or clipping" Since they've only recently changed this after we made the videos in January, it looks like best practice has changed, and they've consequently updated the site to reflect this. Hopefully this might mean that bois using single coils like me, Beebs, Tom Quayle and Rhett will get better results from the Neural stuff which was kind of the point of the discussion in the first place and why we were kinda like "why have we been doing this all along".

It isn’t obvious advice because almost all companies tell you NOT to do it. Which we now know was errant information.

I find your comment here some what disingenuous, the video is how you're confused why anyone would do it any other way. If it was that obvious some of the best guitar KZfaqrs wouldn't have been confused just like the rest of us. Just my two cents no disrespect intended.

@@akaerik1thanks man. I don’t really comment unless I’m being transparent. There is no gain in being disingenuous. I was confused why this is something that is coming up now. In my entire experience using VST’s I’ve never gained up a DI. Nor have I read any ‘how to’ or watched any ‘how to’ videos. I just go with it and use it. But it never occurred to me to gain up a DI. I just leave it as is. I see other users do, and tbh I guess when it became a problem. That’s when I made a video, just to clarify things from my perspective. I don’t see what’s disingenuous about that. And no worries I don’t feel any disrespect man! Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But I can assure you, I’m a firm believer in saying it how it is and being transparent. Probably the Yorkshire in me 😂

@@RabeaMassaad respect 🙏🏽

I would buy a Gaslight Pedal!

I appreciate the clarification on this! I use a lot of ml plug-ins and have enjoyed them. I actually thought that we were supposed to have it lighting up green all the time. It would be really fantastic if all amp Sims could have a built-in calibration like the Joey Sturgis stuff does. I admit this input gain thing has been a pain in the ass ever since I started trying to learn to record, and now I'm trying to switch to Reaper which has just been another headache. I guess now I'm off to ask Dan Worrall and Adam Steel if they have an answer for my specific Reaper / pro Q question.

I've bought several ML plug-in over the years, and I've always set the input gain to just below clipping based on advice from you guys at ML, and I gotta say, I was never really happy the tones in the long run. This is why I kinda haven't used my plug-ins a whole lot, instead resorting to practice with real amps or a modeller at home. I never made the connection, that the input gain was causing my plug-ins to be all flubby. I guess that says more about me than it does the people giving the advice. That said, I watched Rabeas video last night and I went straight to my audio interface and turned the input gain way down. Now my ML and Neural plug-ins sound great, and I feel like an idiot. 😂 I never really understood why I could get a kickass tone with a real amp or a modeller, but couldn't get anything to sound right with plug-ins.

to be fair, Misha set the input for the tone coming from his AxeFX, he didn’t dial in the gain for a DI signal

> high gain tones won't be a FLUBBY, noisy mess < So this issue affects frequency / EQ too, not just the amount of gain? I've wondered why ML and Tonex sims always seem to make my Fender bridge pickups sound like Gibson neck pickups, no spank or sparkle. Thought I was losing my mind.

@@ericolson326 kind of yes, simply boosting the input signal into an amp will make the amp respond differently. Many high gain rock/metal players do this to archive a tighter low end response. But it can also go too far, you really have to experiment and different amps respond differently.

I find both my stomp and helix native sound awful in my DAW, even with VERY low input gain - to the point of I stopped using it and went with Amplitube, which worked great right out the box without any crazy input gain levels.

That's what I'm doing, but now this is saying I should set it to 0... which gives me a signal that PEAKS at about -19 dBFS, with a fairly hot metal humbucker (at max volume of course). That's a bit low, isn't it?

@@exscape In Ed's video (I highly recommend watching it , if you haven't already), you not only set your interface gain to zero, but then you adjust the input gain in your amp sim plugin to the value that corresponds with your specific audio interface. Ed made a whole spread sheet of the values for a bunch of interfaces.

This man. If you recorded too low with this new philosophy you won't even see any waveforms

Your DAWs don't allow you to increase or decrease the visual waveform without making it louder or quieter? Have a look for this feature. It's been in ProTools for decades

@@EthanRom - You can magnify the waveforms on pretty much all DAWs without actually recording a hotter signal.

@@philmiller6655 This. Plus this whole debate is a non issue. The plugins don't care about what level you record at, they only see the level that you give them. If you trim the gain of the recorded audio or use an overdrive plugin in front, the level at which you recorded doesn't mean a thing.

It's good practice in theory because you are utilizing more of the bit depth of the recorded signal. At 24 or 32 bit audio, if you are setting your levels very low, you are only using a fraction of those available discrete values and losing dynamic range How much of a noticeable difference this makes in practice, I don't really know. In my experience, preamps also yield better results when turned up, I would turn up my interface and attenuate before the plugin.

Recently I put an EQ on output signal and that was the thing I needed

I was just thinking that

If it sounds good it is good. Think of it as plugging into a boost pedal, effectively the interface is adding gain to the signal like a boost pedal and maybe that sounds good to you. There is no right or wrong, it’s all subjective and your ears will tell you what’s right for you.

I love their plugins, but being a former QC owner (spending a lot of time on the QC Forum), I'm not overly impressed with the way they handle their interactions with their consumers - and the undelivered promises on the QC. Definitely a love/hate thing with Neural and me.

@@DrProgNerdYes. They have fantastic top tier products with a history of repeatedly promising more than necessary only to then struggle to deliver.

Basically still applies to almost anything right?

@@johnnathancordy Well, certainly not bass guitar. And possibly not keys as well, since both output instrument level signals. I wonder if this has as much to do with signal impedence as level? It sure flies in the face of everything we've been told now for years.

So pure, right?!

Isn't it just... An amazing palyer ..

Oh man, how many comments I got "Your preset sounds shit when I play it"...

back then, tape machines and consoles would be calibrated and that is no different to how things are now. Tape machines all have their own calibration (based on who sets them up), same is true of converters. The main issue is that most people don’t have to think about this stuff for most scenarios. So generally, a lot of people don’t really understand it. There’s tons of threads on forums online that are totally muddled through around things like -18dB, VU, +22dBu, RMS, unity etc without really knowing what it relates to. So it can be quite hard to learn, because there’s a lot of misinformation online.

@@eds4754Even when one Does know what one is talking about, one still has to put one's Thinking Cap on to decipher what Others might mean innit ... 😜

P.S. Yes Tape Machines were calibrated but to different Reference Levels and with different tolerances given the nature of the recording medium. Most of the calibration was to do with Record Level, Frequency Response and Head Alignment. The input level Standards were much simpler to deal with. Pro +4dBv Not Pro -10dBv Of course there were differing Zeroes depending on whether it was 600 Ohms or other impedances ... but that's another story . Thanks BBC 🙄

@@KozmykJ Ha yep. It’s essentially the same with converters and how much headroom they have. Some are 24dBu, some 22dBu, some 21, some 20, 19, 18 etc.

I'd like to disagree with your conclusion. The problem is, that people are preamplifying their instrument's signal (without realizing) to line level before "plugging" into the virtual amp which is designed (or not) to handle a normal instrument level signal but keeps this a secret

Most (consumer) interfaces these days have maximum input headroom of around 12-13dBu, which is roughly 3V RMS. That should be sufficient for any pickups, hotter ones will be close to clipping, lower output will still be at a good level. The highest headroom interfaces tend to be mastering grade ones with very low noise specs (and stepped gain). It’s quite hard to record a DI that is too low in level, as the noisefloor of the interface will be well below the background noise of the pickups. BTW big fan of your channel!

Thanks eds. I’m just concerned about the resolution as I know how lousy stuff recorded too low can sound if you bring it up in the DAW afterwards. But you raise a good point - if you have low level stuff recorded with say a Focusrite Scarlett then you raise it in the DAW (or amp it with the plugin) you’ll be bringing the interface’s noise floor up with it. There is some ideal sweet spot that would match all the criteria - we just need to know if this is -30 LUFs or -24 or whatever.

@@PsionicAudio Definitely wise to be aware of noise floors and any sources of problems! The difficulty is interfaces all having different definitions of analog voltage to what digital level it is assigned. On one converter a 1V RMS sine could be a totally different level to another. Plugins have no way of knowing what interface everyone is using, and they have to assign their own dBu->dBFS reference level. Often they don’t say what this is, and that’s why this topic is such a grey area for a lot of people. Hopefully with the topic gaining more traction, it will become more common for manufacturers and plugin developers to share this information as standard.

I’ll be watching this as it develops. There needs to be a published standard - have any of you checked the AES white pages? There might already be a standard buried in all their stuff - assuming the plugin makers adhere to them…

@@PsionicAudio Many analog modelled plugins adhere to 22dBu=0dBFS but this isn’t really suitable for guitar pickups. Likewise, some plugins made for mix bus use something expecting a higher signal. It’s hard to standardise because different requirements need different specs. Likewise there can be different constraints on size, power, noise, etc. IMO 12-13dBu is sensible for guitar amp sim plugins, but it’s not standardised. There are some excellent emulations that are 1V=0dBFS that need a WAY hotter signal than you could ever record with, simply because 1V=0dBFS is the definition SPICE uses.

I had the same take-away after watching Bea's vid. I like the guy, but the gaslighting came off as a bit douchey. I - and many others I'm sure - spent a considerable amount of time reading through manuals, and watching hours of videos to refine our process. To have Rabea have the attitutude "I don't know what everyone's problem is" - was weak. I'm wondering if someone will dig into the Bea archives and find a video where he gives the same 'wrong advice'.

Never tried using a pre on my Di I’ll give the 610 a try thanks

You’re right, but it just highlights the issue that audio interfaces do not have a fixed standard for dBu to dBFS conversion, and they absolutely should. The ideal would be if all interfaces used the same standard for dBu to dBFS, *and* also had auto-compensating output, so that if you turn up the gain to maximize amplitude resolution, it digitally reduces the output to maintain the same dBu/dBFS conversion. If all of them worked like that, you could set the gain to just below clipping and everything would still be gravy. We’re way past due for audio & plugin companies to finally get smart about this, and make it consistent.

Desperately searching for this response because I would rather have a properly full signal recorded DI from the interface and just... turn the input down on the plugin...

Yep, it would be ideal if all interfaces worked like that, but they would still have to agree and standardize on how many real-world volts = how many digital dBFS. If they all settled on one value for that, AND had an auto-compensating input like you described, we’d be golden and never have to worry about this again.

I'm guilty of this. As I posted elsewhere, I did at least figure out that input gain was an issue for me. But stubbornly, I kept following what I thought was "best practice" and tried to compensate instead via other means, such as an EQ pedal between my guitar and interface input. Instead of just using my ears. The EQ is still useful mind you, but I can use it much more effectively now that I understand the signal chain end-to-end a bit better. Alas, to add the confusion I think the EQ is buffered (MXR 10 band EQ). So just going to have to what I did before all this digital stuff existed lol. Use my ears. I'm not anti-digital by any means - I just think it requires a little investment of time to understand it and make best use of it, and some players understandably just want to plug in and play. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.

The advice applies for line level signals, let’s say the output of your modeler helix, fractal, etc. when using instrument levels with plugins then no gain, I could be wrong but I think those are two completely different Scenarios and people still don’t understand the difference….

You can plug a guitar into your line-in (PC soundcard) using a simple 1/4 to 1/8 jack adapter. Just use a buffer pedal or some OD pedal with zeroed drive knob. That would be your "Hi-Z" transformation. Sounds pretty good, just has more hiss with high gain compared to a good interface. Btw this Hi-Z buffer thing is also extremely easy to craft out of handful of electronic components. You are correct, gain on the interface should be as high as possible and then you decrease virtually, in plugin or with an FX before the plugin. More quality that way. Author of this and other similar videos missed this part completely. At first I was very confused but then realized: they use input gain setting of neural dsp plugins or maybe NAM, and that setting is not flexible enough to suppress the loudness of the input signal to match the level that the plugin expects. That's a real problem, some plugins sound improperly or even awful if you don't decrease the input signal enough. Users just need to use additional FX prior to the plugin to decrease the volume of the input signal. But a loud signal in the very start of the FX chain means more bitdepth and better quality after further processing. When you decrease level in DAW, it decreases without bit precision loss (thanks to 32-bit or even 64-bit math). While signal from the interface is sort of 24 bit but with lots of unusable noisy bits on the bottom. With highly dynamic guitar signal most useful waveform contained in a small bit range, less than a dozen of bits. Turning gain knob on an interface down decreases that bit range even further. This is so harmful, they just do not understand what they are doing with these suggestions and hype videos.

Not Focusrite's fault. Neural should just add more negative range to their input gain with lesser default input gain value and that's it.

言いたいことを全部言ってくれた😂

I have been following this since Rhett’s video. I use Bias Fx 2 a lot in home setting and if I set interface to 0 gain, it yields VERY low input signal on amp sim and to me doesn’t sound good at all. I have been adjusting interface input gain to bring input level on sim to -10 to 0 and it seems to sound much better. Anyone know what BiasFx2 settings ‘should’ be or am I doing this wrong? I use MOTUM4 btw. Thanks

@@fouryearsbehind You've raised an excellent and crucial 3rd point - not every hardware audio interface has a gain knob easy to 'standardise to zero gain'. The gain knob on my own RME Fireface 802 goes from +6 to +60 (not 0), suggesting my Fireface adds '+6' at the lowest setting. The thing is, every plugin can measure the input signal - you usually see it in a meter. If that input level is clipping then the plugin developer should be shouting to the user...or/and, auto reducing that gain. This doesn't appear to be standardised also since we're hearing of clean patches sounding distorted. It's all a sad mess, and it shouldn't be!

I noticed that with S-Gear as well. It seems to be the exception to the other plug-ins in that you have to increase the input gain on your interface. Agreed that it is a superb plugin. It doesn't get the attention it deserves.

that’s fine to do

I exactly have the same issue.