Analog four Filtering guitar

Elektron Gear Analog Keys/Four
#1

Howdy,

I was wondering if there are any out there having success running a guitar thru the A4’s filters and using its overdrive and such.

In the manual it has a section on this with a diagram of setting it up. it has a guitar going into the INPUT of what it calls an amp and the OUTPUT of said amp into the a4. now i cant imagine an a4’s inputs being able to take the heat of say a fender twin…id imagine the output of that would surely fry the a4. would you reckon it means a preamp?? even still - i would be freaked at running a preamps output into the a4.

in my head i have this ideal image of running a guitar straight into the inputs of the a4. using one of the tracks of the a4 and getting all sorts of amzing brian eno/david bowie/robert fripp type of guitar sounds.

so far im getting nothing really.

i have put a trigger on the first note of the sequence. changed the wave forms of the track to left. set note length to the length of the sequence and whacked up the level and overdrive and all i get is a loud hum.

i watched a demo on the octatrack with pickup machines, but surely with the a4s agressive filter you wouldnt really need something like that to boos the signal so much?

anyway if anyone has any advice it would be greatly appreciated. cheers conor

El. Guitar with analog four
#2

The diagram in the manual is pretty vague. You need to use a line level input into the A4 to get the best results. Just plugging a guitar in won’t work. A guitar signal is very low level and high impedance. The A4 can’t handle this. If your amp has a line level output you could use that but most classic amps like yours don’t have it. You do not want to plug the speaker out of your amp in as you’ll probably blow everything up. :slight_smile:

You could mic the amp and take the mic preamps output into the A4 or DI the guitar into a preamp. If you don’t have a standalone preamp you could us a channel on a mixer and feed the mixers line output or use a pod or similar guitar preamp.

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#3

I actually plugged my guitar straight into the inputs and it sort of worked. I have active pickups though so the signal is a bit louder, it’s essentially a built in preamp in the guitar. Ran it through OSC 1 but the signal was very low until I turned the overdrive way up. It sounded fine, very unique, sort of a electronic sound to it, it was very colored by the Analog Four. I actually was pretty surprised. I should of ran it through some sort of preamp with a line out for a correct signal level and will do this in the future but I wanted to see if it could take my signal direct. I didn’t even think about impedance levels, and should have but no damage was done.

I had a lot of fun setting up a trance gate by using a square wave LFO set to track vol or filter amount. It was a bit clicky but I think it was just a limitation of analog synths and rapid modulation of amp settings. Still sounded cool.

Sounds like you’ve got lower output pickups though, so your diffidently going to need some sort of DI box or preamp with a line out. Just something to boost the signal to feed the A4 something closer to line level.

Just make sure you set a trig on step one with INF note length, I saw in your post that you put a trig down but didn’t read the INF length part, so I thought I’d add that.

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#4

thanks a lot for the replies, i will definitely check out the impedence on the the output of one of my preamps vs the impedence seen at the imput of the a4. that was the one thing i was worried most about - just imagine…nuking the inputs of the a4 before overbridge even arrives!!
will get on it and let all know how i get on!
cheers
c

#5

My experience…im not a guitarist but i work in a pro-studio.

All has been said by TSV.

Almost depends on what you need

…clean DI guitar?
• Guitar > DI > mic preamp > A4

…guitar + drive/dist stompboxes?
• Guitar > stompboxes chain > guitar amplifier > mic > mic preamp > A4
[i really dont like the sound of a dist/driven guitar fed directly into DI]

…guitar + fx stompboxes?
• Guitar > Fx stompboxes > DI (two if the fx is stereo) > A4

#6

Hey capaxton, after you setup your guitar thru an A4 track for filter, envelope and distortion fun, try adding dry signal with the FX inputs on top of that. You end up with a type of parallel processing which lets you drive the shit out of the distortion/saturation, filter res and fx and still maintain the attack/transients of the guitar, great for percussion, clear and punchy yet heavily distorted, instant glory :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

#7

Yep, I’ve tried it, works well, but you will need a preamp first.

My setup:
Guitar > tube preamp > couple of effect pedals, some stereo ones at the end > cab sim > input 1-2 A4.
As already stated, put a trig with inf length to step1, then different trigs for the filters, then experiment.
Passive pickups won’t work well directly plugged in the A4.

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#8

I don’t have a preamp. Would an audio interface do the same job? running the headphone out of a zoom H4n to a couple of 1/4" mono cables

#9

If you have got a boost pedal, or any pedal you can get a load of clean gain out of, you could try using this to boost the signal to line level.You should need about 20db of gain to get in the region of live level from instrument level. If you are using distortion/fuzz etc, you might be able to get this amount of gain there.

#10

A4 overdrive, max all levels, amp vol…
Passive guitar straight in…

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#11

That sounds awesome!

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#12

Wow, yes sounds really great! Is there any other sequencing in this or just playing into open AMP??

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#13

Thanks, made with a 140€ 8 strings guitar. :content:
Of course you may have more possibilities with a preamp, a mixer, amp + mic + preamp, cab sim…

There’s a random arp which modulate OSC2, so yes, kind of sequencing.

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#14

I’ve got my guitar running through my audio interface but I need to use it to record the output of the OT into my DAW.

Is there another way to connect the guitar to the A4. I’ve tried a direct connection but it sounds flat due to it being mono only.

What are my options? Do I need a DI box and a stereo jack to x2 mono cable?

#15

I know this thread is a little old, but thank you to everyone who has given their thoughts and advice. For those people looking to connect a guitar direct to the Analog Four/Keys this is my solution. I bought a Dark Glass Harmonic Booster Clean Preamplifier, and it works really well. Its a very clean preamp with some tone controls to add boost into the lows and mids. Its very very nice!

I have the guitar completely clean and then use the filters and sequencer to give it life. You can also process the incoming signal through the effects as well. I am using it with an elbow for a sustained drone – if only the eBow worked on multiple strings.

Enjoy!