Also thinking about playing live and trying to simplify setup for maximum options / minimum stuff.
Damn, y’all got me GASsing for a Two Notes Torpedo CAB now.
I play live with powered speakers now instead of guitar amp, because I’m more of a half-way electronic muso and electric violinist than a guitarist, but I’ve never had a true power amp simulator in hardware form in my rig. I have to admit my favorite overdriven guitar sound was with the power tubes cranked, and that just on a low-end Fender (Hot Rod Deluxe) - but I rarely go for it because even with my (now rarely used) THD attenuator, it’s still loud enough to bug the neighbors. .
For the last year, my live and studio rig has been ampless. The tech 21 blonde is a great preamp with very realistic amp sounds. At home, I have been experimenting with Infinity looper last in the chain going into AB of octatrack. Infinity is slaved to the octatrack and works very well for recording loops and them loading them onto a flex track for experimenting/arranging. I haven’t done too much mangling yet but mostly been using the octatrack arranger mode to turn my individual loops into songs.
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Is what I’m trying to achieve possible? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I’ve learned to use the Pickup machines for looping guitar. At the moment I have a bass guitar going into a reddi DI box which feeds into my apollo twin interface. I have the outputs of the apollo going to the Octatrack (this is how I sample things playing on my computer, etc). I’d like to get the benefits of the DI box and preamps etc. So my octatrack is recording the output of the apollo.
Now when it gets to live looping: of course my octatrack double dubs whatever’s i’m playing over (since it’s recording the outputs of my interface). So how can I still route my guitar through the interface into the octatrack and successfully live loop? Sorry for nub question.
Yes, for sure, but I don’t get what’s your issue. 
Sorry, when i try to dub the next guitar part, the previous part gets recorded on top again… Was hoping I could still do this with guitar plugged into interface and not directly into octatrack.
Is OT sent to your Apollo and sent back to OT ?
What are your Rec Setup settings? Active SRC3 ?
yes OT going to apollo and back to the OT
just recording input CD (where apollo is plugged in)
OT outputs shouldn’t be sent back to Apollo’s out plugged in OT.
Don’t know Apollo’s settings…
my OT is actually currently going to some inputs i have connected with ADAT to the apollo. Then apollo back out to octatrack. Sorry I wish I could better explain… but it is possible to use the pickup machines to loop this way?
If you have separate outputs on your Apollo, route guitar only to OT.
Bump!
I’d like to record my bass guitar with my OT, it’s a passive pickup bass. What would I need between the bass and OT to make it happen? From what I gather, a preamp pedal like Two Notes Le Bass would do the trick, right?
On the cheaper side, something like a Zoom ms60b would work as well?
Edit: I don’t have any bass gear left from my younger years, I’ve just kept my bass “just in case”.
Simplifier sounds great for guitar and I’ve read the same for bass. They also have a model dedicated for bass.
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A jack! You can try straight in OT, adding compressor with increased gain (around 24) as first fx.
With a preamp it’s obviously better.
Tech 21 Sansamp things can be interesting on bass.
I really like Mooer Radar, cheap amb/cab sim using Impulse Response. I had better bass sounds with it compared to my HX Stomp I use for my guitars.
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Here’s some OT and guitar. Nothing earth-shattering, just learning.
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Preamp unit would be ideal. But whether you truly need to spend the money for a Two Notes when a Tech 21 might do just fine is up to you.
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If it’s bass you could even try an inexpensive preamp like the ART tube whatchmacallit. I think they’re like $80. They sound pretty good.
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I do this with bass! Bass guitar can actually sound surprisingly good recorded directly, so be sure to try that first.
I did eventually add a SansAmp VT Bass DI pedal to my setup, but that was more for tonal flexibility and character.
I do really like how bass recorded on the OT sounds. There’s a little bit of a Fugazi-like character added to it.
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I use a Dark Glass B7K between my bass and the OT. Any decent preamp will do, I think.
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