The Bridge to Somewhere

by: Max Mobley

illustration by Tanith Connolly Not long after computers stopped using gears and punch cards, developers looked upon the technology as a means to capture and reproduce audio. Commercial digital recording began in the 1970s, though the technology was hardly accessible. The first ‘Pro Tools’ was called Sound Tools and came out in 1989. Less than 10 years later, digital audio interfaces were the hot new gadgets in music stores.

My first digital audio interface was a PCI card called Gina made by the American company, Echo. Up until then, my music store purchases had been confined to amps, guitars, pedals, rack effects, and synthesizers. With my first audio interface purchase, I didn’t know how to react, so I did the same thing I did when I bought an instrument—I ogled it.

Guitars are meant to be looked at as well as played. Some pedals have an earned infamy that justifies a similar reaction. With rack mount gear, all those buttons, sliders, LCDs, and silk-screened parameter matrices made you feel like an astronaut about to modulate the ‘Q’ with an LFO pumping a big fat square wave, assuming astronauts do that sort of thing. (In space, no one can hear you modulate.) Looking at my Gina card offered no such gratification, but I ogled it nonetheless. Ooh, look—capacitors!

I studied it, coveted it even, for the fantastic promise it held—turning my bedroom into a full-blown recording studio. Back to reality, the Gina was a utilitarian-looking printed circuit board (PCB) with a bunch of roads and highways covered in solder, with resistors and caps spread around like little buildings. The big chip in the middle—city hall, of course! The original Gina card offered no effects, two analog ins, two digital ins, and a combined 10 analog and digital outs. Ins are far more important than outs, generally, but outs are cheaper.

As with women, ogling guitars in my youth made my palms sweaty. An adverse reaction to sweaty palms is one of the many things I believe women and guitars have in common. The Gina card did not elicit such an affect. Sweating the Gina came from me worrying about taking my computer apart, successfully installing the card, and then successfully putting the computer back together.

In my years as a bad repairer of things, I had grown used to the fact that leftover parts were just part of the deal. I even learned what parts were best left over and which required an un-repair/re-repair before a device would work again. From VW ‘maintenance’ to electric guitar accessorizing, I have a big old box of leftover parts that are my own personal handyman trophies. But in the days of my old Gina card, I felt computers couldn’t handle this leftover part phenomenon associated with a Max Mobley repair job. So the card sat in its box on a table for weeks while I summoned up the courage to take apart a computer for the very first time. It actually wasn’t that bad (PCI cards just slide into a slot on the motherboard, that’s it). I do remember a little blood, and whole lot of cursing, but really, that’s not so unusual. In the end, with the exception of the occasional driver issue, the card worked flawlessly through years of recordings.

Now, many years after scuttling the Gina card for something newer, better, and with higher resolution, I have three different audio interfaces. Only one is a PCI card. The other two are USB 2.0 devices. All do the same thing my Gina card did, and aren’t that much different aside from the expected improvements in fidelity (bit depth and sample rates, and the quality of the convertors responsible for both). The only other difference is the ease and speed in which you can get them up and running. USB interfaces are very popular, because of their simplicity and compatibility with laptops, the fastest growing segment of computer sales. And they are ‘leftover-part proof’ when it comes to installing and removing. Close the audio app, turn off the interface, and unplug the USB cable—how simple is that?

As I’ve mentioned before, refinement is the new bleeding edge. It isn’t really an edge at all, nor is it bloody. It’s more like guide rails and signage on the curve to keep you happily in it. In other words, it’s about improved ease of use and accessibility—bridging that gap between inspiration and digitization so later you can bury your inspired moment in a fog of DSP, and then squish it into an mp3 and sell it for a buck—literally.

The simplest and cheapest bridge (a rare combination in pro audio) between guitar and computer has to be the LightSnake G10 by SoundTech. The product consists of one cable—1/4” guitar (phone) plug on one end, USB on the other. In between, not that you’d notice, is a preamp and analog to digital converter. Plug the USB side into the computer and it sees it and loads the driver for it. Plug the other end into a guitar and it just plain works. That’s it, you’re ready to record.

The main issue with this scenario is latency (the time it takes for audio to make the round trip into and out of your computer). Latency is a perennial issue with audio interfaces, though much less so with today’s fast computers and driver refinements. The LightSnake G10 does not have its own drivers. On a PC, you have to rely on that flagship of latency—WDM, or the freeware driver ASIO4ALL. On a Mac, you can use the less latent CoreAudio driver.

If you can wrestle the latency down to 6ms or less, you can play it straight into Apple’s GarageBand so your Mac is now your amp, FX, and recording device. Better yet, use IK’s Amplitube or Line 6’s Pod Farm plug-ins and Cubase or Logic DAW software. In spite of being a born again analog gearhead, I have to admit that using professional guitar amp software like those mentioned above (excluding GarageBand) has become an acceptable recording standard. Capturing a dry signal is preferred, as it gives you nearly unlimited possibilities in creating a finished sound. Amplitube and the Pod Farm sound great, and you don’t have to worry about cranking your real amp for a good tone and properly miking it.

In the event that latency is insurmountable, which would bar you from using the above scenario in real-time, the G10 has a second jack on the guitar-side of the cable so you can simultaneously send the signal to your ‘real’ guitar rig. This makes latency a non-issue, and gives you ‘your guitar sound’ while still recording a dry signal for processing after recording. This split signal capability is what makes the G10 a truly functional and elegantly simple, no frills guitar interface. Under 40 bucks, it is the cheapest audio interface I’ve seen, certainly the cheapest interface with a preamp for guitar (they also make a cable for vocals with an XLR jack for mics).

The specs for the LightSnake are good but not outstanding in pro audio circles. They are much better than what a guitar amp would give you if you miked it. High-end audio interfaces will capture your amp hiss more accurately. The LightSnake won’t because it’s just the guitar signal, pure and easy.

* * *

Hey, reader! Sign up for the Crawdaddy! newsletter (located on the homepage) for a chance to win a free LightSnake. We have four of them to give away… give it a shot! We’ll contact four randomly selected sign ups on Wednesday, November 12.