Hi all! Remember me? I’m back! I will post a more social post in the off topic section.

In this post, I wanted to pick your brains about getting set up for recording and for online collaborating. I have not been playing, and I am really rusty. Partly because I just have had no one to play with, and I am very unmotivated to just play with myself, or with backing tracks only, or etc. I need some social input.

And Covid-19 kind of put the kibosh on any efforts to get my own local “garage band” going. Our area was hit pretty hard, and is in critical zone again with infection, so, as we head into winter and inside months again, I have to figure out how to connect with people.

In the past, you may remember I had a Toneport UX2 interface, and just used GarageBand, as I have been, and still am. Dusted that TonePort UX2 off, and found out it is not much supported any more. So I got a new one.

Now I have a Focusrite Scarlett 18i8. One of the reasons I went with this, is that I wanted a few inputs, and I wanted it to work with JamKazam, which is a program that lets you jam with others online, as long as your internet is fast enough (and can be connected via Ethernet rather than WiFi, to help with lag and jitter issues).

I still have a couple mics that I can use to record both voice and my amp. But then, I wanted to be able to go direct in rather than mic’ing my amp sometimes, so that I could play at night and not be bothering the family.

I so I went from my pedalboard to the Focusrite and plugged a guitar cable into one of inputs that can take either and XLR for a mic, or can be used as an instrument line in. And connected a mic for my voice. Worked just fine, for the most part.

The only thing that didn’t work is that without some sort of amph speaker cabinet emulation, (which I guess is sometimes called Impulse Response, or IR?), the effects don’t work and sound the same as if they were running through my amp and amp cab, and being mic’d.

The friend I was trying things out with had a Quilter Phantom Block, that adds in a speaker cabinet sim and some controls. Then you can run effects into that, and to your board or interface, and it sounds better, and more like an amph with a mic.

For a little more, I can get the Quilter InterBlock 45 that does all that, with some more options, AND can act as a solid state amp to power a speaker cab. Was thinking I might go that way. Or you can get a box that has lots of speaker cab sims, or “IR’s”.

Any of you guys trying any of this stuff to record, or play online?

If I can get this figured out, it seems like a good way to start to be able to play with other musicians and have some social connection during these pandemic times.

Hope you all are well! Let me know thoughts if any?