Badcat Unleash

[Buffered]

Are you running through your Weber Cali still? I'm almost positive those are JBL clones, and really need volume to get in the sweet spot for the speaker - at least the D120s had to. That could be it. Also, while the PS is the most transparent attenuator I tried - any extreme levels of attenuation will affect your sound regardless of the device - I think it's physics.

For tracking, I use a Focusrite 2i2 for home stuff - lets you take a signal from a mic as well and you can pan your sound in your DAW which is kind of cool too. They make may different versions of the Focusrite depending on your needs.

[Heady Jam Fan]

I've heard good things about all those brands. I've always done some recordings that needed a few more inputs, so I haven't personally tried any of those smaller units built mainly for guitarists or solo-musicians. So any advice I have is more general. First, I'd definitely stick to the fastest one with the least lag. This will probably largely have to do with the type of connection. I could be wrong, but I thought USB has more tendency to lag than Firewire, while Apple's Thunderbolt should be the smoothest. I use a Firewire interfact that with an adapter for my Mac's Thunderbolt port - I still get some lag occasionally and have to restart my computer, lock some tracks, or delete some music from iTunes. Second, I'm sure you looking at reviews of sound quality and I think this is largely due to the preamp. Some studios might have a $1000 preamp for each mic, and of course that isn't realistic for people like us. But there is a big difference in sound from my cheapo Behringer mixer's preamp to an old M-Audio interface I had, and finally my current interface is Presonus. The first two have a tendency to be more harsh and metallic. The Presonus is only considered to be decent while I think the other two units I mentioned aren't considered to be good for your tone. So I'd probably be looking at opinions of the preamps for whatever interface you decide on.

[Jkendrick]

Thanks guys. To give you an idea of what I currently do, I have an Apogee MiC (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00HHEVL3C/ref=mp_s_a_1_9?qid=1450367758&sr=8-9&pi=AC_SX220_SY330_QL65&keywords=imic) that I just plug directly into an iPad and record to GarageBand. Any recordings of mine you've heard have been recorded this way. I'm looking to now record the guitar directly (sometimes) and maybe simultaneously record vocals with the Apogee. It sounds like for this simple application the 2i2 might be the ticket?

[Hans Moleman]

I have the same Presonus as Heady and can attest to it being a great unit. You can find them pretty cheap used too (at least here in Toronto), which is how I got mine. One caveat to all of this - if you're going to be recording direct before hitting a speaker, I assume you'll want to re-amp with software? If that's the route you're going then not much else matters, you just need a good amp plugin for your DAW. There are a million options here but Amplitube is tough to beat for the price.

For home recording, nothing beats just plugging into your DAW and using the amp sim there. Honestly the new versions of AmpliTube will make it sound better than almost anything you can do at home.