Monitored tone sounds different from the tone in the audio recording

BernardoDaud

Hey! So, I’ve been trying to record some guitar tracks with my guitar plugged into my pedalboard, which is connected to the input of my audio interface. I have an Arturia MiniFuse 1, and I use the instrument input with the gain turned all the way down, no direct monitoring, and I monitor through my headset connected to the interface's headphone output. Then I use plugins on the computer and get to a very nice tone while monitoring in the DAW (I have both Ableton Live and Pro Tools). The issue is that the tone I hear while monitoring differs from the recorded audio. When I listen to the recorded audio, the tone sounds harsh, dry, and muffled—quite different from what I hear while recording the same track. I've researched a lot, tried everything, talked to some people, but nothing seems to work out. Does anybody have any ideas on how to solve this?

Jeremy_NI

@BernardoDaud What kind or model of pedalboard are you using? If the instrument gain is set to minimum, do you still have signal coming through? When you monitor while recording, is your headphones connected to your audio interface or to that pedal board? Are you 100% sure your direct monitoring is off? that would explain the difference between the played audio and the recorded audio.

BernardoDaud

@Jeremy_NI thank you for replying! My pedalboard is not one of those digital multi-effects unities, it is just a regular plastic board with separate pedals on it. The signal chain is: Guitar -> ibanez big mini tuner -> vertex steel string supreme -> j rockett archer ikon -> JHS bonsai tube screamer -> keeley halo delay -> arturia minifuse 1 audio interface. I do have a good amount of signal coming through, I just set the gain to minimum because the input level with the pedals is higher than the one I'd get just with the guitar directly into the interface. The headphones are into the headphone output of the interface, and I'm sure the direct monitoring is off.

I just figured out yesterday that if I just plug my guitar straight into the interface the monitored and recorded audios sound almost the same. Although, I can´t get to the tone I´m going for without my pedals, specially for lead sounds. I just wanted to record with the same tone I hear when monitoring. Do you think there´s another way to do it?

Adicionally, I´ve been considering some different options for recording. Maybe screen recording the DAW could be an option (even though I haven´t yet figured out a way to do it and get an audio signal) or even trying to do something similar to what people that do live streams do, and recording the audio as if I was broadcasting live using the master audio from the DAW.

Let me know what you think, thank you!