Recording electric guitar into DAW

I am planning to add some guitar lines to the music I produce. I envisage the electric guitar being somewhat processed in sound, I suppose a sort of classic ’80s ‘indie’ sound with chorus, delay and so forth, maybe a bit of overdrive, I don’t know. I’m not a guitarist.

As I don’t play guitar, I am not an expert at creating guitar tones, nor in fact at recording any external signals into a DAW, as I purely use synth plugins and samples. Any audio I use (e.g. spoken-word vocals) I record externally using a Zoom device, or on occasion just a phone, then import into the DAW.

The guitarist I am working with is acoustic-based, though in the past he played in rock bands. He owns an electric guitar, but not an amp, so I am pondering the best way to do this.

I could buy something like the Positive Grid Spark 2, which comes with a ton of amp models, FX and tones, manipulated through a phone app and with massive scope for adjustment. It seems to be very well thought of, at least for what it is, and I’d be happy to spend the money on it.

The Spark 2 has a stereo analog line out that I could feed into the analog inputs of my ancient PCI sound card (Audiophile 2496). Alternatively, the Spark 2 also has a USB connector (audio is output at 24 bit, 44.1 kHz), but I am unsure how that would work if the rest of the track was being played out to my speakers through the Audiophile 2496. Could the two devices co-exist in real time (one for guitar input, the other for output)? Also, would the latency of the USB input make it impossible to play in time with the track? (I suppose in that event the guitar could be monitored, at the time of recording it, purely through the speaker of the amp, then any delay in the recorded signal could be compensated for afterwards.)

BUT, I am torn, as I wonder if it would be better to simply feed the guitar into a DI box, and from there into the sound card, record it completely dry, then add processing afterwards using VST plugins? My instinct tells me that would likely be better and certainly more flexible, but I’m drawn to the immediacy of going through the little amp at the time of recording. I don’t necessarily want to spend hours researching amp modelling and guitar FX plugins and so on. I certainly don’t want to spend lots of money on them and would prefer, if going that route, to use the most highly regarded free or cheap options.

Any thoughts?

Small amp - mic - interface - DAW is so straightforward that I can't imagine doing anything else.

But that's my garage-y bias showing.
My entire philosophy is "get a good sound in the room and stick a mic in front of it."

The Spark has a lot of features that you may not end up using. Any ol practice amp will give you an adequate clean, which you can manipulate in the computer. People like those desktop Yamahas (THR?), but I think even that is overkill. Roland Cube or something versatile and simple. I have a busking amp from Cool Music that has mic and guitar ins and I use it for everything.

I don't really do VSTwhatever but if that world is familiar to you, go for it.

You will not like a DI sound unless the DI has speaker emulation (e.g. Para Driver).

One of my issues is my sound card. It only has line inputs, no mic input. I suppose I could buy a cheap mixer that has mic inputs and feed that into the sound card. Or I'll get round to buying a new audio interface eventually, perhaps when I need to upgrade to a new computer. But then I'd perhaps need a decent mic as well, though I do have some old dynamic mic that would probably do the job.

I don't know which youtubers aren't annoying and all the demo thumbnails look terrible but you want Neural Amp Modeler. It's a free plugin that uses (mostly) free profiles of amps and cabinets, on par (or better than) other guitar modeling solutions. For effects there are a lot of free options now - for '80s chorus you've got TAL Audio's free chorus plugin, Valhalla Supermassive does a great job of sounding like that old Alesis Midiverb/Quadraverb reverb, etc..

For the price of a Spark you could get a very good USB interface like the Motu M4 that has a hi-z input for guitar so you don't even need a DI.

I wouldn't worry about guitar-specific plugins and amp modeling tbh, I've gotten good results using lots of general purpose fx (delays, saturation, chorus, and all kinds of wacky stuff). One little trick I found is that I got better distortion by driving the input on something like a Soundtoys analog delay emulation, than from a "distortion" plugin. But that was mostly on acoustic guitar that already had some character, maybe it's a bit different for DI electric, idk. I would give it a shot before spending money and see if you can get a cool sound.

Ideally I record electric guitar through DI and also through an isolated low-watt amp with a mic on it. I usually use stock Logic "guitar rack" plugins; considering I'm seldom recording anybody doing any ripping guitar solos where there is performance-interface with feedback et al., this never poses a problem.

dubmill you might consider getting a preamp situation for your interface. A decade ago I bought an API preamp rack and I have never not used it on everything going into my DAW, it's on literally everything.

Hrmph I cannot comprehend music that doesn't reverberate in the air before it becomes a fishtail on a screen. You are not using mics at all dubmill? Never mind me, I still have a cassette Portastudio.

Tbh, my favourite "electric guitar sound" (that I generate myself) is a mic'd acoustic that I run through plug-in guitar pedals haha. That might change now that I (for the first time) own a solid body.

Thanks for all the advice. Very helpful.

My instinct was already that the Spark 2 might be overkill. However, I'm still thinking of getting one, just to play around with it, and the guitarist I'm working with, who'd not heard of the product before, said he'd buy it off me if I don't like it or it's not useful. It looks like it would be perfect for him to play through at home, or at small gigs he plays.

Valhalla Supermassive: I already have that and use it on a send on every track I do. I love it.

Neural Amp Modeler sounded familiar and I see that I made a note of it last year after watching a YT video at that time. I downloaded it last night, along with a few amp models. Out of curiosity, I immediately applied it to a synth. I liked the sound it gave it. Obviously, nothing to do with getting guitar sounds, but I'm sure it will be great for that.

Point taken about using general FX rather than guitar-specific ones. I already did that last year with an acoustic guitar sample (just a single note played across different pitches). I can't remember what plugins I used. I might have just used the onboard compressor that Cakewalk has available on every channel, and also the stock saturator with the drive ramped right up, along with a dedicated delay effect. The final sound I thought was pretty nice.

I'll also look into the option of a preamp, to use with the line input of my sound card.

Going forward, I'll probably replace my sound card, when it comes to getting a new computer, sometime in the next few years probably. The sound card does have an SPDIF digital input, which is useful for transferring material from my old DAT tapes, so the replacement would ideally need to have that facility.

Mics: No, I don't use them currently going into the DAW. I record found sounds with a Zoom recorder, or even just a phone, and the same with spoken word vocals and short sung phrases. I just record them in isolation, then import them and make them fit with the music by chopping them up and moving them around, if necessary.

I think the chief worry for me with this is not about getting a sound a like. I'm sure I can do that one way or another. What I don't relish is having to deal with monitoring, latency and the guitarist being able to play in time going into the DAW. But again, whatever problems I encounter, I reckon I'll be able to fix them.

I do this a lot, but I can only speak to the setup I have here: a Focusite 8pre USB -> Logic Pro on my laptop. Roughly two-thirds of the time I'm plugging a guitar directly into the Focusrite box until I know what I'm doing and then replacing it with what I'm recording through the amps but ymmv

Spark 2 would definitely work, line output to your soundcard. As A USB interface, and I'm assuming its like a Line 6 thing or do I've done this with, it would also be the playback interface. So if you used the USB from the Spark into the computer to record, you'd be bypassing your soundcard. Hopefully the line out of the spark (or its speaker) would output your guitar tracking as well as the existing tracks. It's hard to totally say without trying!

It sounds like you're using a PC so I'm not exactly sure how you'd do it, but I'm sure there's a way to use 2 different audio interfaces at once (as there is a way to make an "aggregate audio device" on the mac). Latency might be an issue, but it might be less of an issue if you can only use one interface. A mini mixer wouldn't be a bad idea at all, not only would it give you a way to monitor without potential latency, you'd also be able to adjust levels between the spark and the soundcard, if need be. And as someone else said, you could also DI a guitar from the mixer directly which, as someone else else said, you might super not like without speaker/amp emulation.

I hated DI'ing guitars into 4 tracks and such but with nice mic pres and tweaking EQ/compression/FX it's great for processed and/or 80s tones at least!

Try this free reverb sometime, sounds wonderful on guitar IMO: https://plugins4free.com/plugin/3733/

Oh and also only the lowest end of interfaces lack a digital input, that won't be a problem.

Spark 2 would definitely work, line output to your soundcard.

That's what I'm calculating. As the guitar is going in, I can monitor it at source, through the speaker (I checked, and using the speaker and line out simultaneously is possible with the latest firmware). I can use the amp's processing, or feed it out dry and use plugins within the DAW, or use a mixture of both. I suppose I could have found a much cheaper, more basic practice amp, but I wouldn't know which one to choose. As for DI boxes and external mixers (needed for their mic inputs), that would add up in cost, much more than I'd bargained for.

Regarding using the amp's USB connection instead, I'll explore that, but I suspect there would be problems with it, though I might be wrong.

Try this free reverb sometime, sounds wonderful on guitar IMO

Thanks. I've already got a lot of reverb options (most of which I've never used), but I'll download that as well.

Oh and also only the lowest end of interfaces lack a digital input, that won't be a problem.

I haven't properly researched interfaces, but I had been drawn by the advertising of the latest Focusrite ones. I was disappointed to find that the 2-in and 4-in versions don't have SPDIF. I'd have to get the 8-in version, which costs £300. But I'm going to stick with what I have for now as it works perfectly well with my existing PC (a refurbished Dell desktop, bought for £150 three years ago). If my next computer still has a PCI slot, I could even carry on using it.

If latency is a big concern, some interfaces let you blend between the interface input and DAW output. So you could only listen to the input (which should theoretically be zero latency) and listen to the track on something else (ie your phone + earbuds).