Hey guys. I've used the Eleven Rack for quite some time now, but I've never really wanted to record much stuff (I generally just jam a lot).

Well I play lots of progressive metal/progressive rock and I wanted any advice, helpful links, etc you could point me towards that will make laying down tracks and mixing the complete package easier for me.


I haven't recorded anything in ages, but when I did I stuck with Addictive Drums, guitar, and bass. Now I'm going to implement some symphonic elements from a keystation I have (using Eastwest Symphony Orchestra).

I don't know how its best to EQ things like violins/cellos/etc to get a good solid symphony/metal sound (think of things like Kamelot, Symphony X, etc).

Also HOW would you guys recommend recording from the Eleven Rack? On the default Pro Tools tracks the first is a Direct Input that seems to be used to switch out tones on the fly, with the drawback of having to record the guitar clean. Is it generally best to record your riffs clean and add the distortion and other effects later, or is it best to just lay down the best sound you can get out of the rack then EQ it, compress it, etc later?

Personally, I always like to record an unprocessed DI guitar track along with my processed track. Why? I can go back later and reamp or use plugins on it should I choose. Having said that, in most cases you want to find sounds you love in advance to play with because this makes playing more fun and especially with guitarists, feel is very, very important. Set up conditions that make you really want to play and you'll get better tracking.

And btw, the Eleven Rack is stereo so you can split two mono tracks and record one processed and one unprocessed DI. Also, the Eleven Rack makes a good DI because it has selectable impedance on the input which can change the color of your guitar sound. I love recording with the Eleven Rack vs. miking a cab because it sounds very good without some of the noise you get with micing an amp.

Out of all the plugin choices, and I like them all, my favorite would be Bias Amp and Bias FX desktop - very good for metal and all around.

Cheers!

This book helped me out early on to mix things, some good monitoring speakers or headphones are a must. I like my AKG K92 headphones, I got three of them now because they're so comfortable to listen for extended periods and have a good range. You can real low frequencies really good, like sub bass you usually can't in a lot of headphones (good for symphonic sounds). The only drawback is that I'm used to hearing a lot more bass, so at the moment you can hear it, it's good. Sometimes I turn them up loud to see, and they're really good at all volumes, so that's not really a minus, per say. Just more accurate than what I'm used to. They're really easy to match mixes of commercial recordings by ear, as I'm finding out more lately.

http://www.akg.com/pro/p/k92

And they're about $50-$60

Are you going to be using your 11R as your audio interface w/ PT? That didn't work out too well with my setup (Win 7 Pro, PT 10.3.8). I had some minor (but noticeable) latency issues that drove me crazy. Also, the mic pre on the 11R sounds pretty rough to me. I get better results using my MBox 3 Pro and connecting the 11R via SPDIF.

Reason is a great "all-in-one" synth, bass, drums, samples package, just as an FYI. Good luck!

Yea I'm using Pro Tools as the DAW since it interfaces with the Eleven Rack pretty smoothly.

Can you get Reason or something similar for Pro Tools as an rtas?

You can ReWire Reason into Protools, it can get taxing on the system though. As long as you look up some of the routing threads on here you should be able to use the 11r with no issues as an interface for any DAW.

Ever since Protools dropped the 11r as a plugin it hasn't been nearly as convenient, at least not enough to force me to use Protools over Logic Pro X (which also has similar breadth of synths and VI that reason has, though I still have both). You just have to set your routing to track the Direct and Amp sounds from the interface.

Are you on windows or a mac? What version?