Mobile phone guitar practice rig

[Moroccomoose]

In my search for a compact guitar practice , I have turned to investigating mobile phone apps. I have a slightly aged Samsung Galaxy S21. Non-the-less a flagship phone of its time.

My findings so far... initially I tried an irig (non-USB version) which was just a fancy headphone/mic connector, not an audio interface in the true sense. Though I did have to use it via a usb>audio adaptor. The whole thing was completely useless, unusable. Project abandoned.

Fast forward a few years and now I have a USB C to USB B cable, allowing me to hook up my phone to my USB mixer-a propper audio interface. This made a huge improvement.

So this brings me to the point of my post.... I am quite invested in Steinberg/cubase and have had cubasis on my phone for ages (never used!) But quite recently an update meant that the amp sim got included. In a similar time frame, fender brought out thier Fender Studio.

I was very surprised to find that the fender studio is substantially better than cubasis from a latency perspective. The latency in cubasis is just too big by a fraction. Add in reverb or something and it's gone, audio dropouts etc. The fender studio latency is perceived, but very tolerable it can cope with reverb very well. Maybe it's a simpler algorithm, but its perfectly okay for practice use. Its worth noting the fender offering allows much greater control over sample rate and buffer size than cubasis.

I'm using the free version of fender studio, which limits amp models to fender amps. I'm not sure if I can justify stumping up for the pro version to get the other amps.... we'll see.

Now I'm on the hunt for a nice very compact AI.

Anyway the point of all this is my surprise at the fender offering being better than steinberg.

[Wonks]

I'll point out that Steinberg make zero digital modelling guitar amps whilst Fender have been making them for many years. So they've been used to making their budget modelling amps run and sound good (if not perfect) on fairly low spec processors.

Easy enough for them to port their Mustang amp software over with a few tweaks to run on tablets etc.

They'd probably struggle to run Tone Master quality stuff well on a tablet, but they may simply not want to in order to sell the Tone Master hardware.

Edit: OK, Steinberg's owners Yamaha have been making digital modelling amps for quite a long time, but I doubt the Yamaha guitar side are working particularly closely to Steinberg.

[Moroccomoose]

That's interesting. I wasn't thinking from the actual ampsim vs ampsim POV. I Was more thinking DAW vs DAW. The fender DAW is simpler in terms of tracking and mixing options. Cubasis lacks any control of the audio engine, which is the big suprise to me. I'd have thought you should at least be able to choose sample rate and/or buffer size.

What I don't know yet is how big an influence the AI is. Clearly the in phone processing is not up to scratch. But I wonder how cheap and basic you can go with the USB interface?

[James Perrett]

I was very surprised to find that the fender studio is substantially better than cubasis from a latency perspective. The latency in cubasis is just too big by a fraction. Add in reverb or something and it's gone, audio dropouts etc.

I'd guess that it might be using convolution for modelling and reverb. If so, check to see whether it has a low latency mode for convolution effects. It is a check box option in Reaper but I've no idea how things work in other DAWs.

[Studio Support Gnome]

but I doubt the Yamaha guitar side are working particularly closely to Steinberg.

I’ll observe that historically , Yamaha anything hasn’t even worked closely , or at all , with Yamaha anything else . If they did there might still be a market for electronic organs . If their synthesis group had talked to the organ group and shared technology, they’d have cleaned up in the organ market and made it more viable to end users as a result. .

[Wonks]

That's interesting. I wasn't thinking from the actual ampsim vs ampsim POV.u I Was more thinking DAW vs DAW.

The Fender DAW is Studio One, or a cut-down version thereof, (now Fender Studio Pro since Fender dropped the Presonus name).

[ef37a]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zoom-U-44-Chan ... d_source=1

That ^ is a very versatile and compact interface, it's a conventional USB>PC AI but can also run on a phone, stand alone from 5V power or from 2 internal AAs.

Their price keeps going up! I paid £70 for mine just a few weeks ago and most places want more than double that now.

When you hit 150 quids you might start looking at hand held recorders but I don't think you will get high Z inputs, optical and RCA S/PDIF and MIDI?

Dave.

[James Perrett]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zoom-U-44-Chan ... B01E5GGT2W?

That ^ is a very versatile and compact interface, it's a conventional USB>PC AI but can also run on a phone, stand alone from 5V power or from 2 internal AAs.

Their price keeps going up! I paid £70 for mine just a few weeks ago and most places want more than double that now.

If that was the CPC offer that I mentioned a few weeks ago then you got yourself a bargain there Dave. Mine certainly seems to work well in Android although I've not used it for guitar effects in real time.

[ef37a]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zoom-U-44-Chan ... B01E5GGT2W?

That ^ is a very versatile and compact interface, it's a conventional USB>PC AI but can also run on a phone, stand alone from 5V power or from 2 internal AAs.

Their price keeps going up! I paid £70 for mine just a few weeks ago and most places want more than double that now.

If that was the CPC offer that I mentioned a few weeks ago then you got yourself a bargain there Dave. Mine certainly seems to work well in Android although I've not used it for guitar effects in real time.

It was indeed your mention of the offer that prompted me to buy James!

I didn't need another interface, very happy with my M4, but it seemed very good value for the facilities on offer and once I'd had a play I would pass it on to son. It has proved quite useful so he will have to wait!

Dave.

[James Perrett]

I didn't need another interface, very happy with my M4, but it seemed very good value for the facilities on offer and once I'd had a play I would pass it on to son. It has proved quite useful so he will have to wait!

Given that your son plays classical guitar which really needs quiet preamps, I'd say that he'd probably be happier with the M4 with its quieter preamps. The U-44 is fine with high output mics but it has slightly noisy preamps.

[ef37a]

I didn't need another interface, very happy with my M4, but it seemed very good value for the facilities on offer and once I'd had a play I would pass it on to son. It has proved quite useful so he will have to wait!

Given that your son plays classical guitar which really needs quiet preamps, I'd say that he'd probably be happier with the M4 with its quieter preamps. The U-44 is fine with high output mics but it has slightly noisy preamps.

Quite so, the MOTU pre amps are indeed very good. However he uses a pair of Lewitt LCT 040 SDCs and they have a sensitivity of 18.8mV/Pa so I doubt the 44 would be a problem?

I only did the briefest test with mine with a mic and was surprised how quiet the mic amps were. Maybe I got a particularly good one or you got a lemon?

I shall do another test. Ooops! Didn't say did I? He has an M4 as well.

Dave.

[Murray B]

Might be worth considering a Valeton GP5 - it's a remarkable what it can do for it's price and physical size.

The effects are good and you don't actually need to connect it to anything else once you have you patches set up - but it would work as an audio interface too. Output option to headphones and the option to stream bluetooth audio from your phone. There's a drum machine in there too. You can power it from a USB cable too.

I've got one as a laughably small backup rig for gigs, but I also use it for headphone based practise and a multi function effect on a pedalboard. The effects/ amp sims / NAM loader thing sound good enough for my needs, apart from the pitch shifting/octave effect which let the side down - I'm hoping that a future update might improve this.

[Sam Spoons]

I'm still looking for my ideal one box acoustic rig and I thought the GP-50 might, at last, be the pedal.

My requirements are pretty simple, custom IR loader, rechargeable battery and two pedal looper with enough loop memory (at least 90-120 secs, ideally 5 mins) to record a rhythm guitar track.

The GP-50 has a Li-Ion battery and an IR loader

So having just spent about 20 mins trying to find how long the loop memory on the GP-50 is I'm disappointed to report that it is a pathetic (and completely useless IMHO) 20 secs!!! Obviously Valeton are too embarrassed to publish the loop time in the manual or any of the advertising...

So if anybody has any other suggestions?

[Folderol]

I was under the impression that phones use quite severe bandwidth limiting as well as compression. This doesn't seem like even a moderately reasonable fit for guitar

[James Perrett]

I was under the impression that phones use quite severe bandwidth limiting as well as compression. This doesn't seem like even a moderately reasonable fit for guitar

You are out of touch Will. My two most recent phones will happily record 4 channels at 96kHz/24 bits with the Zoom U-44.

Now that RME have introduced a class compliant mode for the Digiface USB I ought to test that out too. That would give you 32 ins and 34 outs on a mobile phone at base sample rates.

The built-in mics on my current Android phone are also very reasonable. They're not quite up to the standard of a decent portable recorder like the Zoom range but they're not far off.

[Folderol]

I was under the impression that phones use quite severe bandwidth limiting as well as compression. This doesn't seem like even a moderately reasonable fit for guitar

You are out of touch Will. My two most recent phones will happily record 4 channels at 96kHz/24 bits with the Zoom U-44.

Now that RME have introduced a class compliant mode for the Digiface USB I ought to test that out too. That would give you 32 ins and 34 outs on a mobile phone at base sample rates.

The built-in mics on my current Android phone are also very reasonable. They're not quite up to the standard of a decent portable recorder like the Zoom range but they're not far off.

Interesting. That is indeed a considerable improvement.

[ef37a]

I was under the impression that phones use quite severe bandwidth limiting as well as compression. This doesn't seem like even a moderately reasonable fit for guitar

You are out of touch Will. My two most recent phones will happily record 4 channels at 96kHz/24 bits with the Zoom U-44.

Now that RME have introduced a class compliant mode for the Digiface USB I ought to test that out too. That would give you 32 ins and 34 outs on a mobile phone at base sample rates.

The built-in mics on my current Android phone are also very reasonable. They're not quite up to the standard of a decent portable recorder like the Zoom range but they're not far off.

Interesting. That is indeed a considerable improvement.

I didn't think you owned a smart phone Will? I probably wouldn't except for Whatsapp. Though if he gives me notice I rig for Jami to video speak to son in France.

Dave.

[Folderol]

I was under the impression that phones use quite severe bandwidth limiting as well as compression. This doesn't seem like even a moderately reasonable fit for guitar

You are out of touch Will. My two most recent phones will happily record 4 channels at 96kHz/24 bits with the Zoom U-44.

Now that RME have introduced a class compliant mode for the Digiface USB I ought to test that out too. That would give you 32 ins and 34 outs on a mobile phone at base sample rates.

The built-in mics on my current Android phone are also very reasonable. They're not quite up to the standard of a decent portable recorder like the Zoom range but they're not far off.

Interesting. That is indeed a considerable improvement.

I didn't think you owned a smart phone Will? I probably wouldn't except for Whatsapp. Though if he gives me notice I rig for Jami to video speak to son in France.

Dave.

I've been gifted with one - still not completely comfortable with it yet.
In any case I'll be keeping my personal contacts on my dumb phone - smaller attack surface.

[ef37a]

I was under the impression that phones use quite severe bandwidth limiting as well as compression. This doesn't seem like even a moderately reasonable fit for guitar

You are out of touch Will. My two most recent phones will happily record 4 channels at 96kHz/24 bits with the Zoom U-44.

Now that RME have introduced a class compliant mode for the Digiface USB I ought to test that out too. That would give you 32 ins and 34 outs on a mobile phone at base sample rates.

The built-in mics on my current Android phone are also very reasonable. They're not quite up to the standard of a decent portable recorder like the Zoom range but they're not far off.

Interesting. That is indeed a considerable improvement.

I didn't think you owned a smart phone Will? I probably wouldn't except for Whatsapp. Though if he gives me notice I rig for Jami to video speak to son in France.

Dave.

I've been gifted with one - still not completely comfortable with it yet.
In any case I'll be keeping my personal contacts on my dumb phone - smaller attack surface.

The diddy phone will also never get spammed or infected. I still have both mine and my wife's. Nokias 201 and 301 but I think I/we might have to give them up soon? "They" are turning something off? (mind you! "the Great Time Clock Turning Off" debacle came to nought din't it!)

Dave.

[James Perrett]

"They" are turning something off? (mind you! "the Great Time Clock Turning Off" debacle came to nought din't it!)

They are currently in the process of switching off 3G to free up RF spectrum for 5G. However, 2G will still work for the next few years so normal calls and texts should be fine.

[ef37a]

"They" are turning something off? (mind you! "the Great Time Clock Turning Off" debacle came to nought din't it!)

They are currently in the process of switching off 3G to free up RF spectrum for 5G. However, 2G will still work for the next few years so normal calls and texts should be fine.

Oh that is good news James, much obliged. I should hate to lose the function of my little phone. Various health departments still hold the number for text contact and it is so much more useful than a "smartie", I just turn it on, hit "messages" and there they are. No swiping, no ads or spam...no ****!
The various depts withhold their number so I rarely need to or can reply. BT have it as well for security check because if I have lost internet I have lost landline phone as well!

Oh yes! And the battery lasts all week!

Dave.