“How to record guitars when you can’t crank the amp loud enough?” The eternal question for home studio users!

I have mic’d up my amps in the past, but never loud enough to get the power tubes working. I have used Guitar Rig software alot with some success, but I’d prefer to use my amp heads.

So instep Palmer Germany with the PGA 04 speaker simulator and load box. This seems to be a great bit of kit. You simply take a speaker cable out from your amp into the PGA04 and then a mic lead from the balanced output of the box, and into your recording interface.

There are lots of controls to simulate different types of speaker cabs and you can mix in the unfiltered direct signal of the amp, to add a bit more bite. There are also unfiltered line outs, so you can send a pure DI signal to you recording interface, to then process separately in something like Guitar Rig.

I’ve only used it for a couple of hours so far, but it seems to be pretty useful. I mean, having the ability to drive a 50 watt head at even half volume on the master, and record it silently, has got to be good!

I hope to do a video at some point….