HELP! Guitars great on the console, dreadful in PT
Hey Everyone,
Aside from the obvious snarky comments that can be made - I'm having a huge problem with getting the same guitar sound in Pro Tools that I have on my console.
Simple chain - beta 57a to John Hardy M-1 to line input on Neotek Series II - sounds amazing. Thick, tough, great bottom end, perfect.
Then it goes through one of the busses into Pro Tools via an Apogee AD-8000.
Now the guitar sounds like complete garbage - mind you - we have TONS of headroom on the preamp, the console, the meters on the AD, and the actual meters in protools. The sound, however, is anemic, quiet, and has tons of distortion in the 8k-12k range that sounds dreadful.
The console is UNBALANCED but still runs at +4. It's pin-drop silent, even when cranked. I have lifted pin 3 to ground on the XLR connector going into the apogee A/D. It doesn't make much of a difference from using an actual balanced out from the console. I have also tried going through different busses, different D/A, different channels, different cables, even recording onto an 001. Same problem.
What the hell is going wrong, aside from the obvious symptoms of A/D and Pro Tools maybe not being quite as nice as a console? I can't imagine that the sound would be THAT different.
Any help would be heavily appreciated and reciprocated if possible.
best,
joshua eustis