Nord User Forum

without getting too technical yet, I have a question about which inputs to use on my UR44 Steinberg interface. I have the Nord Lead A1 and a Arturia Minibrute.
I want to record All 4 Outputs of the Nord to seperate channels, and a Mono in from the Minibrute.

So the UR 44 has 2 hi-z inputs with gain control, two line level with gain control. and two more line level on the back with no (external) gain control.

I am wondering if I should stick all 4 nord outs into the 4 line inputs. and the minibrute into the hi-z, or split the nord between the two hi-z and the two line level on the front (all with the gain control) and the minibrute in back into the ordinary line in.

and will it make any difference to the sound if half of the nords are using hi-z and half are not, if i can use the gain controls to equalize them?

and if i use the other set up, will the minibrute sound ok going through a hi-z?

does anyone have experiance with this?

preciate it.
thanks

sen

Basically HiZ (Z=impendance, relative resistance dependent to frequency. In other words: coils, pickups, magnetic stuff) is meant for guitars etc. mostly with passive pickups that need to be powered by the amplificator. Which -in this case- is your audio-cards pre-amp. You do not want to use that for line level signals. They already are preamplified. OTOH it's a worth trying if it makes much of a difference if you turn the gain down. Start with fully turned down gain, the worst that might happen is a shitty recording at the price of some practical experience.
If you don't trust your judgement if the recording sucks or not, play safe and use the line-ins subsequently. You'll end up doing so anyway - either because your disc-drive or IO-system can't handle 4 voices at once, or because there's too much you might forget to set up correctly when recording and sequencing several instruments simultameously.

Thanks Cosmo,

I'll give it a shot with the level turned down... I am actually setting it up today. If it is just gain, or Preamp, I have to worry about, thats cool. I can trust my ears. I was wondering if it effected any frequencies, I thought i read somewhere that it enhanced the mid and high range, it didn't say anything about how it effects the lows. I'll plug em in and compare. Thats the good thing about slots. I can load the same program into two slots route one through hi-z and one through line and compare them pretty easily.

thanks

So I was able to balance the different inputs and get the same sound out of them. the hi-z gain i have to set about 3/4 of the level of the line inputs. Sound tone is the same for all intents and purposes. close enough for me. if there is a difference in tone, it was so small i couldn't hear it consistantly.