Re-Amping

progsound

Does anyone around here do much of it?

I do it for all my guitar and bass tracks Its so much handyier to just use a plugin for tracking and re-amp later where you can tweak for as long as you like at a time that suits you to have a high gain stack blarring away i.e not when granny visits

Seziertisch

A decent DI is an essential (I use a Radial, which is somewhere in the middle of the cost/quality spectrum)

The pre you hook the DI up to (presuming you aren't using a pre with DI) really makes a difference to the sound and is probably more influential than the DI. Depending on what you have available pre wise this can be a very good way to sculpt your tone and add an extra dimension to your reamping signal (which you may indeed prefer to just having your guitar straight into your amp).

And as with all audio applications, decent converters both A/D and D/A for later are crucial.

Shorter cable runs yield better results, and better cable (both guitar and mic) makes a huge difference (Vovox and Evidence Audio are both kind of pricey but well worth checking out).

Another thing to watch out for is the load. A guitar amp input is usually 1 meg. This is not necessarily what works the best with every guitar (i.e. slightly up or slightly down might work better with your guitar, I have found that slightly down works better in a lot of cases). The same is true of course of the resistive value of the pots in your guitar.

Beware that some mic pre's offer a DI but with a resistence far too great to get good results if you are planning to reamp (i.e 10 meg vs. 1 meg for a typical guitar amp). This might work well for synths or for DI guitar that you are just planning to overdrive at the preamp, but for reamping, a real no no. You will know that you have hit too high in the ohmage of the DI when your reamp signal displays an excessive amount of ringy and not particularly pleasant highs. The overloading of the pickups at recording will have resulted in their resonant frequency being altered. This ringiness will also sit exactly where the body of the guitar sound is so you won't be able to eq them out after without cutting the balls off your sound.

Otherwise, reamping can work great, but like all things to get it sounding really great you are probably going to have to throw down a few squids and experiment a bit.

Also, I can tell you the stuff about the resistive load in this post was hard won on my part. Use it wisely, young Jedis.

progsound

You have to look at your pickups impedance and your d.i impedance

The following is taken from another fourm hope it explains why having a good d.i is important.


The formula:

voltage% = di box input impedance/(source impedance+di box input impedance)*100

So lets see what % of your signal will you get if you connect your passive humbucker (37403ohm) directly to:

Bellari RP220 with 600ohm input impedance:

600/(37403+600)*100
=1,578822725%
One and a half mothersucking % !!!

J48: (220000ohm)

220000/(37403+220000)*100
=85,46908933%
OK but not great

Type 48: (10000000ohm)

10000000/(37403+10000000)*100
=99,62736377%
No comment ! Numbers don't lie .

Demeter VTDB-2B: (27000000ohm)

27000000/(37403+27000000)*100
=99,86166201%

PaulBrewer

progsound wrote: »

You have to look at your pickups impedance and your d.i impedance

The following is taken from another fourm hope it explains why having a good d.i is important.


The formula:

voltage% = di box input impedance/(source impedance+di box input impedance)*100

So lets see what % of your signal will you get if you connect your passive humbucker (37403ohm) directly to:

Bellari RP220 with 600ohm input impedance:

600/(37403+600)*100
=1,578822725%
One and a half mothersucking % !!!

J48: (220000ohm)

220000/(37403+220000)*100
=85,46908933%
OK but not great

Type 48: (10000000ohm)

10000000/(37403+10000000)*100
=99,62736377%
No comment ! Numbers don't lie .

Demeter VTDB-2B: (27000000ohm)

27000000/(37403+27000000)*100
=99,86166201%

Ah , right ... why didn't you say so?

progsound

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Ah , right ... why didn't you say so?

What do you mean?

PaulBrewer

progsound wrote: »

What do you mean?

I'm joking- That's a whole heap o numbers to digest of a cold Thursday and me trying to install a Protools System!

progsound

PaulBrewer wrote: »

I'm joking- That's a whole heap o numbers to digest of a cold Thursday and me trying to install a Protools System!

Ah right ha its not as bad as it looks though pretty basic fourmula just a couple of examples to show what difference a quality d.i makes.

On another note does anyone here send their stuff out to be re-amped by someone else? Either because the band had to have a certain amp for their guitars but you didnt have it or just because you liked the guitar sound that a certain individual was getting?

I get a liitle bit of this work myself over the interwebs (Metal & rock tones mostly). Woundering would there be much demand for someone offering this service.

Robert Mullen

On a similar note..you need a really good Reamp box too. Otherwise you still lose all that signal you tried to keep with you're excellently designed DI.

A reamp with a variable impedance control would be useful. It would provide you with a bit more range for your sound. I think Jensen have a schemtic for one on their site.

I'd say there might be a demand for reamping alright. I don't need it personally but I'd say alot of guys who record themselves would find it helfpful. Of course you'd want to be mixing the whole song and provide reamping as part of the service.

Obviously a really nice space and some great amps would be necessary.

Rob

PaulBrewer

Interesting points - I always think of DIs as important to the signal chain as a mic.

I have noticed an attitude to a DI that's is effectively a ' conversion plug' with no tonal impact, which isn't the case.

Similarly coming the other way is equally important.

I'd never have thought in a million years there would be work in this area - every day's a schoolday around here!

progsound

Robert Mullen wrote: »

On a similar note..you need a really good Reamp box too. Otherwise you still lose all that signal you tried to keep with you're excellently designed DI.

A reamp with a variable impedance control would be useful. It would provide you with a bit more range for your sound. I think Jensen have a schemtic for one on their site.

I'd say there might be a demand for reamping alright. I don't need it personally but I'd say alot of guys who record themselves would find it helfpful. Of course you'd want to be mixing the whole song and provide reamping as part of the service.

Obviously a really nice space and some great amps would be necessary.

Rob

Anyone who has asked me already had someone to do the mix but wanted me to do the re-amping i just asked for a reference tone and away i went. I agree in that it would be preferable to be doing the mix also but if you worked closly with the guy doing the mix i dont think someone else doing the re-amping would be a problem.

Im using a Reamp v.2 http://www.reamp.com/ and im having no problems to date.

I have two D.I units i use a countryman type 85 http://www.countryman.com/store/product.asp?id=52&catid=10

And a BSS AR133 http://www.bssaudio.com/productpg.php?product_id=17

Im loving both of them

Seziertisch

The thing with DIing for reamping is not that you get the absolute maximum from your pickups. Guitar tone is generally as much about what you lose as what you keep.

The guy talks in percentages but fails to factor in for example the resistence of the pots in the guitar circuit. These are there as much for the effect they have on the sound as anything else. If more signal was "better" you could just get rid of them completely.

Take a humbucker equipped Gibson-style guitar: generally they have 1 x 500 k volume and 1 x 500 k tone wired in parallel giving a total resistence of 250 k Ohm. Change over to 1 meg pots or just wire the pickups directly to the output and see do you like the difference. You will certainly be getting more of the signal from you pickups but does this sound better? For high-gain stuff, maybe yes, for cleaner stuff probably no.

Get a DI like the Radial JDV which has variable input impedance from 3.9 M down to 200 k and experiment. Install push-pull pots to your guitar circuit to allow you to take the volume and tone pots completely out of the circuit.

Fully open at 3.9 M Ohms and using the formula you get

3900000/(37403+3900000)*100 = 99.05% or so.

This would be rated as good, and I'm sure in the case of an active bass or an acoustic guitar pickup it probably is, but I can tell you that for reamping this sounds like complete ass in my experience. You are trying to get your guitar to behave like it does when plugged into an amp, you are not trying to get the maximum signal from it. You are trying to get it sounding musical.

Just applying the formula to the same pickup into your average amp it would be
1000000/[37403+250000(volume and tone pots)+1000000(amp input)*100 = 77.68%

And in my experience I have found that even a bit less than 1 MOhm for the amp input works better in a lot of cases (which when worked out according to the formula would score even less)

And of course these percentages are failing to take into the account pickup inductance and cable capacitance and how they interact with one another and the resistence to create the sound (which you may or may not be after).

anders

Robert Mullen wrote: »

A reamp with a variable impedance control would be useful. It would provide you with a bit more range for your sound. I think Jensen have a schemtic for one on their site.

I'm looking to build one of them in January using a Sowter transformer in stead of the Jensen because it's easier to get here in Ireland. I've wanted a ReAmp box for some time now.

So a DI with 1 Mohm input impedance (Seziertisch post) would be ideal then for recording the guitar? Any such DI's around?

Seziertisch

progsound wrote: »

Anyone who has asked me already had someone to do the mix but wanted me to do the re-amping i just asked for a reference tone and away i went. I agree in that it would be preferable to be doing the mix also but if you worked closly with the guy doing the mix i dont think someone else doing the re-amping would be a problem.

Im using a Reamp v.2 http://www.reamp.com/ and im having no problems to date.

I have two D.I units i use a countryman type 85 http://www.countryman.com/store/product.asp?id=52&catid=10

And a BSS AR133 http://www.bssaudio.com/productpg.php?product_id=17

Im loving both of them

Yup the Reamp is a good one, very natural sounding. The Radial JDV can also be used for reamping (you can also use the variable resistence control at this stage) but it doesn't sound as natural.

Seziertisch

anders wrote: »

I'm looking to build one of them in January using a Sowter transformer in stead of the Jensen because it's easier to get here in Ireland. I've wanted a ReAmp box for some time now.

So a DI with 1 Mohm input impedance (Seziertisch post) would be ideal then for recording the guitar? Any such DI's around?

One DI I see mentioned again and again is the A Designs REDDI. It is 1 MOhm, but is also quite expensive. The Eclair Engineering Evil Twin also gets mentioned quite a lot, but is even more expensive.

The Radial JDV offers the variable thing, allowing you to tweak the resistence to taste to a great extent. Very useful.

That said, the pre you then put it through is also important in terms of the sound it gives you.

I would be inclined to say go for a decent mid-range DI and save your cash to get a new mic pre. Or even find a mic pre with a 1 MOhm DI input and just use that.

PaulBrewer

Seziertisch wrote: »

One DI I see mentioned again and again is the A Designs REDDI. It is 1 MOhm, but is also quite expensive. The Eclair Engineering Evil Twin also gets mentioned quite a lot, but is even more expensive.

What's expensive? Mic expensive?

Seziertisch

The Evil Twin is something like 900 USD while the A-designs Reddi is just over 700 USD.

That said, I would imagine that the DI on the SSL Superanalogue mic pre should work fine. It's 1 MOhm and I'd say the sound of the mic pre (particularly its fast transient response and detail) would make it very suitable for getting a good sound down. So yourself and Joe should be sorted.

PaulBrewer

Seziertisch wrote: »

The Evil Twin is something like 900 USD while the A-designs Reddi is just over 700 USD.

That said, I would imagine that the DI on the SSL Superanalogue mic pre should work fine. It's 1 MOhm and I'd say the sound of the mic pre (particularly its fast transient response and detail) would make it very suitable for getting a good sound down. So yourself and Joe should be sorted.

So on par with a mid range condenser, though not as versatile.

Seziertisch

I haven't heard either so I can't say how much better they are. But unlike a midrange condenser they are top of the range (albeit DI's). And that always costs a bit more, and at the end of the day you get what you pay for.

progsound

Seziertisch wrote: »

The thing with DIing for reamping is not that you get the absolute maximum from your pickups. Guitar tone is generally as much about what you lose as what you keep.

The guy talks in percentages but fails to factor in for example the resistence of the pots in the guitar circuit. These are there as much for the effect they have on the sound as anything else. If more signal was "better" you could just get rid of them completely.

Take a humbucker equipped Gibson-style guitar: generally they have 1 x 500 k volume and 1 x 500 k tone wired in parallel giving a total resistence of 250 k Ohm. Change over to 1 meg pots or just wire the pickups directly to the output and see do you like the difference. You will certainly be getting more of the signal from you pickups but does this sound better? For high-gain stuff, maybe yes, for cleaner stuff probably no.

Get a DI like the Radial JDV which has variable input impedance from 3.9 M down to 200 k and experiment. Install push-pull pots to your guitar circuit to allow you to take the volume and tone pots completely out of the circuit.

Fully open at 3.9 M Ohms and using the formula you get

3900000/(37403+3900000)*100 = 99.05% or so.

This would be rated as good, and I'm sure in the case of an active bass or an acoustic guitar pickup it probably is, but I can tell you that for reamping this sounds like complete ass in my experience. You are trying to get your guitar to behave like it does when plugged into an amp, you are not trying to get the maximum signal from it. You are trying to get it sounding musical.

Just applying the formula to the same pickup into your average amp it would be
1000000/[37403+250000(volume and tone pots)+1000000(amp input)*100 = 77.68%

And in my experience I have found that even a bit less than 1 MOhm for the amp input works better in a lot of cases (which when worked out according to the formula would score even less)

And of course these percentages are failing to take into the account pickup inductance and cable capacitance and how they interact with one another and the resistence to create the sound (which you may or may not be after).

Interesting im going to mull this over for a bit after work

Robert Mullen

The thing with DIing for reamping is not that you get the absolute maximum from your pickups. Guitar tone is generally as much about what you lose as what you keep.

Exactly. You want to be able to adjust the controls over your reamp box. Ultimately you are sort of emulating. You'll never end up with the same sound as if you just plugged the amp into the guitar.

It's kind of like having active eq in guitar amps, it sounds awful. Most of the time you're looking to cut away the excess to achieve the sound you want.

Personally I'd never be bothered paying 700-900 dollars on what is basically a transformer and just a few other components. There's a lot of designs out there for them and it's not even too hard to come up with your own.

Rob

ogy

i use ableton to loop guitar and bass live. i play with a drummer so to keep the sound as close to a full live band as possible i connect the line outs of my interface into proper guitar and bass amps (and then mic/di them into the PA if the venue warrants it).

i know i should be using reamp boxes to bring the line level stuff back down to instrument level, but am i really sacrificing a massive amount of tone here or running a risk of damaging the amps or anything? if there were cheap behringer reamp boxes i would buy them but couldn't justify spending a few hundred quid on them:)
i plug the bass output into the active input of the bass amp, would the line level be similar to an active pickup output?

trackmixstudio

I do a lot of reamping.
I find it essential for metal stuff. Normally because the guitar player thinks he needs more gain. So I can take a di and he have as much gain as he wants for tracking then I can reamp him with way less which makes the guitar bigger in the mix.

I use the instrument input on the focusrite isa828 which has a high/low impedance switch which works great for passive or EMG pickups.
then use the radial xamp http://www.radialeng.com/di-xamp.htm for sending the signal back out to the amp. One great trick I use a lot is to put a multiband expander with one active band from 2-4K expanding about 4db. This really emphasizes the pick attack and makes the guitar clearer/more exciting.

The other great thing with reamping is you can set a loop and really experiment with mic positioning because the loop stays the same. If you try to get a guitar player to play the same thing over and over they never play exactly the same each lap.
Another super handy thing is with editing. You can zoom in on the di tracks and easily see the attack in the waveform which is impossible to see on a gained amp track letting you group the di and guitar amp tracks and do edits using the di for easy to find edit points.

I usually get a much better sound with the reamped tracks than with the original miced amp tracks.

Seziertisch

trackmixstudio wrote: »

I do a lot of reamping.
I find it essential for metal stuff. Normally because the guitar player thinks he needs more gain. So I can take a di and he have as much gain as he wants for tracking then I can reamp him with way less which makes the guitar bigger in the mix.

I use the instrument input on the focusrite isa828 which has a high/low impedance switch which works great for passive or EMG pickups.
then use the radial xamp http://www.radialeng.com/di-xamp.htm for sending the signal back out to the amp. One great trick I use a lot is to put a multiband expander with one active band from 2-4K expanding about 4db. This really emphasizes the pick attack and makes the guitar clearer/more exciting.

The other great thing with reamping is you can set a loop and really experiment with mic positioning because the loop stays the same. If you try to get a guitar player to play the same thing over and over they never play exactly the same each lap.
Another super handy thing is with editing. You can zoom in on the di tracks and easily see the attack in the waveform which is impossible to see on a gained amp track letting you group the di and guitar amp tracks and do edits using the di for easy to find edit points.

I usually get a much better sound with the reamped tracks than with the original miced amp tracks.

Yeah, I would have to kind of agree with that about getting a better sound. It is also quite cool to reamp for ambience, setting a mic up in one room with the amp in a nextdoor room with the door open.

if6was9

I've been wanting a Di box for ages now, hopefully I'll get one after christmas, got my eye on the little labs redeye- only heard good results with it so far.

Recording Di's for my stuff and using amp sim pre's sending the line out of my interface to my power amp and then micing the cab- not as nice as a real amp but more than half the way there at least! Also got this working in real time, been practising with my band like this where i've even put some cool effects like a tempo delay- it sync the tempo to what I just played so even live it falls really sweetly in time

Saw a really cool Drum re amping trick in tape op to get more snap in your snare and kick sounds, basically send your drum track out to an amp with the speaker really near the drum and re mic it. Seems like a cool trick but I've yet to get to try it.

PaulBrewer

if6was9 wrote: »

Saw a really cool Drum re amping trick in tape op to get more snap in your snare and kick sounds, basically send your drum track out to an amp with the speaker really near the drum and re mic it. Seems like a cool trick but I've yet to get to try it.

We do that all the time.

We've an NS10 driver with a jack plug on the end - after the drums are recorded we unplug the headphones and play the snare out by itself through the speaker.

The bigger speaker damps down the top head and causes the snare wire to rattle in sympathy with recorded drum.

You then have a snare wire track that has no kick, hat or cymbals on but still sounds the same as the kit.

Cenzo Townshend was mixing the Pigeon Detectives in London when we were there earlier in the year.

He ran the snare (which he hadn't recorded) out to the vocal booth in Olympic studio to a snare he keeps just for that job.
He sticks an old Auratone speaker on it and runs it at a surprisingly low volume with a 57 underneath.

It's an old trick .... but a good 'un!

It's one of those jobs that if you leave it easy for yourself you'll do it - if you don't you mightn't!

PaulBrewer

Seziertisch wrote: »

I haven't heard either so I can't say how much better they are. But unlike a midrange condenser they are top of the range (albeit DI's). And that always costs a bit more, and at the end of the day you get what you pay for.

Cool, so is the Reamp one THE one then?

Seziertisch

Yeah, have found the Reamp to be very good. It is completely passive with just an output level control.

It was also invented by Satch's guitar tech (or possibly an engineer in his studio). Come back, Joe, all those years of guitar wankery are forgiven.

Seziertisch

While I think of it.

Be sure and match the output gain of the reamp box to your amp. This might take a bit of experimentation and can vary depending on the results you are trying to achieve. Do it by ear, otherwise you can end up with kind of disappointing results. A couple of dbs less coming in and a bit more gain on the amp sounds very different from a few more coming in and a bit less gain. For micro adjustments using the output level in your DAW will give you greater control. This is particularly important using lower wattage amps where the difference between a strong clean and a crunchy clean can be just a tiny push up or down on the volume control on the amp.

Another cool thing to do is to print a parallel compression track after doing your main track (presuming of course you have a hardware compressor). It can do wonders for adding body and presence to a track without having to worry about phasing differences between mics etc. (i.e. you can just use the one mic and get quite meaty results).