Best Reamp Boxes?

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frank1985

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I need a REAMP box for sending DAW tracks out through fx pedals designed for instrument level, then back again. IOW I’m looking to use pedals as outboard fx in a hybrid setup. IYO what are the best Reamp boxes? Other than the radial x-amp (or anything by radial for that matter), which apparently affect tone for the worse.
 
I find it hard to believe that any Radial product will "affect the tone for the worse" --Radial is well-known for their kit, and their gear is used widely by professionals and amateurs alike. I've only read good things in reviews of their products. That having been said, SOS magazine just did a long article on this very subject. You can go to their website and search it; it's the April 2021 issue called "Mixing with pedals." I think you may need to register at the site to read the full article. Well worth looking into. Radial re-amp boxes are indeed featured in the article, along with a lot of other devices.
 
I suspect the problems people get with bridging feeds to pedals is the impedance is lower than many pedals expect. Sort that and you are sorted. As level in the send path isnt usually a problem, too much rather than too little, I’ve wondered if a simple jack to jack with an inline 50k - 500k resistor would make that first pedal happier? Maybe a pot in a box would make matching easier?
 
The output impedance of most guitar pedals tends to be extremely low. Maybe not quite as low as a line out, but compared to the relatively huge input impedance, the difference is negligible. Nobody ever suggested putting reamp box between two pedals did they? But it’s the same kind of impedance “mismatch”, so why not?!? Because as long as the source is low enough compared to the load, everything is cool. The source just can’t be too low. Lower is in fact better from the standpoint of passing more signal in both amplitude and frequency range.

Unless it’s something like a fuzz face, the pedal doesn’t care at all about the impedance of the source. If it IS a fuzz face then it really probably shouldn’t be in a ”reamp” situation to begin with, but would need a rather large inductor in series to react more like you’d expect. In fact, an actual pickup is about the best thing for it, but it will of course add all the noise you’d expect.

Now going back in is maybe a different story. Pedal outputs do tend to be bigger, and some with really high outZ can start to look too big for some of the lowest Z line ins. Most pedals into most line inputs work perfectly fine. I do it all the time, myself.

The biggest benefit of the reamp box is the ground lift which can sometimes help fix certain specific noise issues. Depending on a number of factors, the attenuation from the reamp might be better S/N-wise than just turning down the DAW output digitally, also. Both of these are kind of “try it and see” things, and as with most things, good enough really can be good enough.

I strongly suggest just plugging it in with simple guitar cables. It can and does work in many situations. Only if there are real noticeable problems start looking for solutions. It may turn out you need to buy a reamp box after all, but if you don’t need to spend that money...
 
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