DI guitars for long distance engineering

[Superhuman]

I am DI'ing my guitars now due to wife, babies, neighbours... cops etc. Any engineers here ever had success with people sending quality wav files DI'd through good gear (Radial J-48 to Delta 1010)? The point being that the client (me) would send a detailed brief of the tone they are looking for and you would then reamp it 'to the best of your abilities' and send back a selection of different wavs through different amps with different settings (using your expertise to create a good tone from an engineers perspective).
I just think this would be good for someone who lives abroad (like me), who doesnt have access to a good studio with a good engineer who specialises in heavy guitar tones. Obviously it would be hard to nail a tone exactly as per the clients expectations but with a good brief you would probably give it a damn good shot and at least it would give a very workable palate for mixing.

 

[cusebassman]

I've played with reamping before, and it is no different if you DI the guitar in the same room or across the ocean... I use mostly analog gear (digital recorders, analog board, etc.), but I would imagine it would work just the same if you recorded DI at your place, sent it to a studio, and they were to reamp it. I recorded a live concert of myself and a couple of other guys on acoustic guitar and bass and things, and was looking to get a nice studio-quality sound, so I DI'd the two guitars and bass, and ran them all to the PA, and when I got everything back home, I reamped the two acoustic to decent acoustic amps, mic'd em up, and got a very natural sound from the whole thing (the bass ended up being fine without the need for reamping). I just see a problem with communication, since it is so very hard to convey what sound you are looking for...

It also depends on who you are looking to do this for you - I've never asked a studio to reamp stuff for me, let alone without my presence, so I suppose its worth a shot. Also, what is the guitar going toward? I can't imagine you are looking to record individual parts, send them off to be reamped, and then piece everything back together to make whole songs. You could sync the stuff up, but I feel it would be a tricky process, unless you were to record all the parts in multitrack format, and send all the files together to be reamped and sent back to ya.

Just my two cents!

 

[Superhuman]

I would be providing the whole song with each track bounced down to wav and sync'd up to a drum track. I could give a fairly precise brief (from a guitarist point of view) but would be looking for a really good engineer to put their mark on the overall sound.

My problem with studio time is that everything sounds different when you actually get there than how it sounds at home and I usually end up losing about 3 hours of recording time just setting shit up incorrectly - without any drums *(never had an engineer who was a specialist in metal guitar sounds) .

The point being, I want pay an expert to do an expert job and if I start interfering it's going to be comprimised (although it is a engative not actually being present to comment on the overall direction but I'm willing to do that). Core tone to me is the most importnat thing of all, I don't want to have to start pricking around with EQ in the mix if it can be avoided - something that I have never been able to get away with so far. A properly selected palate of tones that work well together (rhythms, harmonies, lead etc) would be 90% of the way toward a great mix IMO. I've wasted too much time laying down tracks under pressure with shite tones. If I DI at home I can do as many takes as I want to nail the parts rather than having to pick the best of three as per usual.

Any engineers out there interested? Of course, I don't mind paying for your time but if I want someone who really knows what he is up to. BTW I play heavy prog instrumental stuff.

 

[bigtoe]

i think this is going to be one of the most asked questions here in 2 or 3 years.

"what's the best DI to use for over the internet recording."



i'd do it, superhuman, but i don't have access to a lot of amps. sounds like a great way to take advantage of a studio tho...sounds like a fun project too.

Mike

 

[Micter]

Give me some examples of the tone you are looking for. What kind of amp? etc..

Guitar tone is my specialty

 

[Superhuman]

Cool, well I'll be laying down tracks with three different guitars:
An EBMM 7 string tuned off B for rhythms
a Jem with Breeds for adding texture rhythms, harmonies and some lead
a Prestige with EMG's for lead (81 ant the neck and 85 at the bridge)

Without going into too much detail:
General core rhythm tone would be a cross between And Justice For All and Liquid Tension Experiment 2 (track 1!) - very tight and crunchy with high definition

Harmonies etc off the Jem: something a lot more organic - more of an overdriven burning tube sound - like the lead tone on Dark Night by the Scorpions (days or yore) with a modern edge

Lead tone Prestige and Jem: Tighter but still with a burning overdriven sound. A cross between James Murphy (for clarity) and David Valdez (for thickness - you can check his tone out on guitar9.com)

Bass: Distorted and very heavy with lots of power to fill in DEEP low end

I will be adding midi from East West Symphonic Orchestra and Symphonic Choirs, plus a some pads from Vapor. Drums will be from DFHS to start but I might try to get live in at a later stage.

The above is kind of off the top of my head while I'm at work but hopefully you get the idea. Probably the last type of tones most engineers want to hear about but to be honest I would take a good engineers advice and let them guide the tones so they fit together.

I'm no Steve Vai but I'm not bad and understand how to get a lot of tone from the hands - hopefully this helps.

 

[Micter]

I'm not sure I can get you exactly what you want. I just don't have what I think would be the right amp for the job. 35 tube amps and not one Mesa Boogie!

 

[Superhuman]

35 tube amps! Bloody hell... and no Mesa's?? What you got?

Mesa certainly sounds like the way I should be going alright. I get amazing tone from my Triaxis rig but there's always something wrong with the way I tweak things so heavy use of EQ becomes necessary. also, I don't have the ability to realy crank things up at home to experiment with settings anymore. I was thinking Mesa for rhythms and Marshall for the lead.