Reamping Guitar

davidthangjam10

davidthangjam10

New member
Could you guys explain to me the meaning of reamping guitar? I've heard alot of these words in recording techniques but i dont have any idea about it? and could you tell me how do they reamp guitar. Thanks in advance
 
You record a raw, direct, unprocessed signal straight from the guitar into a recording device of your choice. From there, you can send that raw signal out to an amp to be recorded at a different time, place, with different amps, etc. You'll need a re-amping box or some device that will bring the signal coming out of your PC, standalone, or whatever recording medium you use, from line level back to instrument level for the amp. Amps expect to see instrument level signals.

I think most people record their amp and the DI track simultaneously using a splitter before the amp. Then when they realize they screwed up the mic'd track, they can redo it with the DI track without having to replay the part. It's a crutch in that sense. I find it disturbing how many people think about reamping before they can even successfully record a basic guitar track. It's more practical usage is if you know at a later time that you will be in a situation in which you can use badass amps, cabs, mics, and/or rooms. In that sense it's a useful tool.
 
That's the gist and answers the question. The term "reamp " is used nowadays any time you play a pre-recorded track back through a speaker and record that with a mic. People reamp all kinds of things. Snares are pretty popular.

Confusingly, some folks will also talk about reamping even when it's not coming out of an actual speaker. They will "reamp " through an amp sim or something.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about how to do it. Do you need special equipment, etc. I always suggest just plugging the recorder/mixer straight into the amp first. Most often it will work just fine. If it doesn't, there are usually other ways to solve the problem short of buying a specialized device and accepting the consequences of adding a transformer into the signal path. I tend to get flamed for this opinion, though...
 
ashcat_lt said:
I always suggest just plugging the recorder/mixer straight into the amp first.
Click to expand...

So, use what? Line out? That's doable, but for the most precise re-amping you need to get it down to instrument level. That's basically what re-amp boxes do. Feeding an amp line level won't blow it up, but if part of the point is to simulate the guitar part actually being played and having the amp react accordingly then you need to feed it a signal on par with what a guitar pickup puts out, and that's way less than line level. Feeding an amp line level is similar to using a clean boost or OD pedal in front of it. That's my take on it anyway. If you feed the amp line level and can jockey the gain and what-not to get a result you like, then knock yourself out. I dunno, I wouldn't do it. I'd want to feed my amp a signal that it will happily accept all day long - like a a guitar input signal, which is considerably lower than line level.
 
Is a DI a specialized device? I guess I'm not seeing a problem with transformers or OPamps either. That's how the guitar pickup signal got to a line level in the first place.

What kinda got left out above was taking the output off the DI and running it through a mic preamp to get it up to line level for tracking of the original take. Works for synths too.

Another function of reamping is to use the same DI'd signal to process in multiple ways i.e. different FX chains or amp settings recorded to new tracks.

Radial JDI

The example on page 11 of the JDI manual is kinda confusing. You don't need two DI's to reamp. I run my Lynx2a outputs through a patchbay and use a TRS> FEMALE XLR cable and run the JDI "in reverse". I wouldn't try that stunt with a GT Brick or other tube DI's but it works great with the Radial or other passive transformer-based DI's.

http://www.radialeng.com/pdfs/manual-jdi.pdf
 
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A lot of people do run DIs in reverse to reamp. However you do it I think the key is to get the signal to instrument level before going into the amp.
 
And this is how the argument always runs. There is almost always some volume control on the way out or the recorder. All that matters is the voltage that reaches input of the amplifier, whether the hole it's coming from says "Line" or anything else. My only point is that, if no other problems exist in the system, a straight cable should work fine. It's something we already have. Plug the damn thing in and try it. Be a little thoughtful and patient in tweaking levels. If it works it's free. If not, go get one of those boxes. Doesn't bother me in the least.

Me? I'd just insert PodFarm2 and move on.
 
ashcat_lt said:
And this is how the argument always runs. There is almost always some volume control on the way out or the recorder. All that matters is the voltage that reaches input of the amplifier, whether the hole it's coming from says "Line" or anything else. My only point is that, if no other problems exist in the system, a straight cable should work fine. It's something we already have. Plug the damn thing in and try it. Be a little thoughtful and patient in tweaking levels. If it works it's free. If not, go get one of those boxes. Doesn't bother me in the least.

Me? I'd just insert PodFarm2 and move on.
Click to expand...

Lol, damn dude, sensitive much?
 
Like I said, been down this road so many times I should know better. I have always avoided passive DIs where possible, too. I recently added some to my live rig thinking they would make things run more smoothly. Turned out they just added noise. A couple custom cables work much better.
 
It is my belief that the whole mystique and myth surrounding re amping started when an unknown guitarist wanted to play in the control room but have the amp stack out in the studio.

Any 1/2 aware audio tech would know that this is easy to do with a pair of 10:1 mic traffs (valve mic traffs!) . The middling, about 7kOhms, impedance of the guitar pups was transformed down to about 100Ohms or so and, most important this, balanced.

At the amp end the signal is brought back up to the guitar level and unbalanced into the amp. N.B. If the transformers were identical (don't have to be) and perfect there would be no net change in impedance or level nor, because the "long" line is running at very low Z, would there be any significant HF loss....But! To reamp out of a desk or AI you don't need transformers! (maybe!).

All you really need is some means of reducing the signal level to the amp. Line level is +4dBu, a volt for jazz and that is a bit hot for a gitamp because it cramps the input control. Somewhere in the order of 10-20mV is probably optimal and this can easily be done with a 10k log pot in a tin.

Very often you get a hum loop and this is almost always fixable by breaking an earth in the signal cable.NEVER THE MAINS EARTH! A more satifactory solution is a 1:1 line transformer, doesn't have to be expensive since the signal is not large and does not get below 100Hz or so and a bit of distortion might well be welcomed anyway!

Dave.
 
All it does is make it possible to re process the dry signal later. Either by your amp, emailing those DI files to someone in a different state for them to process, a plugin, a different preamp, etc...

I'm of the opinion that it can save money if you are looking to have your guitars recorded in a nice facility.

You track your guitars at home DI with an amp sim, then take the completed tracks to the studio and reamp them with their nice gear. This saves time becuase you aren't on thier clock with all of your punch-ins.
 
ecc83 said:
??? We have not "matched" source and sink impedances in audio for decades.

Dave.
Click to expand...
I've never done it, myself.

We want the load impedance to be at least "higher enough" than the source in order to get maximum voltage transfer. A typical guitar amp is quite a bit higher than higher enough for a typical line out. Technically it should be even better than running into a low-Z line input, but there's a certain point of diminishing returns.

Nobody ever worries about "impedance mismatch" when plugging the low-Z out of a guitar pedal into an amp.

BTW - I'm not completely clear on how "just plug the damn thing in" is more complicated than using a reamp box.


EDIT rather than double post...

The thing that I think is most important never seems to be addressed in these discussions - capturing a guitar track which is appropriate for the reamping that you want to do. Let's just say that we've figured out the best way to get the track from the recorder to the amp. What do we have to at the other end?

Now, you can reamp any damn thing. Snares, as I mentioned. Run vocals through you rig one time, might get a cool effect. Hell, there's no reason you couldn't run the track with the mic in front of the guitar amp back out through another amp!

But most of the descriptions on this thread are of getting a straight DI sound. I generally assume that the intention is to end up with a reamped track which sounds as much like this guitar plugged into that amp as possible.

Passive guitar pickups, being inductors with some self-capacitance and quite a bit of wire resistance, are very sensitive to their load conditions. Their sound is affected by what they're plugged into quite a bit more than the amp's input worries about what is feeding it. You probably don't need to know about the why. Suffice to say that if you plug your guitar into holes with different in-Z, it sounds noticeably different.

Nowadays, the industry accepted norm for a hi-Z "instrument" input is 1M. This is plenty for almost any pickup out there and reasonable cables. I mentioned diminishing returns above. The difference between 1M and 10M requires a dog's hearing to detect. So plug into your instrument input and go! You'll get all of the treble that your guitar can possibly pass. (Except that my guitar is too loud for the "instrument input" on either of my interfaces)

But the difference between 500K and 1M is noticeable to normal humans. It's subtle, and probably doesn't matter to your fans, but it's exactly the kind of thing that us insane fuckers listen for when trying to dial in the Sound. And many many guitar amps are designed with in-Z right around 500K. Well, 470 is a standard value for resistors since forever. So maybe that hole with the picture of a guitar next to it isn't really going to give us exactly what we want. Could probably knock down that resonance with an LPF in the box, but we want to get it right a the source.

So we grab the passive DI. This thing doesn't have an impedance of its own. It "reflects" the impedance of whatevers attached to the XLR input. So you need to know the in-Z of the mic preamp and the multiply it by the square of the turns ratio...or something...and with a "typical" DI and preamp you end up somewhere in the mid 300s. The difference in treble response between a 500K load and a 300K load is definitely noticeable. It starts to sound like there's maybe a thin blanket over the sound. And if you've got your amp hanging off the parallel jack so you can hear it while you play, it just gets darker.

Ideally we'd know the in-Z of the amp, and use a buffer with a variable in-Z of its own to match that. Of course, we can accomplish the same thing by just plugging into the 1M instrument input and turning down the Tone knob on the guitar, but that's tough to dial in and near impossible to duplicate.

There are folks out there who actually give a damn about these nitpicky things and hopefully this post will be helpful for them. For my part, I just record as much treble as possible and insert ReaEQ before PodFarm if the particular track needs it.
 
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Greg_L said:
So, use what? Line out? That's doable, but for the most precise re-amping you need to get it down to instrument level. That's basically what re-amp boxes do. Feeding an amp line level won't blow it up, but if part of the point is to simulate the guitar part actually being played and having the amp react accordingly then you need to feed it a signal on par with what a guitar pickup puts out, and that's way less than line level. Feeding an amp line level is similar to using a clean boost or OD pedal in front of it. That's my take on it anyway. If you feed the amp line level and can jockey the gain and what-not to get a result you like, then knock yourself out. I dunno, I wouldn't do it. I'd want to feed my amp a signal that it will happily accept all day long - like a a guitar input signal, which is considerably lower than line level.
Click to expand...
it's not just the level actually. If that were all it was you could simply turn the line level down until it was as low as an instrument signal.

Unless I'm mistaken ( I may be since I've never done reamping) but unless I'm mistaken a big part of a reamping device is impedance matching. An amp is designed for not only an instrument level signal but also the impedance you get with a guitar on the end of a 15 foot cable. That's a very different impedance than the line level send out of a mixer.

But even then all it might possibly affect would be freq response so I'm kinda with ashcat on this ..... just run a line level to the amp and see.

But, once again, I've never reamped anything so I don't have personal experience with this.
I'd have to care about my recordings to go to all that work to change something I'd already recorded.
 
ashcat_lt said:
I've never done it, myself.

We want the load impedance to be at least "higher enough" than the source in order to get maximum voltage transfer. A typical guitar amp is quite a bit higher than higher enough for a typical line out. Technically it should be even better than running into a low-Z line input, but there's a certain point of diminishing returns.

Nobody ever worries about "impedance mismatch" when plugging the low-Z out of a guitar pedal into an amp.
Click to expand...
Aren't most pedals that aren't true-bypass buffered?

BTW - I'm not completely clear on how "just plug the damn thing in" is more complicated than using a reamp box.
Click to expand...

How is using a reamp box complicated? It's no more complicated than using a DI to record a raw track and re-routing that into an amp. I don't see why there's any backlash against doing it the fundamentally right way beyond simple laziness and/or being a cheapskate. I can only assume that if someone can't afford a reamp box, then they certainly can't afford an amp worth recording. Or if they can't be bothered to do things the correct way, then they probably can't be bothered to record a good guitar track anyway. So I guess it's all a moot point. Just plug the damn guitar into an amp and press record. Fuck reamping anyway.
 
Lt. Bob said:
it's not just the level actually. If that were all it was you could simply turn the line level down until it was as low as an instrument signal.

Unless I'm mistaken ( I may be since I've never done reamping) but unless I'm mistaken a big part of a reamping device is impedance matching. An amp is designed for not only an instrument level signal but also the impedance you get with a guitar on the end of a 15 foot cable. That's a very different impedance than the line level send out of a mixer.

But even then all it might possibly affect would be freq response so I'm kinda with ashcat on this ..... just run a line level to the amp and see.

But, once again, I've never reamped anything so I don't have personal experience with this.
I'd have to care about my recordings to go to all that work to change something I'd already recorded.
Click to expand...

That's why a reamp box is beneficial, or at least running the line level through a buffered pedal for the quick and easy route. There's all kinds of ways around it. But just running straight line level into the amp can be noisy and it's just fundamentally not the right way to go. If it works for someone, great. I'm not saying it can't. But if someone asks about reamping, giving them the haphazard way to do it isn't the best idea IMO.
 
Greg_L said:
That's why a reamp box is beneficial, or at least running the line level through a buffered pedal for the quick and easy route. There's all kinds of ways around it. But just running straight line level into the amp can be noisy and it's just fundamentally not the right way to go. If it works for someone, great. I'm not saying it can't. But if someone asks about reamping, giving them the haphazard way to do it isn't the best idea IMO.
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for sure if I wanted to start using this I'd buy a reamping box. There are some that don't cost much.
But with my stable of amps, why would I? It's not like I'm recording some masterpiece that's gonna rock the music world if only we'd just gotten a slightly different amp sound on that one guitar.
:laughings:
 
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