Reamping... is this correct?

[jndietz]

I'm not sure I understand reamping.

Is it pretty much recording one guitar part, then playing that guitar part out through your monitors while recording the sound of the room? To add a sort of "natural" reverb to the guitar and also expanding the stereo image?

Its confusing me, and Wikipedia's entry doesn't make sense to me.

Reamping is a process often used in multitrack recording in which a recorded signal is routed back out of the editing environment and run through external processing or reverb chamber. Originally, the technique was used mostly for guitars: it facilitates a separation of guitar playing from guitar amplifier processing — a previously recorded audio program is played back and re-recorded at a later time for the purpose of adding effects, ambience, or modified tonality. The technique has since evolved to include many other applications. Re-amping can also be applied to other instruments and program, such as recorded drums, synthesizers, and virtual instruments.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

I'm not sure I understand reamping.

Is it pretty much recording one guitar part, then playing that guitar part out through your monitors while recording the sound of the room? To add a sort of "natural" reverb to the guitar and also expanding the stereo image?

Its confusing me, and Wikipedia's entry doesn't make sense to me.

Reamping is a process often used in multitrack recording in which a recorded signal is routed back out of the editing environment and run through external processing or reverb chamber. Originally, the technique was used mostly for guitars: it facilitates a separation of guitar playing from guitar amplifier processing — a previously recorded audio program is played back and re-recorded at a later time for the purpose of adding effects, ambience, or modified tonality. The technique has since evolved to include many other applications. Re-amping can also be applied to other instruments and program, such as recorded drums, synthesizers, and virtual instruments.

Not really, although that's certainly a viable production strategy - I believe the drum tone on Tool's AEnima was done this way, mic'ing a kit, and then playing it back into the same room in real time to add a bit more body.

Really, what guys are talking about when they're talking about reamping is recording a direct-to-the-board unamped guitar track, and then after everything's said and done running that direct track through either a software modeler, or into the front end of a mic'd amp, and then re-recording that amp sound from the mic. This allows you to get a good performance, and then go back later and decide that maybe that kickass solo would have sounded better through a cleaner amp than a high gain rig, or to take a single track of rhythm guitar, and run it through three or four different amps to get a very complex sound.

I've always though it's more trouble than it's worth (and mixing is a neurotic enough process as it is without leaving yourself THAT many options - there's something to be said for partially painting yourself into a corner), but some guys swear by it.

 

[Farview]

Most of the time I reamp, it's because I'm doing an album over a very long time. It's really hard to get any consistency across 40 sessions over a years time. Some guys have really finicky amps that just don't sound the same from one minute to the next.

The other reason I do it is when the guitar player needs his terrible sound in order to play it well, but the sound won't work in the production. I give him his sound to get the performance and re-amp it to make the album sound good.

 

[NL5]

I always take a DI signal, so just in case the "tone" doesn't work well in the mix, we can run the signal through a different amp. This usually happens when guitars players are set on their "tone", and despite being told it sounds like crap, insist on recording said "tone". Then, when the mixing stage comes, they say "why does my guitar sound like crap"?

 

[eyema_believer]

I always take a DI signal, so just in case the "tone" doesn't work well in the mix, we can run the signal through a different amp. This usually happens when guitars players are set on their "tone", and despite being told it sounds like crap, insist on recording said "tone". Then, when the mixing stage comes, they say "why does my guitar sound like crap"?

I think this comes from marketing strategies working too well. I spent thousands in the 90s, suckered in by the notion that real "tone" comes from a tube pre-amp. All I got was a bunch of fizzy crappy tone. Of course, since I bought the idea, it just had to be great tone, right?


Ha!