Cheap way to reamp.

[Nostalgiaplatz]

Imagine you would want to record with a Bogner Uberschall. You don't have the money to buy one and there's none in your nearby rent-an-amp store, but coincidentally the cheapstudio down the road has it and they also happen to have a reampbox.

So you sit in front of your PC, axe ready to rock and connect the input jack into your soundcard's line in and put cubase (just an example) running. You setup an audio track, load guitar rig in your inserts, select your favorite GuitarRig preset and click on the button that says monitor. Record is hit and after a few metronome beeps you start playin', so you're groovin' and slammin' yer axe and you finnish yer song recording *long breath* after recording yer stuff in just one take. That said and done, you click on the monitor button again to turn it off and then play and what do you hear? the raw sound of your guitar "signal".

That signal when sent from one of the outs of your soundcard into a reampbox connected to the destination amp, makes just the same as Guitar Rig on monitor mode did. After this, you only need to put it to play and adjust the settings of the amp to taste. After that is done, just put a mic in front of amp, feed the signal again and hit record in the daw where the mic that's put in front of the amp's speakers is connected to.


Hope it's clear enough

Cheers

 

[Noumenon]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but if you're using EMGs, I think that takes care of the impedance issue by itself. Since the impedance is already low and would be even if you were plugging straight in the amp, you shouldn't need a DI to record or a reamp box to reamp; recording straight into the line input should work just fine (since the impedance is already matched), and sending it back out a line output (as long as you can control the level of the signal somehow) to the amp should also work fine. I have tried it, and I've noticed no tonal difference to plugging straight into the amp.

Interesting. Someone else with info on this?

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

www.reamp.com

 

[~BURNY~]

Ok, sorry, I didn't read everything from the begining, so forgive me If say something that has been said already.
Recording:
Plug your guitar into a DI box. Out goes into mic input. Link goes to the amp (used as monitor). If you have active pickups, it's hot enough to go straight into a line input but DI is still the cleanest way.
If you use the link, make sure it is not connected directly to the input signal path (unbuffured parallel). Many cheap DI's have such wrong signal path and will drop down the level everytime you use the link output. Not good. In this case, you'll need to plug another DI in front of the linked one.
Guitar---->DI#1---->DI#2----->Mic input
DI#2 Link---->Amp (or pod like)
Once you have the dry signal recorded, use the outcoming line signal. Connect it to an active DI, then a reversed passive DI (you can't reverse an active one as far as I know), then to the amp.
This is the cheap way.
Line out---->Active DI---->Reversed Passive DI---->Amp
No expensive reamp device here. Correct me If I'm wrong.

 

[Razorjack]

Interesting. Someone else with info on this?

Theoretically, since EMG's are low impedence, using a guitar with EMG's into an amplifier will be no different than sending a line out from a soundcard. In practice I have not found a situation where this is true.

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Taken from Reamp website :

"Question : Some people say I can use a passive direct box in reverse for reamping. Is this true?
Answer : No. This would not work because of the large level differences between a microphone level signal and a line level signal. On the direct box the instrument input is designed for instrument level signals (-20dbm) and the microphone out is designed to give a microphone level signal (-60dbm typical) using a direct box in reverse would put a +4dbm signal into a –60dbm output and would cause extreme signal distortion before you even plugged into the amp."

 

[~BURNY~]

Ok, my bad then. But in my example, there's a DI between the line out and the reversed DI (which is similar to feeding a mic input with a DI).... Not sure I'm getting it....

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

Theoretically, since EMG's are low impedence, using a guitar with EMG's into an amplifier will be no different than sending a line out from a soundcard. In practice I have not found a situation where this is true.

I've reamped w/ EMGs coming straight out of the soundcard and it sounds good. I'm wondering if it could sound better with a reamp box. BTW how come the reamp box is so damned expensive? Couldn't you build your own for like 1/10th the price?

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

Hey and one more thing...my guitarist brought this up...Couldn't you "fool" your cab by having a guitar cord plugged in the front (with the guitar volume gated or completely off) then have another cord plugged into the effects send outlet (again, having this cord not plugged in to anything as well) then have your soundcard output shoot into the effects return outlet?

In other words, can't you just have the line level prerecorded guitar completely bypass the front end of the amp and simply have it be part of the effects loop? isn't the effects return at line level?

 

[Razorjack]

I've reamped w/ EMGs coming straight out of the soundcard and it sounds good. I'm wondering if it could sound better with a reamp box. BTW how come the reamp box is so damned expensive? Couldn't you build your own for like 1/10th the price?

The custom wound transformers make up the bulk of the cost of a re-amp box.

 

[Razorjack]

Hey and one more thing...my guitarist brought this up...Couldn't you "fool" your cab by having a guitar cord plugged in the front (with the guitar volume gated or completely off) then have another cord plugged into the effects send outlet (again, having this cord not plugged in to anything as well) then have your soundcard output shoot into the effects return outlet?

In other words, can't you just have the line level prerecorded guitar completely bypass the front end of the amp and simply have it be part of the effects loop? isn't the effects return at line level?

Then you would only be amplifying the clean guitar sound, through the FX loop the sound would just be sent straight to the power amp.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

Then you would only be amplifying the clean guitar sound, through the FX loop the sound would just be sent straight to the power amp.

What's wrong with that? Maybe I'm misunderstanding you here.

 

[Exsanguis]

There's nothing wrong with that, except that unless you're relying entirely on power amp distortion for you distortion, you won't get a distorted tone. Sure, it'll be a "tube tone," but it'll be otherwise useless to you unless you want a clean tone.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

You mean the distortion happens before the effects loop? hmmm didn't even think about it until now.

 

[Razorjack]

It sure does, the chain goes preamp->fx loop->poweramp.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

One more thing: if you use the Reamp box, you initially record the guitar at line level, and then play it back out to the Reamp box at line level as well, correct? Same if you're using active pickups?

 

[Noumenon]

For those of you who have a reamp unit and EMGs. Could anyone of you post an AB-test of reamping with emgs with and without the reamp unit?

 

[sorceron]

I know this has been talked about to death but I am getting ready to do some reamping myself. i moved into an apt this month from a house. I now need to rethink the way I track. Im going drums somewhere else so thats not going to be a problem but i wont be able to get away with micing my amp in here.

I need to figure out the best way to do this. I have somebody hooking me up with the pod xt pro just to track with. The problem is i dont have 1000 bucks to buy one of these nice reamping deals. i know i need something to split the guitar signal with. Ive looked around online and it seems like the RADIAL X-AMP will do this. I dont know if these are crap or what perhaps someone can tell me that. so thats all good and fine for splitting the signal so i can have one clean track going in and one of pod going in at the same time, but when its time to go back to the amp do i want to use the same box? or do i want something like the reamp box (the actual one called that). this reamping stuff is confusing me trying to figure out everything i need to buy.

Another thing i need to find out about is latency. Am i going to have a problem with this using pro tools LE and reamping? any experiences with this?

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

Another thing i need to find out about is latency. Am i going to have a problem with this using pro tools LE and reamping? any experiences with this?

What hardware are you using? I've got the 001 and worst case you can solo your clean guitar track through the headphone out to avoid latency. I'm sure the sound there is a little degraded but once you get the tone you want you could reamp through the regular outs and then cut out the latency later on. HTH

 

[sorceron]

What hardware are you using? I've got the 001 and worst case you can solo your clean guitar track through the headphone out to avoid latency. I'm sure the sound there is a little degraded but once you get the tone you want you could reamp through the regular outs and then cut out the latency later on. HTH

hmm i wonder how much latency with the buffer on 256. i can track with up to 12 ms i guess.