Preparing your tracks for reamping: A Guide

[Grave Desire]

Guys quick question,

I'm about to record a project that I'm going to be reamping most likely afterwards. I've been reamping before..and never noticed an issue with changes in level, or loss of signal. It seems to have worked out perfectly since I've always reamped with EMG81's..and I have the BSS AR-133 direct box which has a 1M Ohm Impedance which keeps 99 percent of my original signal according to the equation(thanks to everyone going over that by the way..never would have even thought of that). I've always used the purple Cunniberti Reamp Box(from 1998) and it seems to be a work horse with no loss of signal or Noise.

Anyways my question is regarding preamp selection for DI tracking. I was wondering when tracking the Direct Signal how much the Impedance of the preamp has to do with preserving the original tone of the direct signal? I'll have three pre's to choose from and they all have different Impedances(one I can pick from two different Impedance's).

thanks.

 

[MetalWorks]

I just sold my X-Amp after owning it 5 months.

I only Reamped demos 3 or 4 times but I spent hours troubleshooting it.

Experienced all kinds of issues from Radio Frequency noise to Electronic Hum.

The ground lift would take out the hum about 75%, but the remaining hum was still enough to annoy you.

I troubleshooted the hell out of it, read the manual 10 times and emailed Radial 3 times.

Their Tech Support was vague and didnt have a solution in the end other than trying things I have already tried.

And believe me I have replaced or eliminated everything in my chain from cables to amps to speakers and of course many guitars.

Mr. Murphy chimed in on a thread and said he used to have the same issues as well as a few other threads I have read here.

Im not thrilled about allowing a small percentage of noise or hiss to be acceptable and they would sometimes be better and sometimes worse. It seems to go away once the guitar track starts playing. But its quite annoying to hear your guitar track have pauses and noise comes back and you have to go in and clean it out. And I dont trust that its not somewhat degrading the overall sound.

So its gone.

Only reason I bought the X-Amp in the first place was because American Musical Supply carried it and I bought that plus the Maxon OD808 together on the Easy Payment Plan.

If I had $200 up front I would have gone with Cuniberti from the start.

Ordered the Cuniberti Reamp a few days ago and expecting it today.

I'll definately give a comparison once I try it out.

 

[theBlackLOBSTERmurder]

I don`t think anybody asked this before, because everybody seems to monitor with software amps. but I was thinking of recording the guitar through a cab + DI. so, would this setup work?:

guitar - firepod instrument input (DI) - back out through the balanced output from input 1(DI) (1/4") - instrument cable to amp - cab miced normally....

so then I get the DI signal + the normal recorded cab and I can monitor with the mic in front of the cab.
Is this possible somehow?

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Guitar -> Firepod Instrument Input -> Firepod output -> Reamp Device -> Amp
Or if you have a DI it usually has 2 outputs: one instrument through (to the amp) and one XLR (to the soundcard)

 

[James-Doolan]

Yea man thats what im doing taking the di sending the signal into powerball and 4x12 and recording this with a 57 then using this to monitor the playing the only problem is getting enough gain on my saffire pro preamp to get a decent level from the 57 as i am playing at bedroom level.

 

[theBlackLOBSTERmurder]

ah, ok, I get it, thx. does anyone know a good reamp device in europe? don`t wanna pay 75$ shipping and then maybe taxes too! anything cheaper yet as good as this? http://www.thomann.de/de/radial_xamp_engineering.htm

 

[deLuther]

Cheapest device will be Radial ProRMP - just find dealer near you.
Don`t have the chance to compare to other units, but works well.
It is just passive reamper (like reamp v2) from radial, while X-Amp is active.

 

[ElektricEyez]

Guitar -> Firepod Instrument Input -> Firepod output -> Reamp Device -> Amp
Or if you have a DI it usually has 2 outputs: one instrument through (to the amp) and one XLR (to the soundcard)

I hate to sound like an idiot but how do you accomplish this without getting feedback? Just for kicks I tried reamping a guitar last night, I use 2 Firepods and Sonar Producer, and with some tracks I had recorded already, I ran them out into the input of my triple recto and tried to mic the cabinet, and I got some nasty feedback. I couldn't really get the levels up high enough for recording.

 

[AdamWathan]

When you say tracks that were already recorded do you mean mic'd cab tracks or clean DI signals....?

 

[deLuther]

Maybe miced signal pass throug DAW to output while reamping? I got feedback in Tracktion with end-to-end option enabled (some sort of direct monitoring).
Just check that no direct monitoring enabled.

 

[ElektricEyez]

Well this might sound stupid, but keep in mind I was just experimenting. The band only had 3 days to record 8 songs and they were from out of town. They wanted to quad track, but after a few tries, the playing wasn't tight enough for the time frame we had, so we recorded left and right with some 5150's, which came out pretty good! They explained that they liked the thicker tone of the quad tracking, but the guitars lost the attack and to my ears sounded "mushy" and had a weird delay type of sound. So last night I tried to re-amp mic'd cab tracks into the clean channel of my mesa and my cabinet just to see what it would sound like if I blended the 2 sounds together. Needless to say I didn't like it, even despite the feedback, LOL!

But would it really matter if your trying to re-amp clean signals vs distorted ones? I mean after all your recording a track that your playing into the same DAW. I've never really re-amped before so maybe in the future I'll get some DI boxes and record a clean track as well, but would I still have the same feedback issue?

 

[deLuther]

No feedback at all, unless direct monitoring enabled.

 

[fearmythoughts]

hi!
what about boosting the output of the DAW instead of boosting the signal between x-amp and guitaramp to compensate the loss of gain?!?
bye,pat

 

[deLuther]

How you can boost at DAW output (without external amplification after DACs) if your signal is already close to 0db?
(I mentioned this in my topic about reamping and active electronics).

 

[vespiz]

I just sold my X-Amp after owning it 5 months.

I only Reamped demos 3 or 4 times but I spent hours troubleshooting it.

Experienced all kinds of issues from Radio Frequency noise to Electronic Hum.

The ground lift would take out the hum about 75%, but the remaining hum was still enough to annoy you.
...

I had this exact problem with the X-Amp. I sold it (well, exchanged it with some money to a pair of AKG C414s ) and got the ProRMP instead.
It's worked perfectly in my setup so far. And it seems that the X-Amp is working perfectly in it's new home.

 

[KillDivision]

I'm preparing for reamping.
Chain: Guitar>Radial DI>M-Audio Audiophile2496>Sonar.

Okay, i have a clean guitartrack with the highest peak at -3.3 db. Track is panned mono.
When i pan the track 100% left or right Sonar says the highest peak is +0.2 db!!

My concern is that I will get digital distortion when (in studio) or if I have to pan the track to reamp with a amp.

I would like to record the clean track as hard as possible.

Whats your advise? (mucho thanx)

 

[Vit]

By panning the track you're effectively raising the volume of the track in one channel (e.g. right) and respectively reducing it in the other (e.g. left). The highest peak is a property of the recorded audio file - and there should be a tool in Sonar that would tell you the highest peak in that audio file regardless of the pan and channel fader position. In the end you'd be taking your output at either right or left channel of your audio interface - 2496 - so it is important that you don't get clipping there - at the output. If your clip indicator at your output bus in Sonar does not light up - my best guess is you're safe regardless of your channel fader position or your pan position. Also keep in mind that the signal-to-noise ratio of your audio file ramains unchanged regardless of the volume (unless you turn it down way too low) - so you can even adjust it at the output bus (that said I assume you'd be reamping one audio file at a time).

good luck with your reamping

 

[deLuther]

Is it impossible in sonar to just send output of di-signal track to left or right output?
Amount of level ampification depends on panning law setting.
If you has equal power pan law then level will be lower (as example).
I did not know if this is exists in sonar.
Lower your signal a bit.

 

[KillDivision]

By panning the track you're effectively raising the volume of the track in one channel (e.g. right) and respectively reducing it in the other (e.g. left). The highest peak is a property of the recorded audio file - and there should be a tool in Sonar that would tell you the highest peak in that audio file regardless of the pan and channel fader position. In the end you'd be taking your output at either right or left channel of your audio interface - 2496 - so it is important that you don't get clipping there - at the output. If your clip indicator at your output bus in Sonar does not light up - my best guess is you're safe regardless of your channel fader position or your pan position. Also keep in mind that the signal-to-noise ratio of your audio file ramains unchanged regardless of the volume (unless you turn it down way too low) - so you can even adjust it at the output bus (that said I assume you'd be reamping one audio file at a time).

good luck with your reamping

Thanx Vit.
You are totally right.
By just pulling the fader down it got under the peak of zero dB.

The actual reamping through the amp will be done in a studio in Cubase or ProTools.

Thanx again!

 

[Vit]

Is it impossible in sonar to just send output of di-signal track to left or right output?
Amount of level ampification depends on panning law setting.
If you has equal power pan law then level will be lower (as example).
I did not know if this is exists in sonar.
Lower your signal a bit.

I am quite sure every modern sequencer should allow sending signal of any audio track to the main out bus.

I believe it should also be possbile to set up a mono output bus and assign it to either a left of right output of the Audiophile 2496 (I used to own one before I got E-mu 1616m, 2496 has only 2 analogue outs). However if the reamping is to take place in the studio there might be a higher grade multi-out audio interface.

Good point on the pan law - definitely it affects the volume - there is a setting for that in both Cubase and Nuendo. I am also not aware whether there is one availble in Sonar.

However - all that really matters in this part of reamping process is to make sure the raw audio file to be reamped does not clip in itself - and to make sure no clipping occurs at output of the audio interface (at digital to analogue - D/A - conversion) - so it is important to watch out for clipping at the audio interface output meters.