Reamp question

[Genius Gone Insane]

I'm about to buy the Reamp box to do things the "right" way. So if I'm recording guitar direct into my 001, should I be using a direct box into a line in on the 001 or should I go through one of the 2 channels that have preamps? How much gain should I be using on the preamps if I'm using active pickups? Finally, what's a typical trim setting for the Reamp box?

Also I'm planning on using a Boss pedal to split the signal: will this defeat the purpose? Should I pay the extra cash to get a real splitter?

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Should you be using a Direct Box : YES
How much gain : Enough to get a hot signal, but not enough to clip
Trim Setting for the Reamp : 5 or 6 is good for most uses

For the splitter, what is it for ? If it's for monitoring purposes, just go into the soundcard, then activate direct monitoring, and send the signal to an output connected to the Reamp and to the amp.

 

[daveotero]

Spend a few extra bucks and get a Little Labs Redeye.

http://www.littlelabs.com/redeye.html

Well worth it for the DI alone. I think there arround $250.

 

[James Murphy]

the redeye is nice but you don't need it if you are getting the Cunibertti Reamp. in fact, you don't need a reamp at the initital recording stage at all. just take a d.i... the better the quality the ..um.. better... (i use a Class A discrete one that cost over $600), but yeah... even a simple and ubiquitous Countryman D.I. will do just fine. plug the guitar into the D.I. input.. the take the XLR out and plug in into an XLR mic input on one of your console's channel strips or on an outboard mic pre... set the gain so that you get a healthy signal without clipping and just mute this channel's output while recording. then take the Thru output of the D.I. and plug it into your POD/Head/whatever and record that as your monitoring sound... make it as nice sounding as you can and you may not even need to reamp.

you won't need the reamp box until it's time to, er...reamp.

 

[~BURNY~]

Just be careful with cheap DI's link output. Most of it have their link connected in parallel with the main input (before the transformer)... Which means it's useless cause your signal will drop down with terrible quality loss. Then you'll need another DI in front the first one to compensate. Two cheap DI on the signal path... Ouch.

 

[Andy Sneap]

yep careful with the cheap di's, like burny said. If you haven't got a good DI the red eye is great, it'll do both jobs for you.

 

[James Murphy]

yeah, a Countryman is about as low on the D.I. ladder as i would ever dare to dip. it is, as Neil K. once said, a "bog stardard" D.I.

avoid D.i.'s that are silver colored with black print on them. i won't mention the brand name but it starts with a "B" and ends with an "ehringer"... er.

not the only ones to watch out for, by any means.

 

[A Gruesome Discovery]

avoid D.i.'s that are silver colored with black print on them. i won't mention the brand name but it starts with a "B" and ends with an "ehringer"... er.
not the only ones to watch out for, by any means.

I'd just like to agree wholeheartedly with the above statement. Up until two hours ago, I was using that particular silver box from that mystery German company. I mean, all the thing does is convert instrument to line level, right? Why waste cash on some glorified level-matching device? Well... Today I treated myself to The Brick Preamp/DI by Groovetubes, and I now plug that straight into the TRS on my soundcard's breakout box. The difference is staggering. Do not skimp on the DI box.

 

[adrianvillan]

Ok, this has been bugging me for months now, I have the Whirlwind IMP 2 for DI. How does that stand up in quality?
I also use he John Cunibertti reamp, and run protools Digi 002 console (not the rack) But, (and heres the clincher), I can't figure out where to run the line back out to the amp to actuallly reamp the sound. The only thing that has worked is running it out of the monitor inputs themselves, which Im sure cant be the right way, what am I doing wrong here?

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

For the splitter, what is it for ? If it's for monitoring purposes, just go into the soundcard, then activate direct monitoring, and send the signal to an output connected to the Reamp and to the amp.

I use the splitter because of the latency issue with my 001. I go guitar direct to Boss pedal which has two outs. One out goes directly to 001. The other goes Boss-->POD-->001 for monitoring purposes. As I said, I don't think there's a way to go out from 001 back to POD without significant latency....

BTW I didn't know RedEye was a good alternative. I'll look into it.

One more question though: I'm still not clear why I can't just use the 001's preamp instead of a direct box.

 

[A Gruesome Discovery]

One more question though: I'm still not clear why I can't just use the 001's preamp instead of a direct box.

Your guitar output is at "instrument level", which has a high impedance. Your preamp wants something at mic level or line level, both low impedance. A DI box converts your guitar's instrument level to line level. Without it, the signal from your guitar would be very quiet, requiring you to raise the gain on the preamp considerably, thus introducing additional noise into the signal. Dry, it won't be noticable, but when you send it out to the amp, it's noisy as hell.

 

[James Murphy]

I'm still not clear why I can't just use the 001's preamp instead of a direct box.

the preamp on your 001, as with all mic pres, accepts a low Z source... the output of a guitar is Hi Z. the D.I. converts the guitar signal from Hi Z to Low Z.

 

[James Murphy]

sorry for sending you duplicate advice.. i hit reply and started my response before Gruesome's was up.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

Thanks guys, I know that's kind of novice of me to ask this stuff but me and electronics could have a much better relationship haha.