Anyone try REAMPING before?

[RBaker]

I am recording an ep for an aggresive rock band and my studio is in my apt. I usually just use the pod pro but this is a bigger session and tones are more important. We can go to their rehearsal studio and record guitars there but it means lugging my crap out there, setting it up in the hallway and spending hours on headphones recording guitar and bass.

If I do reamping I can just record the guitar & bass direct here and then when all the parts are done, lug my crap out there just once and run it through an amp, minimizing my time and discomfort of the feared hallway mock recording studio.

Does this make sense? More importantly will it sound the same as if the guitar was plugged right into the amp? Is the reamp (www.reamp.com) the only unit that will make the impedance correct? Why is it so damn expensive and what else can I do (anybody want to rent me one?)

[gerax]

Hi

I did it a couple of times reampig back a direct track into a my Mesa Boogie and tweaking the sound to match the mix; it works but you have to be careful with impedance and cable loading, as those can wreck the signal going to the amp. I'd use a D.I. at least to get the signal from a balanced line out to the amp in; plus, as long as you don't pad it down again to mic level (guitars pickups put out a tiny voltage) the signal is going to overdrive a lot earlier (I.E. it will need less gain to distort) which can be a desireable or not thing.

Watch out for latency issues; it's a very cool technique that allows you to experiment with various tones by mixing several different amp/D.I. signals and blend them to get very personal and cool sounds. Not the same as having the guitarist playing off his amp and reacting to it, but interesting as well.

Hope this helps.

L.G.

[K.B.]

I don't understand this posting.

Sorry if i sound naive, but wouldn't something like amplitube and maybe a bit of extra reverb do the trick? I don't get what you're trying to achieve. Is there something special about the acoustics of the band's rehearsal room? Or is amplitube not up to the job? Or am I reading it wrong?

[SSRJazz]

Karl,

While I love my POD and am still warming up to Amplitube for certain things...

It still doesn't always capture 'the sound' that a lot of people are looking for. In a lot of cases the modelling on virtual amps like that just sound horrible in general when it comes to overdriven/distortion sounds to a select few of us who can really hear it. =)

[K.B.]

Ouch.

Guess I'm not one of the select few. Still, I bet you can't spot what film stock a movie was shot on.

Joking aside, I'm surprised that amplitube isn't good enough. It costs enough! But on second thoughts, I can easily see why. Anyway, I've only got a humble home system, so it would be hard to tell the difference here, and I'm not a pro guitarist like you. I just thought the process described above seemed overly laborious.

But isn't it a drag to not hear the final effect until much later? and potentially misleading?

[graveleye]

i always record the amp.



with a guitar player plugged into it.






have some pie?

[RBaker]

I guess some already touched on it but yes....speaker modeling, as great as it is (and believe me I'm a big fan of it) doesn't sound like a good tube amp cranked up to 11. it sounds kinda close. I'd almost say that pod pro and other modeling sounds better...if you compared the 2 most would probably pick the modeled one. The problem (and this is just my theory) is that maybe the modeled amps sound too good. But in the mix there is a difference....usually.

I wish the pod pro or amplitube (I've tried them all) worked. It would make my project much easier. Demos I wouldn't even think of miking an amp but the drums we just did sound so great (we did them at the same room that most of Jimmy Eat World's last record was done at) and I don't want to shame the drum tones with semi-lifeless guitar.

As far as what gerax said with regard to being careful to get the impedance right----thats why I was asking about the "reamp" www.reamp.com It converts +4 line level to high impedance guitar level, kinda like a backwards direct box---my question is: does it actually do it well?

Anybody have the unit?

[astrorock]

here is the thing. if you want to compare modelers VS real tube amps you have to get down to bare bones. each one has it's place! i've on many occasions have droped in a filler track here and there last minute and just used a pod or amplitube. but the difference is that modelers try to emulate real amps. but it can't be done the reason, (good) tube amps have such a different feel from modelers is in the hardware. whem you slam out that e chord you can hear the power of the voltage pulsing through the tubes and the plates. that cannot be emulated by a program. plus you can play countless QUALITY tube amps (same model) and they all sound slightly different. I've delt quite extensively in vintage gear, and been down the digital road, and as a generality i've found that the people who claim that there digital modeler sounds exactly like the vintage tube gear have never owned a QUALITY tube amp! I'M NOT SAYING THAT MODELERS ARE BAD they just have there place in the recording process, they produce some awsome sounds as well. but they will never a great tube amp, good mike, and QUALITY mike pre.

just my oppinion

[exo iii]

virtual amps and amp modellers suck

record the sounds you want to hear
don't shortcut

[SSRJazz]

Ouch.

Guess I'm not one of the select few. Still, I bet you can't spot what film stock a movie was shot on.

I didn't mean it in 'My hearing is better than yours, NYAH!"....if nothing else, it's a curse more than anything. Those of us humans who have a larger range of frequencies we can hear, hear things everyone else can't....and it just drives ya crazy. Kinda like people with 'perfect pitch' can't stand to listen to anything slightly off from A440. Or people with perfect 'relative pitch' can't stand to listen to a guitar whose strings are a few cents off from being in relative tune with each other.

I know I certainly couldn't tell what flim stock any movie used....that takes a lot better eyes and training than I have. =)

Those who can coax good sounds out of amp modellers have proven that in some cases it can be 'good enuff' There are plenty of grammy winning albums that can prove that already. For some tho, (especially the purists) it's still not perfect and has a ways to go.

...myself, I'm still trying to find a happy medium.