Re-amping

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Singlebladepickup
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Re-amping

Post by Singlebladepickup » Fri Dec 04, 2020 12:07 pm

Not sure if this is the right place for this post, but does anyone have experience with re-amp boxes to get line level down to instrument for purposes?

I see a lot of boxes that take microphone signals down, and thus have a bunch of xlr ins/outs, but I'm looking specifically to take pre-recorded dry guitar recorded at line level and reamp to send back through my amp. Looking at either building the DIYer L2-A kit or buying one of the radial boxes, but would love testimonial by someone who has used a box for this purpose. Thanks!

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Re: Re-amping

Post by jorri » Sat Dec 05, 2020 8:07 am

What are you using to re-amp?

An unbalanced line is fine, and if its an AUX send, i tend to use the AUX level to a suitable spot without distortion. It can give you more distortion control than a simple guitar output.

Preferable to increase digital levels, then decrease via the analogue control but not necessary if no noise (set the fader at -10dB or so?).

Reamp boxes are best for balanced lines, hence often having XLRs but sometimes TRS. Some will add a more similar impedance to a guitar load and definately have some kind of level control.

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Re: Re-amping

Post by Singlebladepickup » Sat Dec 05, 2020 8:27 am

I'm not using anything to reamp, I have line level signals recorded into mpc and played through modular, I want to run them back through guitar pedals into amp

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Re: Re-amping

Post by jorri » Sat Dec 05, 2020 4:54 pm

Singlebladepickup wrote:
Sat Dec 05, 2020 8:27 am
I'm not using anything to reamp, I have line level signals recorded into mpc and played through modular, I want to run them back through guitar pedals into amp
so outputs from a sampler? can you use the output volume of the sampler?
There is not more to it than that especially if its a modular thing- levels are just levels.
impedance could be a thing if using a vintage fuzz guitar DI or something but if it sounds fine it sounds fine- synths probably sound good out of a line level anyway and some degree of EQ or mic placement would easily compensate for any change..

but are you using the sampler to record back? I am not familiar with the MPC, i assumed it was an interface. Generally its necessary to have one buss for the output to reamp, and another for monitoring purposes- gets tricky if its all in the same channel.

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Re: Re-amping

Post by Larry Mal » Sat Dec 05, 2020 6:24 pm

Radial has some DI boxes that work towards this purpose, and they have this article up about it.

Any of that seem helpful?
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Re: Re-amping

Post by øøøøøøø » Sat Dec 05, 2020 6:41 pm

Radial Engineering makes a device called the “reamp” that is specifically engineered to do what you want.

We’re not just talking about transforming level but also impedance, for the record.

This can be a fussy concept to intuitively get the mind around, but attenuating a hardware line level send is not the same as transforming from a low impedance to a high impedance.

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Re: Re-amping

Post by Singlebladepickup » Sat Dec 05, 2020 7:02 pm

I do understand it's going from low impedance to high impedance to plug into an amp, otherwise I could just attenuate or turn levels down. I'm just trying to figure whether the option of a radial box is better than other alternatives. I might just get the strymon eurorack module, it's cheaper than the radial and is made for the same thing

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Re: Re-amping

Post by jorri » Sun Dec 06, 2020 4:30 am

I only state to try it first, then use the box if there is an issue. Often there isnt one. But it could be a hissy situation.

If you have a buffered pedal the amp "likes" seeing that. Thats low impedance. Although a line may be lower than that.

The need for reamp boxes is quite overstated, in fact they are essential from balanced line, less essential from unbalanced line. For sure it may improve tone, so may a buffer and that lowers impedance. IME the effect can be very minor depending all on the actual line-out you are using.... especially if its not a very guitary sound.

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Re: Re-amping

Post by fortytwo » Wed Dec 09, 2020 7:50 am

There are a ton of videos about it on youtube, by various people, about different boxes.
Search for Creative Sound Lab, he's got a pretty okay one, maybe two about it.
There's a pretty good one from Electrial Audio.

But it's pretty much up to your wallet, or soldering skills, what you should get.

Little Labs makes a really great reamp box too.

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Re: Re-amping

Post by øøøøøøø » Wed Dec 09, 2020 8:28 am

Singlebladepickup wrote:
Sat Dec 05, 2020 7:02 pm
I do understand it's going from low impedance to high impedance to plug into an amp, otherwise I could just attenuate or turn levels down. I'm just trying to figure whether the option of a radial box is better than other alternatives. I might just get the strymon eurorack module, it's cheaper than the radial and is made for the same thing
If we're talking about doing an impedance transformation, we're typically employing a transformer.

The Radial Pro RMP uses a pretty decent transformer and is $99.

If you're using a passive transformer-based device and it's cheaper than that, become suspicious about the quality of the transformer itself. There's no real free lunch in magnetics... the raw materials of a good device are expensive, and the winding of a proper audio transformer is labor-intensive.

There are ways that active circuitry (silicon) can be used to accomplish the same task less-expensively. There are some very unique advantages to using a transformer in this application, however, and it's the way I prefer to do it.

I'd suggest that a $99 device you can use for your entire career just might be worth it. I've never regretted buying proper tools, but I have regretted efforts to "save money" (which usually costs more in the long run)

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Re: Re-amping

Post by Singlebladepickup » Wed Dec 09, 2020 4:50 pm

Cool, I'm a buy once cry once guy myself. I'll probably go for the RMP when I have a spare bill

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Re: Re-amping

Post by doctorock78 » Tue Mar 30, 2021 5:28 pm

Whatever you do, NEVER play guitar into a passive DI and split the outgoing signal to an amp (for monitoring) AND a recording device. I did this for almost all of our latest record and when it came time to reamp (using the radial reamp box) the guitar sounds suffered.... Not sure how to do this setup properly and avoid tone loss, perhaps an active DI?
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Re: Re-amping

Post by øøøøøøø » Tue Mar 30, 2021 6:20 pm

You could prevent any loading by buffering the guitar signal before the DI/Amp split.

Any quality pedal with a buffered bypass (or an active volume pedal like a Hilton, etc) would do the trick.

But really, this isn't the biggest obstacle with re-amping into a different amp than the one that was being monitored. The main thing is that the amp applied later will react differently from the amp that was being monitored, and things that sounded fine when played into "monitor amp" might not sound as good when re-amped into "recording amp."

This is particularly true if the recorded amp is gain-staged differently from what was being monitored, or has substantially-different headroom/overdrive characteristics.

Whenever I re-amp something, most of the work is getting the new amp set up such that it reacts approximately similarly to the original amp to playing dynamics.

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Re: Re-amping

Post by Embenny » Tue Mar 30, 2021 6:28 pm

øøøøøøø wrote:
Tue Mar 30, 2021 6:20 pm
Whenever I re-amp something, most of the work is getting the new amp set up such that it reacts approximately similarly to the original amp to playing dynamics.
This is really the main challenge. I like reamping in ways that don't change the gain structure, like switching cabs or mics/IRs +/- some EQ tweaks.
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Re: Re-amping

Post by øøøøøøø » Tue Mar 30, 2021 6:31 pm

It's generally easier, also, to get good results from re-amping when the objective is "hm, I wish this amp had been cranked a bit more" than the other way around.

Trying to re-amp a performance to get a cleaner sound when the original performance was played into a too-distorted amp almost never works well, IME.

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