Problems with Re-Amping

[rustinpeace91]

My band is currently recording our third album. I recorded my guitar takes directly into my bandmates focusrite sapphire 56 HI-Z input. I bought one of these things.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/radial-engineering-pro-rmp-passive-reamping-direct-box#productDetail

 

Now that it is time to run the Direct signal through the re-amp box and into my amp we have faced nothing but problems. We started off using an unbalanced instrument cable to connect the re-amp box to the amp as the manual called for. When we did that we were unable to get the proper volume or overdrive necessary for the metal parts. My bandmate borrowed a balanced speaker cable which for some reason was able to provide much more of the loudness we needed, but now there is this horrific high feedback that comes up every time there is a palm muting section, which is a lot.

 

It is getting very late in the recording session, we've asked people for help with no answers, we haven't found anyone with another re-amp box to borrow to see if mine is defective and I don't have enough money to get another one. The only alternative is just running the stems through Amplitube 3, which while not horrible, is not nearly as good as a real tube amp.

[onelife]

You must use a shielded guitar cable to go from the re-amp box to your amplifier - a speaker wire will not work properly.

 

Use a balanced TRS to XLR cable to go from the Saffire 56 to the re-amp box.

 

You should be able to get enough gain to drive the amplifier by adjusting the output level of the Saffire 56 and the passive gain control on the re-amp box.

 

 

[WRGKMC]

Low volume tracks is a matter of proper gain staging. There's another guy over in the recording forum having the same issues you are. You may want to read up on what's been posted there. http://www.harmonycentral.com/forum/forum/recording/acapella-14/31450245-reamping-troubles

I hate to have to repost everything over again.

 

He's at the point where he is getting success with some tracks that were recorded loud enough and others are weak. I gave him some advise in the last post that can help him juice up the tracks and get them sounding better.

 

I'll add the note for you as well. Re-amping is something you do as a last resort. Its not something you want to have to do all the time because it is very difficult to get just the right amount of track gain and still hit the box and amp with the correct pedal gain.

 

You may want to try using amp sim plugins instead. You can get some great amp tones even if you have weak tracks. Guitar Rig and Voxengo Boogex are two I've used. Voxengo is a low CPU consumption plugin that has a tone of miced cab types.

 

I do suggest you use a compressor and or limiter before the plugin to tame the dynamics. An EQ may be essential as well to roll off the unneeded lows below 150HZ and above 5~6K. Anything above or below that should be removes because an actual guitar and its speakers are incapable of reproducing those high and low frequencies and you don't want them there in the mix masking other important frequencies.

[Phil O'Keefe]

At what level did you record the direct guitar parts? In other words, how high on the meters does the playback level go? If it's too low, that could cause some of the issues you're experiencing.

 

As the guys said, make sure you use a balanced cable to go from the audio interface's line output to the Radial, and a regular guitar cable to go from the Radial to the input of your pedals / amp, then adjust the output level on the Radial for the best sound.

 

Doing this with the amp in the other room will also help reduce the issue of feedback. If you're trying to do it in the same room with your studio monitors playing, and with a live mic recording the amp (and feeding into the studio monitors), you'll definitely have issues with feedback. If you have to do it in the same room, then turn off the studio monitors and use headphones until you're finished recording, then mute the mic before turning on the monitors and playing it back.

[Mind Riot]

As Phil mentioned, I was going to chime in too and say that once you've got your mics set up make sure they're only sending signal to the DAW track. Mute the mic channels in your monitoring setup, even if you're just using headphones, for when you're actually running the amp and recording it. I got some squonky behavior if I didn't just mute everything that didn't need to be on when I was doing this.

 

Reamping is a bit of an odd process, with a lot of loops going on, so if you're getting any kind of weirdness I'd just make sure nothing is sending signal anywhere that doesn't have to be.

[Phil O'Keefe]

Excellent points Mind Riot.