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Reamping is one of those recording techniques that I always read about, heard people talking about, and also hear people raving about. It took me awhile to really understand what it was, how to do it, and what it can be used for. I figured I wasn’t the only one that, at one point, was curious and ignorant on the subject of reamping.

Before you reamp, you should probably know what it is. Reamping is taking a signal and stepping up the impedence (from mic level to instrument level) for the purpose of recording an instrument (usually a clean/DI guitar) through a pedal chain or recording the signal through different amps. That’s it. It’s not really that mysterious, is it?

But, before we go on, you should read this disclaimer: please, before buying a remap box and getting stoked on doing this, check out your cable situation. Seeing as most interfaces have TRS outs and all reamp boxes have either male/female XLRs in, you really need to make sure you have the proper cables before attempting this. And no, taking the output of your interface into an amp or pedal chain will not sound as good. Not even close.

Reamping is, essentially, three steps that anyone familiar with the world of recording should be able to handle. But, in case you’re confused, here are those three essential steps:

1. Route your audio out of your selected DAW (in this tutorial, Pro Tools 7.4 HD) and take the output of your interface (in this case we used interface out A3 of our 192 I/O) and plug it into the input of your reamp box. In the case of this tutorial, we sent the DId guitar and snare out of an aux on the SSL 9000, so our outputs on the panel were Cue Output #1. You will probably just take whatever oupute of your interface out right into the reamp box (no patching or auxes necessary). Pictures: The 9K / Sending Signal Out of Pro Tools / Output of the Wall Panel / Input of Our Reamp Box
2. The next step is to take the output of your reamp box (1/4″ cable) into your amp or pedal chain.
3. If you’re reamping into an amp, then all you would need to do is run the 1/4″ into your amp, play the audio back and simply set up a mic and record the result on a new track. In our case, we needed to take the signal from the pedals and turn it back into a mic signal to record into Pro Tools. All we needed to do to accomplish that is take the output of the pedals into a DI and then back into the wall panels. Pictures: Output of Reamp Box / DI Input / DI Output / Input of the Wall Pane

That’s all there is to reamping. It’s not a horrifically difficult task…it’s just a little confusing if you’re not sure what it is or how to do it.

I recorded some samples of what reamping CAN sound like. The first sample is an example of reamping a bass signal thru our pedal chain. The second example of what reamping a snare can sound like.

So, as you can see, you can really alter the tone of your tracks (bass or otherwise) via reamping. If you’re interested in doing this, do it. It’s a lot of fun.

While you’re at it, why not go discuss this topic (or others) in the forums?

Every once in a while, I get to read an article or hear from an engineer who recorded an album that falls into my realm of music. I was lucky enough to stumble across this thread on Gearslutz. Mike, who recorded Maelstrom, broke down as many elements as he could remember (album was done in 2006) about the recording, what gear was used, etc. I thought I’d break it down here in maybe a more organized manner.

Drums

All drums were tracked to 2″ tape. After tape, the drums were dumped into Pro Tools for some editing.  Mike says he thinks, while mixing, he bussed all the drums to an SSL Bus Compressor. He says he’s not 100% sure on whether or not he did. Here’s what the signal chains were:

Kick: Audio-Technica ATM25 -> Amek 9098 -> DBX 160X -> Tape
Snare Top: Shure SM57 ->Amek 9098 -> Tubetech CL1B -> Tape
Snare Bottom: SM57 -> PreSonus M80 -> Tape
Hi Hat: Microtech Gefell UM70 -> M80 -> Tape
Toms: Sennheiser MD421 -> M80 -> Tape
OH: Audio-Technica AT4050 -> Telefunken Tab v76/80 -> SSL Compressor (not specified) -> Tape
Room: Coles 4038 -> Nistov mic pre -> Tape
Close Room: Shure 55SH (Mike said it was a Shure “elvis looking microphone:” this is the only one that I could think of) -> Telefunken v72 -> Empirical Labs EL8 Distressor
Mic Under Drum Throne: Shure 520DX Green Bullet -> Pro Co RAT pedal -> v72 -> Siemens U273 -> Tape

Bass

Bass tracks were a direct signal as well as a miked Fender Bassman 20. Mike only used the amp distortion. The signal chain for bass was: Either Shure SM7 or ATM25 -> v76 -> CL1B -> Tape. Mike says he used the Urei 545 EQ to sculpt the sound of the bass on the way to tape. He also added more compression on the bass during mixing.

Guitars

Not much is remembered about the guitars on this album. Mike recorded both Marshall and Messa Boogie amps. He used a Sennheiser e609 and SM57 on the amps.  The signals then went into some tube pres (not specified) and then right to tape.

Vocals

SM7 -> v76/80 -> CL1B -> Pro Tools

Mixing

Everything was recorded to 2″ tape except some small overdubs and the vocals. The record was primarily mixed in Pro Tools and summed using PT’s internal summing engine. Mike says he used some outboard gear in this process: SSL, Focusrite, Distressor, 1176, and more RAT pedals.

Comments

This is probably my second favorite Ewing album (first being Ride Paranioia). However, the recording on this album is top notch and the guitar tones are nothing short of amazing. Do yourself a favor and go buy this album at your local record store, Amazon, or buy it on iTunes. And, because I want to, here’s a JR Ewing video from YoTube:

As I’ve stated in a previous post, my friend and I are working on a couple of mixes for a band we tracked during our current class. The class ends in a week and a half, so at this point we’re pretty much set on the final mix and heading into mastering (Note: this project is all about working with a band from the ground up; we track, mix, and master the bands material).

When we finished the mix, we decided that before doing any mastering, we wanted to run our tracks thru tape and then back into Pro Tools for the last step. That being decided, we checked out Expression’s old “mastering rack” which consists of an Alienware PC laptop, an Apogee 8-in/8out ADC, and a small patchbay.

We exported the tracks and threw them on the laptop into Steinberg WaveLab. We then ran the tracks onto the school’s 1/2″ tape machine, and then recorded the tracks back into WaveLab.

When we had the tracks how we wanted, we imported them back into Pro Tools HD and used the GML 8200 EQ as a hardware insert and did the final additve EQ. I must say, that EQ sounds pretty amazing.

Once finished with the additve EQ, we did laybacks and were done. Today, we start on mastering. You can hear the bounces we did of each song: Deep and Shaky Ride.

I took some pictures of the gear we were using, so feel free to check them out:

For my Advanced Recording and Production 2 class, we were required to track a band, Architects of the Universe, as well as mix one or two of their songs. My partner and I chose two songs: “Deep” and “Shaky Ride.”

Pre Mix (Session 1)

Deep is roughly 4:30 long and Shaky Road around 6:50. We ran into some major problems as far as the tracking went (close to no notes on any takes, playlists, or sections) as well as having between 16-24 bass tracks per song. Needless to say, our first task during the pre-mix stage was to get rid of all tracks we didn’t view as essential to the session: all the scratch bass/guitar as well as a few DI’d tracks. We also got rid of the hi-hat as the combination of the overheads and room mics seemed to get the job done.

After the sessions were cleaned up and easier on the eyes, we did some subtractive EQing (using the Digidesign 7-Band EQ) and that was pretty much it.

Reamping (Session 2)

This was the fun session. We spent the entire time re-amping and running a few select parts through an old-ish four track tape machine.

First, we set up a guitar pedal signal and ran a guitar DI track thru it. It consisted of a wah, Holy Grail reverb, a really shitty Dan Electro gain pedal, a Big Muff, and a bass distortion pedal. The first track we laid down with this chain was a rhythm track that I did along with Deep: essentially just spaced out noise and accents on certain parts. The second track was some effects on a solo part in the same song.

After that, we ran the bass out of Pro Tools, into a Reamp box and then into a Pignose amp (with a 4″ driver). We mic’d the Pignose with a SM57 and recorded it into Pro Tools. The bass also ran thru an MXR distortion pedal. We felt it really added some reinforcement to the bass tracks that we kept in the song.

After the bass and guitar were done to our liking, we started working on Shaky Ride. We did some more of the same on that track: did a bass reamp track (to reinforce the other bass tracks) and did a guitar reamp (on top of the guitar tracks we already had in the session). We then did something kind of cool: we ran a single drum fill out of Pro Tools and into the four track tape recorder we had with us. We recorded it to tape and then ran it back into Pro Tools. The great thing about it was that the tape, which was brand new by the way, was naturally imperfect. So after recording the drums to the tape and erasing them and going over them several times, the final drum fill has some sort of weird tape flangey effect on it: something completely unexpected, but awesome nonetheless. (The fill is at around 3:20 in the song, in case you’d like to hear what I’m talking about)

Feel free to take a listen to laybacks of both songs:
Depp 6-9-08
Shaky Ride 6-9-08

Rough Mix (Session 3)

This was a lot of fun. We got into the new Studio 2 at Ex’pression and went all out on the gear we had available to us: first of all, we pulled up the sessions from the reamp session and made sure everything was cool. Then, we finished whatever subtractive EQing we didn’t do during the pre-mix session and hit the gear pretty hard.

We first sent all the drum and bass tracks out of Pro Tools and into the Manley 16×9 line mixer. We created a rough mix on that and then started a signal chain:

• For kick and snare, we went into an API 525 comp and then into the 550A EQs
• Toms were passed thru the line mixer and not much else
• Overheads were put thru the Manley Massive Passive
• Rooms were put thru the Vari Mu (I think) and then into a pair of 1073s
• Bass tracks were put thru the Chandler TG2s and then into the Massive Passive. Some were compressed relatively lightly; the reamp tracks were pretty smashed
• Guitars ran thru a few signal chains. We ran some thru the TG2s into the 1073s; some went into the Vari Mu and then into the Chandler Germanium EQs; I think one track went thru the 1073.

When we were done with both songs, we had two stereo tracks in Pro Tools: drum and bass on one track, guitars and keys on another (for Deep). On Shaky Ride, we had drum and bass and then guitars.

We were (and I still am) pretty happy with the change that occurred during this session: it sounds cliche, but the songs definately sounded better. I won’t use terms like “fat” and “warm,” but hey, that’s how they ended up.

Feel free to listen to these mixes as well:

Deep 6-11-08
Shaky Ride 6-11-08

Future Sessions

As far as future sessions are concerned, we still obviously need to master. Tomorrow night we’ll probably do some multiband compression on the stereo tracks and work some automation.