Reamping: Everything you need to know

great job!

This is a great video man.
One seemingly stupid question (but a serious one!) in terms of using a line level out and this being too hot, can you not just turn it down? Say use a pre-fader send from the track you want to put through the guitar pedal, send it to a physical output, lose the reamp box and just go straight into the pedal?? I've done this before with a spring reverb tank and also a delay pedal (mxr carbon) and it seemed fine, though not sure if my ears are missing something.
Have wondered for ages is all and would just rather be sure before forking out the $$$

This video is very helpful! So to be clear, is it okay to use a passive DI box to capture the electric guitar with passive pickups? I'm seeing a lot of stuff online saying you should use an active DI box if your guitar has passive pickups.

I use Focusrite Control to route my first two outputs through my third output, which feeds into my reamp box. I use the output preset in Focusrite Control called System Playback. This way I'm able to channel my stems through my reamp box but the problem is that I have to solo the stem Channel in Reaper and mute the monitor in my miced channels, otherwise the entire mix comes out of the reamp box and out of my speakers.

How do you monitor while you're re-amping? Is it even possible. I've just set everything up with 2i2 Scarlet and it will re-amp and I can track it. But I just can't listen to it in real time. Why not? This is a total mystery that nobody seems to have the answer to. In fact the only way I can re-amp a guitar is by soloing it. And even then I can't hear the signal in real time.

The correct order is: DI -> gear -> Reamp or the other way arround?

Great video, thank you for this!

Hi! I bought a reamp box and I'm following the instructions in the video step by step but there is a feedback noise every time I give it some volume. If I use the gain or volume very very low that does not happen. Any idea what the problem could be? Thank so much!

Best info on reamping ever

Where's Warren? Isn't this his channel?

Loved the info but for those real SLOW ppl out there (me), can you dumb it down and explain more on why are you using a D.I box when reamping, what are the connections on the back of the EXTC, can I use TRS instead of XLR, creating track/s for the reamping stage…I tried what you did and my reamping experience fell through…

"we've got the PERFORMANCE we want to capture, we just want to be able to manipulate it further to realize additional possibilities based on it"
people wonder why we go through all the trouble
well, because maybe on our voyage out into the great re-amping unknown
we will find a pearl, and bring it back to our song, and let other people enjoy it
you never know what you'll find when you go exploring :)

Cool video but I really, really would like to know if my interface instrument input is good enough LOL

Awesome

Excellent video on re-amping. Thank you :)

Great video! Matt, many people says that a simple DI box like the J48 would work exactly as ReAmp box! What do you think? 🙄

Great vid! Active or passive DI? As I understand it, most/all passive DIs are quite low impedance compared to guitar amps and pedals and using the thru jack on a passive DI even puts this low impedance in parallel with the amps impedance, resulting in the guitar seeing an even lower impedance with some loss of treble as a result. Am I missing something here?

In Studio One, pipeline xt takes care of the latency offset for you. 😁👍🏾

Thanks for the video! I must mention Mr. John Cuniberti here and his original design for the REAMP. I don't know if he can be considered the inventor of re-amping, but he did develop what is considered by many to be the gold standard DI box for doing it (the circuit was eventually sold to Radial and is now sold as the JCR model). I have several DI boxes and I must say the JCR seems to be the closest to actually plugging the guitar back into the amp. Disclaimer: I have been working with John for many years, but certainly don't get a dime if Radial sells a DI!

[Avalon] U5 just went up in price again...LOL!

Radial JDI Passive DI works both ways. I can record the DI signal from the guitar into the DAW, then send the signal back out into the XLR of the JDI back into the amp/pedals from the 1/4" jacks on the JDI. Then record the amp with a mic or any combination. You can't use an active DI box for this. Passive DI work the best as they go both ways matching impedance. I usually use the PAD on the JDI and control the signal level from the DAW. I've done this numerous times - works great.

I didn't realise how important the DI box was. Got myself a cheap one but could never get the reamp to sound right, it always sounded mushy. Grabbed a Radial J48 and BOOM, there it was. Rather save a little longer and get the higher end gear (I cannot praise the Radial gear enough) over buying something cheap/unproven. You will probably waste money that could have been put into the better gear. When reamping, use your ears a lot. Forget about the digital graphs etc, tune the output signal into the amp until the you get the sound you want out of the amp. Like anything, this takes time and practice. Thanks so much for the video!

Another great reason to run signal to a real amp, even when DI-ing: feedback, and other interactions between the guitar and the amp.

You will never get the same kind of feedback (if any) playing with a low(er)-gain tone and/or at a quieter volume. With a hellaciously loud amp in the room with you, you'll get as much feedback as you want, **which will be included in the DI recording**, which you can then re-amp later through a cleaner amp.

Not to mention, guitarists play differently in loud vs. quiet environments, so having a roaring amp in the room with the musician can have a significant impact on the **performance**. Which (unless the tone is so wildly off-base as to be laughable) is far more important than the specifics of the tone itself.

I would much rather have to put some extra work into getting a less-than-idea guitar tone to fit properly in the mix as long as the performance was spectacular, as opposed to a situation where the tone was spot-on perfect but the performance was robotic or out of time, uninspiring, etc.

You can measure your latency sending a drum sample out of your interface and recording back. Once you know how many samples of delay you have, you can configure your daw to compensate automatically.

Room looks great until Warren starts throwing all his crap in there. Books, pictures, stuff, stuff stuff. Drives me crazy but love the the guy, love the content. Marry Christmas and congrates on the new room.

passive DI boxes work in reverse for reamping. adjust the signal gain going out to match the guitar levels.

I thought the Avid Eleven was the studio standard, one-stop-shop for this? You can plug the GTR direct into the Eleven, pull 2 lines back to the DAW (one affected and one clean) and you can use that clean track in the daw anytime you want to send back out to the Eleven or a pedal or amp or something else... most of the tones in the Eleven are pretty solid and most of the time when I track that's all I've done especially since I'm not a guitar player by any means and don't own a full rig or a pedal board.

How do you set your output volume when sending it through the reamp box to the amp?

Your channel is so helpful. This is a great segment!

Is the X-amp better than the EXTC? I really like the look of the EXTC because of the blend control. But I’m thinking now, is the X-amp better sounding. Anyone have any info?

Thanks for the great video!

It's said quite often that "A reamp box converts a low impedance, balanced line level signal to high impedance, unbalanced instrument level signal. " As for converting to high impedance, I'm afraid it's not correct, the key point here is level match. BTW I have found out there're quite a few reamp devices having super low output impedance. On the other hand, if converting to high impedance is necessary, then none of the pedals should go directly into the main input of an amp.

Really cool video! When I like to reamp my wha guitar parts and play the wah pedal with my hand, I get better control and I can actually time my bends and the wah perfectly.

How do you re-amp vocals?

Studio one has a pipeline plugin that will take care of any latency.

Why not just use a regular reamp box for pedals?

Love that oversized chess knight decoration in the background! It's so cool!

Really nice video matt!

So...Say you have a Boss AD-2? (if you have one, just turn it off, plus it has Buffer) On the input chain put it first, for your electric, use "output" to next in chain to record pedals/amp. Use "lineout" TRS to DAW for DI? Seems simple for frontside?

Heya Matt! I bought a Radial reamp box that is blue-I didn't buy The Orange Radial Reamp Box. The Blue is Transformer isolated-perhaps you could explain the differences. Oh, and Buy Radial or Countryman or Radial if you can afford them. 🙂 Thanks, man!

Latency? How far behind is ProTools lagging? Has AVID stopped all development? Or am I misunderstanding the issue? All major DAWs have automatic latency compensation, right?

Need a cheap re-amp box? Use a buffered Boss pedal.

Brilliant walk through, I’m just starting to mess with reamping, mainly enjoying it on non guitar stuff, any rules of thumb on levels to shoot for on vocals, or it is it a general ‘If it sounds good it is good’ thing?

I used to sort of do this with vocals and acoustic, and other instruments. It's just a good reminder that it can be done with electric guitars and assorted pedals as well. A bit like swatch watches. 💕 I did do a lot of trial and error to not have latency. I didn't have too much trouble with that unless trying to do something over Skype or live chats. Ironically years ago Skype worked very well without that if not too many people were in the skype session. In later years it wasn't as good that way. Not sure why. A few times we tamed it live.

Also, to avoid latency, just use the thru on the DI, go to the amp and record both with the DI muted. If you wanna change anything later, just use the DI that was recorded simultaneously. Not sure I see the/any benefit of routing through Pro Tools first.

I’ve always been curious as to how hot to record the initial DI. Does it even matter? I just wanna know how to replicate the guitar’s output exactly as the amp would see it.

I use a digi eleven rack for an interface.
It has reamping abilities built in.
Never used them but am inspired to try after this video.👍🏻

this is amazing, saving for later :D

I have a Focusrite 18i20. I always thought that I could just record DI through that into my DAW and then route out of it into my amp, and then record the signal coming in through another input of the interface.

I've tried it before, but yeah, it didn't sound right. Now I know you need two boxes — a DI box to record into, and a REAMP box to route audio out of the DAW into the guitar amp. And an interface of course to record the amp back into the DAW. Shit gets confusing!

Looks like I might need to spend another $300-400 on a couple more pieces of equipment.

P.S. I suppose I could just record DI through the interface, so really the REAMP box is the only missing piece of equipment. Of course, I can't record an amp and clean signal simultaneously, which means my performance might be hindered playing just a boring clean signal on my guitar.