ReAmp question

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roygbiv
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ReAmp question

Post by roygbiv » Sun May 22, 2011 11:17 pm

Anyone have any tips on re-amping, before I launch right in and just do it?

We recently re-recorded a bunch of songs for our (seemingly never-to-be-released) album, 'cause I hated all the bleed in the drum mics for what we have already done (i don't necessarily mind bleed per se, but this is nasty basement phasy bleed)

Anyway, because we still wanted to capture the "live band feel" (since we've played these songs out live quite a bit) we recorded them playing live, with a scratch vocal, while wearing headphones. Direct outs from the guitars and bass were recorded, and we used some old PODs and a SansAmps for the bass so it would sound half-ass reasonable to us in our headphones while playing, yet produce no sound in the room to bleed into the drums.

It actually worked pretty well - we ended up with pretty good takes that groove on most of the songs, yet the drums now sound pristine and can really be cranked up/tweaked.

Here's the problem - now I have to deal with all of these direct ins captured in my DAW program (Reaper). I do have a Radial X-amp, and thus can do (and have in the past done) some re-amping. Alternatively, I could just use the Amplitube 3.0 thingy and be all digitial n' shit.

However, since I live in Portland, i'd prefer to be more cool and organically alternative yet subtly ironic, and re-amp the tracks into actual amps. But - I've only fooled around with re-amping before to record a few isolated tracks. You know, like "wow, how cool! my guitar amp is playing itself in time with the music" - NOT the sort of monumental and daunting task I now face of re-amping 19 different songs worth of material, with three different potential re-amp instrument tracks per song.

Anybody have any good re-amp work-flow suggestions and/or good re-amp tricks they would care to share?

I remember reading in an article in a Pedal Blog (linked to in Chris Garges "Bunky Moon" thread) that Chris likes to use two amps when he re-amps. I'm pretty sure my Radial X-amp does two outs - should I give two amps a try, or is that simply going to square my potential re-amp problems/difficulties?

thanks in advance for any advice/suggestions/tips/enlightenment,

roy
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Post by E-money » Mon May 23, 2011 4:52 am

Personally, I think I would probably start with the bass guitar, find an amp/setting/mic placement that worked well for the bulk of the material and bang out all of the bass parts.

Maybe next I would work on dialing up some clean guitar tones (if you need any). X-factors here is reverb; do you choose to use amp reverb, or leave it dry and apply reverb at mixdown.

Next, I would probably spend a lot of time on my chunky/crunchy rhythm parts. With the bass already done, I can make sure that the guitar and bass aren't fighting each other for sonic space.

Lastly, I would move onto the leads and solos.

Good luck and enjoy yourself. This is usually one of the most fun parts for me because it comes after the frustrating part of trying to write/play the perfect part, and the frustration of trying to get the perfect mix.
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Post by jnTracks » Tue May 24, 2011 3:49 am

this is how i do bass guitar most of the time.

i usually end up overdubbing guitars later, rather than keeping and re amping the scratch tracks. mostly since i put many more tracks, doubled and extra parts, in the case of guitar.

but, don't be scared, do it up! this is an opportunity to take your sweet time dialing in that mike placement with out the guitarist getting tired of looping for you. also, don't be scared to mix in some POD re-amping too for variations in tone you couldn't get from the amp.
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Post by sir hills » Tue May 24, 2011 7:37 am

this is an opportunity to take your sweet time dialing in that mike placement with out the guitarist getting tired of looping for you.
+1

& yes, by all means try multiple amps...you might find you like a single amp better but in the end, just do whatever sounds best & fits the material. Definitely try some distant/room mics too. Again, you have the time to experiment so experiment!...but also finish your album.

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Re: ReAmp question

Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Tue May 24, 2011 10:05 am

roygbiv wrote: However, since I live in Portland, i'd prefer to be more cool and organically alternative yet subtly ironic
just put a bird on it.

whether you're doing one amp or two (i'd tend to stick to one), listen to the sounds in context with the rest of the track, this'll make it a lot quicker/easier to get sounds that all work together.

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Post by roygbiv » Wed May 25, 2011 10:38 pm

Oh man MSE, you have no idea how close some (not all) of those skits come to reality - causes some local squirming and angst, you know, "we're not that bad............are we?"

Seriously though, thanks for the suggestions guys - I hadn't thought of some of those tips - E money, good "plan of attack suggestions", that helps me focus how to approach this (I'm kinda ADD, well, not kinda).

inTracks, sir hills, thanks as well - as you say, what we really have to do is finish these funcking recordings, this is getting ridonculous.

One thing I think I'm going to do is 1st get rough mixes going digitally (with the free version of Amplitude), 'cause I can tweak those settings for bass and guitar faster. Then go in and use real amps for better sounds in the reamp state, but by that time I'll have a rough idea what I'm going for.

And maybe I'll wrap it up by putting some bird sounds on the tracks. Maybe a Red Tailed Hawk.

or just go for it and use the Wilhelm Scream.
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Re: ReAmp question

Post by cgarges » Thu May 26, 2011 6:25 am

roygbiv wrote:I remember reading in an article in a Pedal Blog (linked to in Chris Garges "Bunky Moon" thread) that Chris likes to use two amps when he re-amps. I'm pretty sure my Radial X-amp does two outs - should I give two amps a try, or is that simply going to square my potential re-amp problems/difficulties?
I don't usually do two amps at a time if I'm Reamping, but I might do two passes with different amps. Getting the balance and phase right recording two amps at a time can be tricky to set up and it's great for just "going for it" and getting takes during the basic tracking, but I think it would be easier and maybe a little faster to just Reamp the signal twice and record those amps separately than it would be to set up both amps and get them tweaked correctly to not have issues later on. That's my own opinion on it.

Here's that article.

Chris Garges
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Post by roygbiv » Thu May 26, 2011 9:33 am

thanks Chris, that is indeed the article (good interview, BTW).

And thank you for the clarification about two amps - didn't mean to misrepresent what you were saying.

When you do two amps on separate passes, do you still have potential phase issues on playback?

In other words, if I set up two amps to get a great sound, from the listeners perspective (amp on left and right, for example), can I then simply record each amp at a separate pass, or will i still need to be concerned about potential phase problems upon playback of the recorded signal.
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Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Thu May 26, 2011 10:52 am

roygbiv wrote: When you do two amps on separate passes, do you still have potential phase issues on playback?
ooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhh yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssss.

you can end up in total phase nightmare. it can also be great. tread carefully.

put some quiet transient sound at the beginning of the track (like the pick tapping on the muted high e string or something) and use that as a visual reference between the reamped tracks. much easier to line them up with that than to try and find pick attacks in the midst of heavy distortion.

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Post by roygbiv » Thu May 26, 2011 1:43 pm

excellent! thanks MSE for the tip - I realize I will have to figure some of this out, but anything that can save me some time I really do appreciate.

What about getting some actual feedback - can you plug a guitar into another channel of the amp, while it is playing back with distortion, and squeeze some feedback out that way?
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Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Thu May 26, 2011 3:41 pm

never tried it but i don't see why not.

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Post by cgarges » Thu May 26, 2011 9:12 pm

roygbiv wrote:thanks Chris, that is indeed the article (good interview, BTW).
Thanks! I think Jay had some good questions. It's a very cool site and I was flattered that he asked me to do it.
roygbiv wrote:And thank you for the clarification about two amps - didn't mean to misrepresent what you were saying.
Not at all. Just wanted to clarify in case I wasn't clear in the interview.
roygbiv wrote:When you do two amps on separate passes, do you still have potential phase issues on playback? In other words, if I set up two amps to get a great sound, from the listeners perspective (amp on left and right, for example), can I then simply record each amp at a separate pass, or will i still need to be concerned about potential phase problems upon playback of the recorded signal.
Yes. The tone of the amps can play a really big part in the whole thing. It's easier to not screw it up or to do something about it later if you do separate passes than it is if you mic up two amps side-by-side and record them at once. Either way, you've got to take bit of time to make sure that the relationship between the two amps is cool. I find that they either have to be somewhat similar in general tone (in terms of bass and treble, for instance) or they have to be radically different. It's the in-between stuff where I tend to have the most problems. When I do this kind of thing, I usually have to do A LOT of running back and forth between the control room and the studio making adjustments to the amp.

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Post by Nick Sevilla » Sun May 29, 2011 4:21 pm

roygbiv wrote:
[SNIP]

One thing I think I'm going to do is 1st get rough mixes going digitally (with the free version of Amplitude), 'cause I can tweak those settings for bass and guitar faster. Then go in and use real amps for better sounds in the reamp state, but by that time I'll have a rough idea what I'm going for.

[SNIP]
No.

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