Portable Reamping Setup

[KenHodgkins]

Hi, I am interested in a reamping setup that I can bring anywhere without the need for power. So I guess I would need a battery powered speaker/PA and an interface capable of playing and recording simultaneously.

I was wondering if people can recommend a good battery powered monitor that would be good for this as well as a recorder. I could use my laptop and USB interface, but battery might not last too long. I'd prefer something small like a Zoom recorder but not sure if it can play and recorder simultaneously and am not sure about its quality either.

The main point is to get weird natural reverbs.

Any info from people who have some setup like this would be great.

[Nick Sevilla]

Hi Ken,

I used to use a portable recorder, like a Zoom or the like, which accepted condenser microphones as well.

And for playback, just a CD player hooked up to one self powered speaker.

Usually I could find power wherever i was going to record a space for use as a convolution impulse reverb later on. I never really got into deep out of the way places with no electricity.

I am sure you can find more resources online for field recording, the "official" name for this type of recording endeavor.

Cheers

[KenHodgkins]

Thanks for the info. I actually didn't know about recording impulse responses. It seems really interesting, but the main reason I'd be doing this is to get away from the plugins in the first place for a richer reverb that is customized to what I'm reamping. But I'm also going to look into the convolution process to see how it performs.

I guess in many cases I could find power but if I wanted to go record in a cave or something...don't know if I ever would but that's where you'd get some cool reverbs.

[vvv]

You could do that with a Zoom R16 and some kind of self- powered monitors.

The Zoom will run on flashlight batteries; your main issue, IMO, will be to get enough volume to "excite" the space for the reverb.

You can buy battery packs to power stuff, but I'm thinking something like a battery-powered amp like a Mini-Mouse or a Roland Cube or a Pignose, etc., like street performers use.

It would be best for guitar amps but could prob'ly work for vocals if you brought the reverb'd track (time-aligned, mebbe) up in parallel.

[kevin206]

I'm not sure how portable you want to be, but getting enough volume to "excite" to space may be hard, as previously mentioned. Several years ago I saw our local high school band perform. They had a few instruments setup on the sidelines while everyone else performed the marching routine. Two of the instruments were electric bass and electric guitar. They used full size amps to get the needed volume, but I noticed that there were no power cables running to the field. Turns out, they had a box containing a deep cycle marine battery and a power inverter. I know that it takes a decent inverter and a heavy battery to do this, but it may be an option.

[I'm Painting Again]

battery powered speaker that can fill a cave..probably not going to happen..a system hi-fi enough to reproduce and then capture it as richly as you picture it in yr head..also probably not going to happen..at least on a budget..

it's a lot of fuss for something that a good reverb unit will succeed at in my opinion though I love the concept very much and use that technique in the house from time to time..

and if you figure out a solution I'd love to hear it so please do post examples..

convolution type does a great job at weird natural reverbs..

altiverb or logic's space designer and that kinda stuff..

[jgimbel]

I went on a similar search myself end ended up getting into recording my own reverb impulses for convolution reverb. I got a Zoom H4N (which is surprisingly great quality, both built and sound). I can record using the onboard stereo mic, but I've also plugged in a pair of Neumann KM84s, and for one project a U87 for an on-location project, and recorded the onboard stereo mic simultaneously and mixed them later. A blast of white noise from full range speakers would be ideal for exciting the space's reverb but most of the places I've done them that wouldn't be possible. Depending on the space and its size I'll just use a clap (which sometimes requires bringing up the low end a bit when processing the impulse), or a balloon popping which can extend a bit lower in the spectrum.

I've rather be reamping in the actual space but I found the only way I could do it is with a battery generator (one that doesn't use a fan and is quiet enough) and a power inverter, and then normal equipment to go into that like a laptop, interface monitors, etc. and it ends up being a pretty big setup and kind of defeats the purpose of this kind of spontaneous on-location recording idea. I ended up liking being able to have a library of spaces I've recorded to use here and there in the future too.

I'll still record sounds in actual spaces if it's a situation that works (at 4:50 in this song you can hear a car door being slammed under an old stone and brick bridge used as a kick drum - https://jessegimbel.bandcamp.com/album/ ... ble-single) but having reverbs I can use later that really capture interesting spaces can be amazing.