DIY re-amp components ?

[NewYorkDave]

Well, the ReA... and similar devices DO perform a balanced-to-unbalanced conversion, which is very useful whichever way you look at it. You generally don't want to run a balanced output from your mixer right into the unbalanced input of your guitar amp. The attenuation is also useful because otherwise, all the action would happen down around the bottom 10% of your aux send :wink:

 

[sismofyt]

Yeah, but come on Dave! Patenting that... pttffff :twisted:

I've just shorted pin 3 and turning down the aux knob is not forbidden :razz:

 

[soundguy]

well, saying there is no need for a "fancy transformer box" is just a little silly dont you think? If you are running a line level to a guitar amp just to "make a sound come out of the amp" then thats fine, run it through an aux and hope for the best and Id bet that waaaay more than half of the "reamping" activities out there would probably fall into that category. But you know, you can also take your 150 ohm mic annd plug it into your 600 ohm line level input and "just make a sound" too. If you keep turning up the gain, eventually you'll hear it, along with a ton of system noise and a constricted bass response.

There are PLENTY of occasions where an efficient line to instrument level transformation is needed. Any application where you need good headroom, like using an echoplex for instance, a wah pedal, phasers, really most any effects in a mix, you'll want to properly handle your impedance between stages. If you've never bothered, you should check it out, it will wildly improve the qualities of your mixes.

As far as JC goes, his personality aside, kudos to him for having the insight to legally protect himself. dont undertsand why people who are smart enough to make money in this world take so much shit for doing so. I'll tell you what, I wish I had the patent on the reamp process. I wish I had a trademark on the word "the" also. I'd laugh all the way to the bank on the heels of everyone telling me how callous I was for doing so... I think its just slightly unrealistic to knock someone for this. Probably about as silly as say, owning the patent to a reamping process and then implying that the product you make is the ONLY right way to achieve AHEM an impedance transformation...

dave

 

[clintrubber]

Can understand your feeling - was wondering myself as well - the device will only be a convenience device w.r.t. levels etc, but nothing to little w.r.t. 'processing'.

Perhaps there's some 'impress your clients'-thing involved here ? Look, the studio-engineer brings out the special gizmo, my gtr tracks willsound good. :wink:

Seems like the addition of an impedance-pot just like in the Jensen-circuit does makes the most sens in all this...

... which makes me start to wonder again about the use/sense/reasoning of/behind those LesPaul & Strat-type mimicing outputs of the what was this (Mill.?) box called again ?

They'll likely mimic the 'real' output-Z. of the gtr, not just some R-DC.
But seems to me this influence is already captured while DI-ing the gtr...
(at least with a DI that loads the gtr comparably like an amp does)

Hmm, following this reasoning, the Jensen-impedance pot doesn't make sense either anymore :? :shock: :? :shock: :? :shock:

'elp !

Peter

 

[sismofyt]

That's a little unfair. Pluggin' a mic into a line input is just _wrong_ .. I don't see that I'll loose any headroom and get a more noisy signal just by turning down the aux knob and shorting pin3.. He may be *smart* by patenting this, but I still think it's stupid.

And I certainly DO care about the quality of my signal, but hey running a signal into a fuzzbox you're not into hifi land, are you? I have transformer boxes for this kinda job but they're rarely needed, I use 'em mostly for breaking ground loops. Maybe I could patent that :green:

 

[sismofyt]

I also think 'mimicing' the output impedance of a geetar is goofy too. I mean if it was that important, using a stompbox would be all *wrong*. They don't sure as hell all have 100kOhm output impedances..

 

[soundguy]

no, its not just a convenience device. If you want the full bandwidth of a drum kit to work with a phaser, its my experience that you *completely* need to match the input impedance of whatever phaser you are using. YES, you can take an aux from a drum buss and send it to a phaser and YES it will make a sound and YES that sound might satisfy some people out there, but if you are looking for that "kashmir" drum sound, its never going to happen with a phaser that isnt receiving the right impedance, or at least not with any stomp box phaser that I have ever used. Some things are just really particular about impedance, others not. Yes, you can take a wah and stick it in front of a stock fuzz face and it will sorta work, but unless you modify the output of the wah or the input of the fuzz face you are never going to be able to do what jimi hendrix did with an 847 and a fuzz face. Never.

Its all a question of efficiency. Some of the time people are reamping stuff through an amp to dirty it up and its getting recorded through a microphone again anway, so there is an opportunity to get your gain structure right back to line level even if the source is a little compromised. If you are reamping a snare drum though, even putting a mic in the room, you still want that snare to be as efficient as it can be, its a fast transient and you want as much poot to move the speaker as possible. And the argument of using effects just speaks for itself. For some things its a question of "oh yeah, this sound ALOT better with the right impedance" annd for other things it makes it POSSIBLE.

This in my mind is totally akin to plugging a mic into a line level source. It WILL work. Its just a question of how it sounds. For the PA at a corporate function, perhaps nobody will notice and its not a big deal. For the input on Stevie Wonder's vocal mic, its probably a source that you should take some time to match the impedance correctly...

dave

 

[clintrubber]

I guess it's a fact that the frequencywise non-flat output-impedance of a gtr does influence the sound. But what I'm wondering is: what's the point of doing it again when reamping ? Be it a minor or major influence, it's already 'in the sound', as taken into account when DI-ing.

Peter

 

[sismofyt]

Tell me, why is stompboxes so much more fuzzy about seeing the 'correct' impedance than any other kinda solid state gear? I've seen hundreds of stompbox schematics and there sure as hell haven't been anything to warrant such a device as the Reamp box. And why does this only apply to stompboxes? Or do you do it with every piece of gear you use?

And if a Reamp is the only device that can do that, what have people done before that? Did every record prior to that box sound like shit?

What has this to do with snaredrumz anyway?

Enlighten me :idea:

 

[soundguy]

we must have posted at the same time.

No, by running an send into a fuzzbox you are not into "hi-fi" land, but depending on how sophisticated your mixes get, having a properly matched impedance on the front of your fuzzbox can be critical and this is compounded by about a million if you are using a stock fuzz face circuit which is beyond picky about the impedance the input is looking at.

If you are trying to add distortion to a particular frequency, you should be thinking about doing it right. If you are trying to put hair on the bottom of your bass, say, you mult a line to a reamp, then to a fuzzface, then to a low pass filter into a compressor, you are going to have something very cool happening as the bottom end of the bass actually made it into the fuzz in the first place. If you just take a send, the low end on most consoles Ive tried this on is never open sounding enough to make this work and you wind up having to set your lowpass a lot higher just to get something through, which in some examples can negate the whole purpose of going through thhe exercise.

If you are just trying to make a sound, you can get away with alot. If you are trying to make an efficient sound, there is validity to the idea of impedance matching.

Is this really worth debating? We are talking about impedance matching here...

dave

 

[sismofyt]

Well, we're debating because we disagree :razz:

 

[clintrubber]

Debating to understand & learn ?

edit: ehh, that sounds lame... what I meant is, keep going guys, it's interesting. Might give me some answers or hints for experiments.

 

[soundguy]

argh, we keep posting at the same time.

I am not an electronics genius, I just make recordings. I dont have a good techinical explanation for you because Im ignorant about electronics on that level, but I can tell you that when I plug the stuff in it doesnt work, so go figure. Im sure the answer lies in the fact that a stomp box is looking for megs of ohms while the buss on my console is 600 ohms, thats a big enough difference to not be all suprised when it doesnt work. I also cant vouch for hundreds of stomp boxes, only the handful that I use. considering that a fuzz face will not work in series with an unmodified 847, its not a big shock that it isnt fully resposive when seeing 600r either...

As explained earlier, the "reamp" is hardly the first box in the history of recording to deal with this problem. I believe the guy that designed the "reamp" box spoke to that issue earlier in this thread...

what does this have to do with snare drums? Creative recording techniques... Try it out sometime.

dave

 

[sismofyt]

Sure! :grin: (to clintrubbers reply)

 

[sismofyt]

I'm all for creative recording techniques, so no need to tell me to do that. I just wondered what you meant by reamping a snaredrum, that's all..

So Dave, what happen when you plug two stompboxes in series, that gotta sound all fukked up, because the second stompbox could be seing everything from 10-1.000.000 Ohm.. :?:

Edit: I can see you partly answered that question, but I don't think every stompbox out there was designed to see a high output impedance from the geetar.

And what if you use an active geetar then?

 

[Winston OBoogie]

...

 

[sismofyt]

I wasn't thinking about running the snare through a geetar amp, I was thinking a high quality monitor, that's why. No need for a Reamp box in that app.. I got it screwed up in my head, sorry

And what if the sound of that Reamp box isn't pleasing? I mean after all you're going through a trannie and some filtering, so it's gotta affect the signal quite a bit, right?

 

[soundguy]

reamping a snare drum is the same as anything else, you run a buss either directly to an amp or you use an impedance converting device between the buss and the amp, and then the amp is hooked up to a speaker and you can do whatever with that.

Im not talking about plugging two random stompboxes in series. this is tiring. I specifically mentioned running an 847 specifically into a fuzzface, go try it and then come back to this debate. It doesnt work. Running an 847 into just about every other distortion generating fuzzbox that I have tried works just fine. Some things are more pickky about input impedances than others, that is my point.

I am FAR too ignorant to have a general debate about impedance matching. Perhaps your console sounds just dandy when you use an aux send and kudos, you dont have to worry about this shit then. I can only speak to my experience with mixing with stompboxes for the last many years and based on that, for the consoles Ive mixed on and the gear that I have tried to interface with it, there have been mix moves that were not possible had it not been for impedance conversion, period. If you dont need it, awesome, one less thing to clutter your work space. there are some of us, however, that not only see the need for boxes like this but depend on them, so based on that its probably not wise to just write off the whole affair as useless to everyone out there. I depend (not to be confused with like to use) on a reamp type device for every single mix I do.

dave

 

[sismofyt]

Hey, we just have different ways of getting the job done. No sweat :thumb:

I do know stompboxes can be fuzzy bastards, but in general I've found most to not care shit about the impedance, like most gear..

But of course this discussion now forces me to try out boosting the output impedance and other tricks :green:

I couldn't really care if you're a rocket scientist Dave, I'm much more interested in the fact that you do recording. And you do a lot of it :green:

Regarding the snare thing, well it's only relevant if you're running into a guitaramp. I wouldn't want a Reamp box in the signalpath if I was running into any normal linelevel amp..

 

[sismofyt]

One last thing, the loading impedance on the stomboxes/return to the console, sure as hell is important, no doubt about that :idea: