I would have to say that this is one of the worst titles to an article, but it certainly is a question worth asking. I have recently been interested in reamping. What this means is that the original source material, like an electric guitar, would have its pickups recorded directly via a direct box. After this material is recorded and edited, it would be output through another type of DI box that is designed to convert the line level back to an instrument level as so you may plug a 1/4″ cable from it directly into an amp.

The first few time you do this it seems like the haunted mansion where the amp is seemingly playing itself. I was curious to see if there would be a significant loss in quality in using this method so I have made some examples and I would appreciate your feedback. Why even bother to go through the trouble? This can be a great way as a producer to dial in exactly the sound that you are looking for no matter what rig the session guy shows up with.

Lets say you have an important session and the guitarist shows up with the worst sounding little pawn shop special amp with a blown speaker and spent tubes. Instead of passing out and hitting your head on the console, just run the guitar’s output into a DI and connect the output to his amp so he can hear what he is used to hearing and you will have a raw file to work with through any amp of your choosing at a later date.

Another use of this technique is if you need to track a band all at once and you run out of amp closets. When you really need to keep any bleed out of the overheads because of impending edits, this could well save you butt in the session. Some purists will scoff at the suggestion, but most players will really be interested to see their gear crank out their performance while they are kicking back and relaxing.

Once you have a direct signal on tape or in your DAW, you now have the option of using plug-ins for emulation software as well. There are so many different varieties out there, but most of them will give you several presets that will mimic different classic amplifiers. Some are better than others, but I have been able to get useful sounds with some tweaking out of most that I have sampled.

Below are the test that I have completed to illustrate the different results of these methods. Please excuse the performance.

Original DI guitar signal (Countryman Type85)

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Fender Deluxe Amp (Shure SM57)

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Fender Deluxe Reamp via Radial Pro RMP (Shure SM57)

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Fender Emulation – SansAmp (Champ setting, drive 50%, level 75%)

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Fender Emulation – Amplitube (Warm Clean setting, slight overdrive)

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Marshall DSL 2000 Amp (Shure SM57)

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Marchall Reamp via Radial Pro RMP (Shure SM57)

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Marshall Emulation – SansAmp (JMP-1 Setting, no changes to preset)

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Marshall Emulation – Amplitube (Power Tube setting, added treble, presence, and volume)

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In conclusion, I found that the reamp of a good DI signal is remarkably similar to the original source data. The emulation plug-ins that I used, even with some tweaking, were not too close in getting similar sounds from the presets, but were certainly usable. I would highly recommend use of reamping in any situation that you may benefit from its use. Any loss in sound quality is negligible in relation to the trade off of its usefulness.

These files were created using a Les Paul to a Countryman Type 85 DI which fed directly to a Focusrite pre with no compression, effects, or filtering of any kind. The guitar cabinets were mic’d with a Shure SM57 and left in the exact position with the amplifier settings left untouched once the experiment was started. The SansAmp and Amplitube LE settings were slightly modified from the comparable preset of each actual amp used to closer emulate the direct mic sound as described above. The amps used were a Fender Deluxe Reissue and a Marshall DSL 2000 head connected to a 4×12 vintage Orange cabinet.