Award Sounds

I like it when something just works, but I always feel a bit ambivalent when I can't really notice it working.

The Kit

In this case, I've just been using the Radial Engineering Reamping Kit. It consists of two main components (the J48 active phantom DI and the X-Amp amp driver) plus a power supply for the X-amp and a plastic box to hold it all in.

Plugging In for Re-Amping

I read the instructions, mainly to figure out what happens with signal levels, plugged the Radial X-Amp in and in less than 5 minutes I was recording a guitar track again. It really was a case of plugging a mic XLR lead between the audio interface and the X-Amp, connecting up the power supply to the X-Amp and plugging a normal guitar lead between X-Amp and guitar. It's worth reading the manual for the order of connections and powering-up. I spent longer configuring the software mixer for my audio interface to output the guitar signal on a separate channel than I did connecting everything together.

Advantages

1. I can record the clean, DI signal no matter what the amplified sound is (ok, this is just using a DI box).
2. I can then re-record many times the clean through a number of guitar amps and/or cabinets with different eq and gain settings.
3. I find it goes a long way to reducing the lifelessness from direct recording into software amp emulation.
4. I can record a clean sound at unsociable hours, knowing that I'll be able to crank up the amp when it's more socially acceptable.
5. I can play with mic placement and room acoustics in a way that I can't when I'm the guitarist and recording engineer.
6. Allows me to record a heavier, overdriven version of the same track and blend this is with a clean recorded sound.

1. You have to be disciplined or you can spend a lot of time tweaking the amp settings and re-recording the same track many times.
2. That's it, the components seem to work so well, I don't notice them working.

Overcoming Lifelessness

I mentioned the lifelessness of a guitar track recorded using software amp emulators. I believe they can produce great results, but for me as a guitarist, it doesn't feel the same as playing through a pure valve guitar amp and a 4x12 loaded with Celestion Vintage 30s (that just happens to be my longest-running preference). Some of my best guitar tracks have been recorded using software emulators, I only wish I'd been able to record them with at a mic'ed amp at the time.

I think it's down to the interaction between guitarist, guitar and amplifier/cabinet. Guitarists adjust their playing relative to what they hear coming out of the speakers, hence guitars recorded direct through software amp emulations can miss out the way that the guitarist changes their playing. Actually I think it's further than that, the guitarist changes their playing to suit the software emulator, after all, it's just another amplifier/cabinet combination to handle.

This kit goes a long way to helping me overcome the lifelessness of the software route, while still giving me the flexibility to record when I want to. It does not overcome it completely; you can't beat using the guitar, amp, speaker, effects and mic combination at the time of tracking that you want to hear on the finished song.

So in this case, the product's great and it does the job it's designed to do well. My ambivalence comes from the fact that it's such a simple job that, from that perspective, it has to do that it doesn't seem worth spending the money on. From the perspective of having something that works and does the job well, then you probably can't beat this re-amping kit.