What are your thoughts on reamping guitars?

[Paul in Colorado]

In my experience, I try for a keeper track, but I would also record a straight track to experiment with. I've reamped bass parts run back through my bass rig. It was a little odd, but it allowed us to get the sound of the bass really dialed in to fit the mix with the rest of the band. I think we ended up using a mix of the three tracks, the direct signal, the 2 x 10" cab and the 15" cab.

 

[Obsessed]

No, no, no, I'm just not gonna go there if I can help it.

 

[FenderLover]

..Reamping in the studio is just a way for someone to hear their solo through a Dumble or Trainwreak or Marshal Plexi or whatever without having to acquire one...

I agree, but most people who are recording aren't like you, with access to the real thing. They don't have to sound like the real thing, whether that's the argument or not. Project studios are infinitely more capable now than they ever were, so the objective is getting a good sound without ever knowing what a real Dumble or Trainwreck amp sounds like. They are just amp models that are tweaked to taste, call them AMP1 and AMP2.

 

[TheGoodTexan]

I like to double reamp.

 

[beyer160]

The situation you described with your band's recording session is exactly what reamping is for.

In the analog days, what I usually used reamping for was to allow ambient miking of a guitar amp. I generally like to cut bands live in the same room as their amps, which means you can't really put a mic 6' away from the amp or you'll get too much bleed (there, I said it- there ARE some circumstances in which bleed is bad). So, you pipe it back out later and record your ambient mic. I've gotten away from that now that ITB reverbs are so good (in my little 8-track studio I had two FX units when I started- one reverb and one delay), and also the fact that good sounding amp sims now exist. I hardly ever used it to radically change the guitar tone- that's something you really ought to get right on tracking day.

It's not really re-amping, but I also used to pump the drum mix out to a PA stack in a warehouse at high volume, then record with an ambient mic (later a stereo pair when I had the tracks).

 

[Marquee Moon]

The situation you described with your band's recording session is exactly what reamping is for. I think it's almost always best to commit to a sound before hitting record--thinking things through before doing it is always a good policy--but reamping can save your butt if your best guess ends up being completely wrong. Sounds like your band learned that lesson recently.

What I don't like is that it can become a rabbit hole for obsessives. Like me. If I start doing this, I find it next to impossible to not use it, and to not explore a billion different possibilities. I'll spend hours tweaking. Which maybe doesn't sound bad, but believe me, it is. It's creative poison. I just futz with knobs and at the end the difference is usually pretty marginal. So you kind of have to know yourself and make sure you can respect certain limits or it can actually hurt you more than it can help.

yeah, I know exactly what you are talking about. I used to fuss way too much about equipment and tone, time that I could have spent getting better at playing and writing. Although gear and cool production tricks can inspire you, I think most of us will agree it's about playing your best in a room with some friends.