With this project, I have taken a totally different approach. One excellent way of doing this was patented by John Cuniberti and is sold commercially under the product name “Reamp.” This product requires a special transformer and while it does an excellent job, it only allows one sort of pickup to be modeled and it’s expensive. And it’s important to be able to isolate the instrument amp ground from the rest of the studio grounding system. Since there is some interaction between the pickup and the amplifier input stage, it can also be worthwhile to have a device that models the source impedance of a typical pickup. For live recording, the crew records a DI feed off his instrument, then reamps the tracks later on in the studio.įor reamping you need a box that takes the balanced output from your console or recorder and turns it into a high-Z unbalanced output that matches the impedance of a typical instrument so that it can go into an amp. Even if you do get the tone you want at the time of tracking, you can still record a DI feed from the instrument as well, giving you additional flexibility later on if you change your mind.Īnother scenario: A well-known guitar player has a reputation for constantly turning his amp up over the course of the evening, starting with it much too soft and ending up with it much too loud. Reamping can be a great solution if you have a limited amount of time for tracking and may not have the time to get the exact tone you want, or you aren’t sure what tone you really want.

With reamplification in mind, you first record a direct instrument signal from the guitar or bass during tracking, and later play that signal back through an instrument amp.

This DIY project will get you reamping in no time…

Reamp box kit