Reamped tone always sounds worse

Chaos351

Chaos351

Member
I've never been able to wrap my head around reamping. I always record a DI track from my Radial J48 into my AKAI EIEI Pro interface, but whenever I try to reamp, it always comes out either really muffled, dull, and overcompressed sounding or it comes out too weak sounding.

I've tried recording the DI straight from my Axe FX 2, but it seems to be the same problem as the J48. Does anyone else have this issue at all, or does anyone have any advice for me?
 
When you play your guitar, you're hearing two things: the sound coming from the amp, and the sound coming directly from the strings to your ear. When you reamp, you only hear the sound coming from your amp, and that will never sound as bright.

If the difference is really big, you're probably playing at low volume. It takes a surprising amount of volume to mask the string sound.
 
But I can hear the difference between a track that I played (from playback of the recorded track), and the DI track that is being reamped.

Assuming they have the same settings, those should sound the exact same, no?
 
Chaos351 said:
But I can hear the difference between a track that I played (from playback of the recorded track), and the DI track that is being reamped.

Assuming they have the same settings, those should sound the exact same, no?
Click to expand...
They should be exactly the same, if it's going through the same preset, the same other gear in the chain, and the same recording method. If they're different, one or more of those things has changed.
 
Chaos351 said:
...whenever I try to reamp, it always comes out either really muffled, dull, and overcompressed sounding or it comes out too weak sounding.
Click to expand...
Those things can happen if your dry signal isn't exactly the same level as your dry guitar signal.
 
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How are you getting your DI back into the AxeFX? I don't see any reamp box being used. I usually have no problems with reamping, and I do it all the time but I do it with the SPDIF out from my Saffire Pro 40.

Heck, in fact i don't even plug into the AxeFX anymore due to my workflow for recordings, I actually plug my guitar into a countryman DI -> Saffire Pro 40, then the Saffire Pro 40 SPDIF out into my AxeFX. This way I only need to go into my Saffire MixControl software to change either the countryman DI is going to the SPDIF outs or my DI tracks playing from the DAW.

I personally don't really hear a difference, I used to record DIs from the AxeFX's front input but I found that using the countryman DI into the saffire pro 40 gives me a slightly brighter DI which I prefer.
 
In reality...

A reamped tone is always going to be a little bit worse. You're always going to get a smidge of degredation.

Will anybody notice that 5% lack of goodness?

Probably not.
 
H13 said:
In reality...

A reamped tone is always going to be a little bit worse. You're always going to get a smidge of degredation.

Will anybody notice that 5% lack of goodness?

Probably not.
Click to expand...
In what universe? The only difference is that the pickups don't couple with the speakers which for most guys isn't gonna be applicable anyways.
But if you are actually able to degrade a digital signal with no A/D D/A conversion then you'r mosdef messing something up.

If your going back to analog then it might be time to refresh 8th grade physics and read up on levels and impedance.
 
H13 said:
In reality...

A reamped tone is always going to be a little bit worse. You're always going to get a smidge of degredation.

Will anybody notice that 5% lack of goodness?

Probably not.
Click to expand...

Huh? Do it right and they are indistinguishable in my experience. (monitor on headphones, digital in and out, don't fuck in any way with the recorded clean track)
 
I was never able to reamp and get the same quality sound using same preset and recording DI and wet signal only through my axe fx II markII usb. My friend with xl+ has the same problem. I can here that the lows on reamped track like shaved off a tad and the whole reamped track sounds like it's a bit squishy or something.

Anybody could post a short clip to convince that is possible to get reamped signal 1=1?
 
As others have stated, if you are staying purely digital then how can it degrade the sound? Does the Axe drop every 128th bit of data or something? Errr... no :)

Beyond that, the AD/DA convertors are extremely high quality so any degradation in the analogue domain would be more likely to be rooted in any other interfaces devices you have connected.

However, if you are inadvertantly applying any filters, low or high cuts in your DAW to the signal you are sending back to the Axe then you will hear the tone change which can be perceived as degradation. This would just be a DAW issue and nothing to do with the Axe.

Doing a FFT of your original audio and then the reamped signal may help your investigation. Maybe if you phase invert one of them and then perform a sum on both and see if it is a straight line?

I'd be interested as to the outcome of this issue so keep us posted...
 
Arunas said:
I was never able to reamp and get the same quality sound using same preset and recording DI and wet signal only through my axe fx II markII usb. My friend with xl+ has the same problem. I can here that the lows on reamped track like shaved off a tad and the whole reamped track sounds like it's a bit squishy or something.

Anybody could post a short clip to convince that is possible to get reamped signal 1=1?
Click to expand...

I've done a quick recording and a recorded a video of me phase cancelling and even tonematching the reamped takes to the axefx direct take. The guitar playing is crappy as I've literally done it in one take.

My chain is:
Guitar -> Countryman DI -> Saffire Pro 40 Analog In , Saffire Pro 40 SPDIF Out -> AxeFX SPDIF IN

Reamp: Saffire Pro 40 -> AxeFX SPDIF In

You can hear the clip back to back here, first one is the axefx's first direct take, 2nd is the reamped signal.


Here's me using my cellphone to demonstrate the phase cancelling + tonematch plugin in Pro Q


Links to download the DI file and the axe, reamp signals:
https://app.box.com/s/4v6o4uz18b23muxur51dc38b2pkd0fxm

Screenshot of the tonematching using Fabfilter's Pro-Q:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxqtMNV7kmZbSlhsWm9WSXh2RVk

If you guys are still not convinced I don't know what to say. Although I may add that I have a Radial X-amp reamp box and the the gain for reamping back the signal is never the same when using that analog reamp box. However, if you were to do it via the AxeFX USB to reamp or SPDIF. It is essentially identical.
 
xfigox said:
I've done a quick recording and a recorded a video of me phase cancelling and even tonematching the reamped takes to the axefx direct take. The guitar playing is crappy as I've literally done it in one take.

My chain is:
Guitar -> Countryman DI -> Saffire Pro 40 Analog In , Saffire Pro 40 SPDIF Out -> AxeFX SPDIF IN

Reamp: Saffire Pro 40 -> AxeFX SPDIF In

You can hear the clip back to back here, first one is the axefx's first direct take, 2nd is the reamped signal.


Here's me using my cellphone to demonstrate the phase cancelling + tonematch plugin in Pro Q


Links to download the DI file and the axe, reamp signals:
https://app.box.com/s/4v6o4uz18b23muxur51dc38b2pkd0fxm

Screenshot of the tonematching using Fabfilter's Pro-Q:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxqtMNV7kmZbSlhsWm9WSXh2RVk

If you guys are still not convinced I don't know what to say. Although I may add that I have a Radial X-amp reamp box and the the gain for reamping back the signal is never the same when using that analog reamp box. However, if you were to do it via the AxeFX USB to reamp or SPDIF. It is essentially identical.
Click to expand...


On your first track I definately hear how the lows in palm mutes breath easily and nicely, i can not say the same about reamped track where it's sounds like compressed too much and as I said before in that reamped track I hear the same squishiness compared to the first track. Like it would have more gain or something.
 
Arunas said:
On your first track I definately hear how the lows in palm mutes breath easily and nicely, i can not say the same about reamped track where it's sounds like compressed too much and as I said before in that reamped track I hear the same squishiness compared to the first track. Like it would have more gain or something.
Click to expand...

Do you know what a null test is? If one of the tracks had even 1dB more gain or was more compressed, the null test would reveal it and they wouldn't cancel out as closely as they do. Line both tracks up in your DAW and try it yourself. To put it bluntly, you're hearing stuff.
 
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