Re-​amping a Signal with the Amplifier Head in the Control Room

This guide will explain how to cor­rectly Re-​amp a DI Gui­tar or Bass sig­nal avoid­ing feed­back and achiev­ing a good sig­nal to noise ratio.

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Prepa­ra­tion: 1. The re-​amping process requires a DI sig­nal from a Gui­tar or Bass depend­ing on what instru­ment is required. To record a DI sig­nal plug the gui­tar or bass directly into a DI box, this will only record the sound of the instru­ment and the per­for­mance allow­ing dras­tic alter­ation of tone later on.

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Pro Tools:

1. Within Pro ­Tools either select or cre­ate a track with the DI sig­nal and set the out­put to an empty chan­nel of the desk. Ensure that the out­put selected is not being used by any other sound source.

2. It is also worth acti­vat­ing ‘Solo Safe’ for the DI chan­nel in Pro­Tools by using the com­bi­na­tion of com­mand (⌘) and click­ing on the solo but­ton for the respec­tive chan­nel.

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Desk Routing:

1. The sig­nal needs to be sent out of the desk via an Aux­il­iary out­put. Within this guide Aux 1 will be used how­ever other Aux sends can be used.

On the cor­re­spond­ing desk chan­nel to the out­put that was selected, turn the Aux 1 send to max­i­mum (full turn clockwise).

2. In the mas­ter send sec­tion in the top right hand side of the desk make sure that the Aux 1 Mas­ter level dial is at it’s cen­tral +/​-​0dB posi­tion and the ‘PRE’ but­ton located below the dial is pressed.

3. To check the rout­ing press the ‘AFL’ but­ton below the Aux 1 Mas­ter Dial.

If the AFL level is up (located above the Mon­i­tor con­trol) and the rout­ing is cor­rect the DI sig­nal should be audi­ble from the monitors.

If this is not the case ensure that the rout­ing from Pro­ Tools and the desk is correct.

Once the DI sig­nal rout­ing has been con­firmed as cor­rect, des­e­lect the AFL as hear­ing the DI sig­nal is no longer necessary.

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Patching:

1. If you are using the amp head in the con­trol room, use a Ban­tam to TRS cable to con­nect the ‘Aux 1′ out­put to the ‘Bal­anced +4 Input’ on the reamp box.

2. Before con­nect­ing to the re-​amp box, make sure the ‘TRIM’ dial is at 0.

3. When using the amp head in the con­trol room, Con­nect the Hi Z Out­put to the amp head you would like to use.

4. Sim­i­lar to using a combo amp, make sure the power and standby switches are off and also make sure that all vol­ume and gain dials are set to 0 (fully rotated anti-​clockwise).

5. Before you turn on any amp, con­nect the amp to the cab in the live room, using the speakon to jack cable, under the power con­di­tion strip.

6. You also need to con­nect the cab to the stage­box, using the jack to jack lead in the live room.

Once this is done, you can turn on the power con­di­tion strip, and the amp you want to use.

REMEM­BER, ONLY TURN ON ONE AMP AT A TIME.

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Volume and Tone: 1. To begin with bring up the trim dial on the re-​amp box to around a quar­ter (the 9 o’clock position).

Then adjust the gui­tar ampli­fier vol­ume dial or dials slowly to achieve a good level and tone.

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Trou­bleshoot­ing Noise:

Due to the unbal­anced high gain nature of gui­tar ampli­fiers they can often have quite high noise floors. Here are a few ways noise can be reduced and a good sig­nal to noise ratio can be achieved:

1. Hum or Buzz– If the gui­tar ampli­fier is hum­ming or buzzing try flip­ping the ‘OPEN/​GND’ switch on the re-​amp box, then try turn­ing off any addi­tional unused ampli­fiers that may be in the room. If these steps do no resolve the issue con­tact the stu­dio technicians.

2. Low Sig­nal or Extreme Hiss­ing – if the gui­tar ampli­fier has a poor sig­nal to noise ratio often char­ac­terised by loud hiss­ing with lit­tle gui­tar sig­nal try boost­ing the sig­nal at these points:

–Chan­nel Strip Line Trim Dial (Black Dial located near the top of the chan­nel strip)

–Chan­nel Strip Aux 1 send (above the fader of the chan­nel being used for the DI)

–Aux 1 Mas­ter Dial (in the top right hand cor­ner of the desk)

–Re-​Amp Box trim dial

–Gui­tar Ampli­fier gain dial or vol­ume dial

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Recording:

1. Once the ampli­fier is setup, record­ing can begin.

Make sure to record the ampli­fier onto a dif­fer­ent track within pro­tools and not the DI track.

Record­ing onto the DI track will cause a feed­back loop, as the sig­nal from the micro­phone will be instantly sent back to the ampli­fier and re-​recorded into Pro Tools.

In order to lis­ten to the sound of the ampli­fier in Pro ­Tools with­out record­ing hit the green ‘L’ or ‘Lis­ten’ but­ton on the chan­nel in Pro Tools.