This question is frequently asked from many of my customers, bandmates and students. For me clearly there is no question here. I always choose reamping. Why is that? There are several reasons from which you may choose the most suitable for you.
- Reason 1: When you record the signal straight from the guitar to your interface, you can very easily edit it (this goes for the distorted signal) because the curve you get from the amp will be compressed and it will be really hard to edit it. And editing is a factor that is really discussed if you should or not edit, but in my opinion, if you can afford endless hours in the studio to play it perfect, then go ahead.
- Reason 2: Lets say you have recorded the best version, which you want to keep, but later when the mixing process is ongoing, you just realize that the distortion and/or drive and/or clean preamp you used doesn’t “sit” down in the mix. You will have to, once again, re-record everything.
- Reason 3: There is a chance, the amp you want to use to be a boutique one that neither you or the studio you record own. If this is the case, you will have to rent the amp, set it up and record maybe for several days – especially if you record in sessions that may differ weeks – then the rent will be maximized and perhaps the amp settings wont be exactly as you did the previous time. But if you have to just reamp, you rent it let’s say for one day, you spend some time on tweaking and then you just press Play and Record.
You may ask, how will I record just listening to clean signal? You can record the clean signal and send it the the amp so you can listen approximately how you will sound after the reamping. And this is the downside to reamping the approximately.
Cheers
Nikolas ‘Sprits’ Moutafis