For MacIntosh, replacing 60′ of unbalanced ¼” cable via an SGI Stereo TX and RX unit connected over Cat5 lowered the noise floor of MacDonald’s dual-amp setup appreciably. “We’ve now got more stable connections, and with the isolated outputs, we’re not getting any cross-talk between heads. It’s been a huge improvement for John-Angus’ entire rig. The signal is more robust because it’s balanced vs. unbalanced, and we don’t get any RFI, like we used to.”

As MacDonald mentioned in our recent Inside the Rig Blog, How Pros Run Stereo Guitar Rigs Across the Stage, “Even if noise is subtle, it’s a problem.” He adds that dependability, durability, and good sound are his primary concerns when it comes to deploying new gear: “and probably in that order. Ideally, you’d put good sound first, but when you’re doing 100+ shows a year, durability and dependability are key, because on live shows, even little things can send everything sideways.”

Being prepared for any eventuality is mission-critical. In doing so, uniformity, reliability, and repeatability are key. “In terms of cabling, John-Angus’ rig wasn’t uniform, and his tone wasn’t where he wanted and needed it to be, so we’ve been slowly changing how his rig sounded and responded,” MacIntosh explains.

“We’ve had Radial DIs on the road for years, so I was very familiar with Radial,” MacDonald puts in, including JDIs, ProDIs, as well as J48 and J48 Stereo DIs. “And, Josh, when it comes to anything that’s new and improved, he’s the first to know, so he hips me to it.”

“That’s how the SGI Stereo ended up in the mix,” MacIntosh notes, adding that the addition of Jensen Transformers to the SGI Stereo’s TX and RX units, the price point, and Radial’s build quality were all factors in choosing the unit. “I knew it was going to do what I wanted, and, besides, how can you not support something that’s made by a Canadian company?”

As for the ProRMPs: “Previously, we were going out of John-Angus’ wireless and into his amp sim pedal using an XLR to ¼” adapter. When I’d check the rig without the wireless, it sounded great. Then I’d switch to wireless, and it didn’t,” MacIntosh explains. “Now, we’re going out of the wireless’ XLRs (stereo) to the ProRMPs, which fixes the impedance mismatch so the wireless hits the pedalboard correctly. Then we go out of the pedalboard into the SGI Stereo. The stereo outputs of the final pedal in John-Angus’ pedal chain go to the SGI Stereo TX/RX boxes, which send Channel 1 to a Wizard head and Channel 2 to a Marshall Jubilee.”

Summing up the impact on his sound that the revamped rig and the SGI Stereo have had overall, MacDonald says: “It’s cleaned things up in a big way. I’ve never had less noise. It’s not like noise has ever been a crazy problem. But when you’re taking your rig from venue to venue, sometimes noise is an issue. On this last run, my pedalboard was the quietest it’s ever been. But we’re still getting the full breadth of tone out of the amp. There’s no diminishment from going through the pedalboard. And I give credit to the SGI Stereo and also to Josh for teching it out and making sure the signal path was good and clean. It’s been an improvement, no doubt.”

For MacDonald, adding gear to his rig isn’t just about reliability and better sound; it’s also part of a constant quest to remain inspired. “When things have been the same way for too long, I feel like I have to shake things up a bit. You try different solutions every time you gear up to go out (on tour) again, and I think we’ve cleared the deck a bit on that western run and went back to staying out of the way of the source’s sound and just colouring it in a nice way.”

“That’s the key,” he concludes, “good sound at the source.”

John-Angus MacDonald

 

What does True To Your Music mean to you?

JA: “For me, it means playing from a place of inspiration; not doing things by rote. On this last tour, we did 7 or 8 songs a night from our 2025 record, The Bloody Light. It’s important to us that we’re playing songs we’ve recently worked on, challenging ourselves, and being in a creative space when we’re writing and playing live.”

 

Is there any other Radial gear you’ve used that has been particularly useful?

JA: “The JD7 Guitar Distro & Splitter. I used one when we worked on our fifth record (their 2014 self-titled album, The Trews). We’d just set up all the amps we wanted to use and sample them as we go. There are seven channels. You route an amp into each one, plug your guitar into the JD7, and, literally, at the push of the button, there’s your Marshall, there’s your Wizard, your Fender, or whatever else you have in line. And you can also combine them. That’s an incredibly useful tool.”

What advice would you give to someone just starting out when it comes to getting the sound they want and putting the right gear together for live performance?

JA: “I’d say take the most direct path. I always say that the things with the most elements in them are the things that break down the most. When you’re starting out, there are a million things running through your head, and if something goes wrong, it can throw you off, so I’d say keep everything as simple as possible, at least until you get your sea legs. That would be my advice.”

 

thetrewsmusic.com

The post Radial and The Trews – Rocking the House Reliably with Radial appeared first on Radial Engineering.

In this interview we chat with renowned record producer, mixer and engineer Joe Chiccarelli.

Radial: Joe, you’ve been reamping for a long time, even before you started using Radial Reamp® boxes. Talk about what it was like before Radial came out with its first reamp box.

Joe: Before Radial, reamping was something that I always did with a bunch of makeshift connections — just stringing things together, whether it was an XLR out to a quarter inch and into a guitar amp or an RCA into an old spring reverb. It was something that we always did back in the day, but never did properly. And as a result, we always battled the hum and the too much gain issues, et cetera, et cetera. But there was nothing else at the time, so you kind of just made stuff work. 

Radial: You’ve traditionally used a lot of effects boxes in your reamping setup, correct?

Joe: Yes, I like using effects boxes and guitar stomp boxes, they’ve been part of my workflow for a long, long time. I find that, in general,  the cheaper the device or box, the more personality it has.

Radial: What type of boxes do you like to use?

Joe:  I’m never afraid of using lo-fi devices or guitar boxes. Back in the ’80s, those multi-effects pedals that were made for guitars and keyboards were always great. Things like the old Zoom and Yamaha boxes and the Tom Scholz Rockman, things like that.

Radial: What’s the appeal of these types of boxes?

Joe: I mean, all that older stuff just has so much character. Especially doing rock music or alternative rock music, you want stuff that has as much personality as possible. So using those older boxes has always been a part of my workflow.

Radial: What was interconnecting the technology like back in those days, especially in a Reamp® setup?

Joe: (laughing) No one ever really did the interconnections right. You were always gluing something together! Like if something had an eighth inch plug and you were connecting it together with alligator clips or all that silly shit! You’d find a way to make it work!

Radial: You started out reamping using one of John Cuniberti’s first Reamp® boxes back in the day, right?

Joe: Yes I forget the year, but it was great when John came out with his Reamp® box because it just made so much sense to properly transform or isolate the signal and match the impedance. It really simplified the process and made it much more reliable and relevant.

Radial: Let’s talk a little bit about recent projects where you’ve used Radial Reamp® boxes.

Joe: Well, reamping is something that is more than likely part of most projects I do. That said, I’ve been working recently with Robert Randolph, an amazing blues and pedal steel style player. He’s an amazing, incredible musician, a really wonderful artist. And we’re constantly sending stuff back into his pedal board or pedals that are at the studio. We’re working on a new album right at the moment and definitely a number of the steel tracks have gone through a full tone delay and a bunch of guitar stomp boxes.

Radial: Can you give an example?

Joe: One thing we do a lot of is feed the steel back into either a Roland Space Echo or a full tone tape delay and then print that back. That’s been really cool to do. At my personal studio here, I have two Radial EXTC boxes and very, very often they are connected to the Space Echo because that box has such a personality, especially on vocals. There’s a certain character in the way the Reamp® on the Roland Space Echo distorts that I love adding it into vocal tracks. It really gives the vocals a little bit more bite and presence. So I’m very, very often taking a vocal track from Pro Tools, feeding it via the EXTC into the Space Echo, using a little bit of delay and using the overload from the Space Echo to be a part of my vocal sound. Reamping makes this type of approach possible.

Radial: Cool, what about other recent projects?

Joe: I recently did another Morrissey album. I’ve done five albums with Morrissey. Even in the tracking sessions, we were constantly feeding guitars to a second guitar amp because in some cases we wanted a cleaner or dirtier tone that we didn’t quite get on the tracking dates. In fact, that’s maybe one of the first times I think I really saw the benefit of reamping was when using multiple guitar amps for a player. In fact, some years ago I did an album with a British artist named Keaton Henson who was this very moody, atmospheric, almost like bedroom pop, And it’s storytelling, very moody, very intimate. It’s really one guitar, one sort of droney rhythm guitar with a lot, a lot of effects on it.

Radial: Describe what you did during those sessions.

Joe: Often in tracking I would take his DI because the DI was really perfect to feed to effects, but I would also print that DI and then later I’d go back and feed it through a different guitar amp. And maybe that guitar amp would have some tremolo or a spring reverb on it, and it would be a different tone than the original guitar amp and I could pan them left and right and get a much wider image there.

Radial: Was this a new approach for you, or something you’ve done before?

Joe: For years I’ve been doing that to kind of get fake stereo guitar sounds, especially for artists like that where you don’t want a lot of overdubs on the album. You want it to be pretty true to what they do, but you definitely want a bigger picture and more layers to the production without adding unnecessary instruments or parts. So it’s a great way to fill out the sound but kind of keep it honest.

Radial: So do you pretty much, as a standard, particularly when you’re recording guitar, go ahead and set up a DI so you just have it?

Joe: Not always. I’ve never been the one to just print a DI from the guitar. A lot of people do that, but I almost find that there’s too many possibilities there. I’ll do it when I know that I’m going to specifically do some experimenting with guitar tones after the fact, but I try to really commit to my sounds when I’m tracking if that’s what the project calls for.

Radial: So reamping is a tool that you use regularly, but not all the time, just depending on the project.

Joe: Yes. So even though I do Reamp® things from time to time, I’m also regularly printing sounds as I go, trying to capture them in the moment. Reamping comes when you’re sitting back and starting to overdub the album and you start to hear it and go, “Boy, I wish I had a cleaner guitar sound to go along with that or a dirtier or a more fuzzed up guitar sound to go with that.” Or sometimes it’s very often that you try and overdub something on a section of a tune and it becomes too much to add another part. Like I was saying earlier, it sounds overproduced.

Radial: What’s your approach in that type of situation?

Joe: In essence, all you really have to do is distort the guitar more for that section. Or what sometimes really comes in handy is taking an acoustic guitar and sending an acoustic guitar out to some pedals or to a guitar amp and just kind of electrifying that acoustic. It really works great with a lot of intimate singer songwriters when you need a little bit more power to electrify the acoustic guitar and you just end up blending it in a little bit behind the original and it just gives the acoustic some more life and juice. And it doesn’t really necessarily sound like an electric guitar or an overly distorted acoustic, but it just kind of has a little bit more power.

Radial: I’m glad you mentioned using the Reamp® on an acoustic guitar, not just the electric guitar. Do you also use reamping on other instruments?

Joe: Absolutely. A lot of times I’ll put drums through guitar pedals using a Reamp® setup, whether it’s a Rat distortion pedal or the old Tech 21 Comp Tortion pedal. My studio is at Sunset Sound here in Hollywood, and there’s a kind of counter in the back of Studio One, and it’s very, very common for us to set up a bunch of pedals back there and have it on a send so we can easily send to those pedals and see if you get some kind of interesting sound and then you print it back.

Radial: Is there one special trick that you do with reamping that you can share?

Joe: Sure, one thing that I do often that’s an interesting little trick is to feed the instrument, whether it’s a guitar, drums, or even a synthesizer, back out to a guitar amp or speaker out in the room and not necessarily mic the speaker, but just mic the room.

Radial: What effect does this produce?

Joe: It just gets a little bit more 3D image of the sound. Synthesizers can be very kind of one dimensional and it’s always really tricky to get them to blend in with acoustic or electric guitars. So getting them to have some more kind of organic personality is sometimes tricky, and sometimes that’s just in the way that you EQ or compress them, but other times it’s really putting them in an environment like a room, and putting some dimensionality around them. So I’ll often just feed them back out into the room, mic the room and print that ambience.

Radial: Is this often a preferable way to add dimension to a sound rather than to use a reverb or plug-in effect?

Joe: Yes, exactly. When it comes to the three-dimensional elements like reverb or room ambience, plugins just aren’t the same as taking advantage of an actual acoustic space. So that’s one place where reamping really, really comes in handy by adding dimension to a track. So if I feed the sound back out into a guitar amp, I won’t necessarily overdrive the guitar amp. I might keep it pretty clean. And what I’m really interested in is capturing the space between the loudspeaker and the microphone.

Radial: And in those cases, will you do multiple mics or just a mic right on the amp, or do you mic in the room? 

Joe: I’d have a pair of mics in the room or a stereo mic or something like that. At that point, it’s really about the ambience.

Radial: You’ve been reamping a long time, and have one of the original John Cuniberti Reamp® boxes, before Radial acquired the design from John. Is there anything in terms of the way that you’ve approached the process of reamping in terms of micing, or cabinets, or has it pretty much stayed the same as when you started?

Joe: I would say it’s stayed the same. If anything, I probably do more where I am using the ambience as opposed to the direct signal then when I started reamping. Back then, it was more about effects devices, stomp boxes, guitar pedals, that kind of thing. So now I use it to get more from the actual room ambience than I do from the pedals when I Reamp®. But like I said earlier, I’m always feeding the signal to my Space Echo or older stomp boxes because they really have a great sound.

Radial: And how does this process of capturing ambiance differ from using a plugin?

Joe: Well, plugin’s can be great. For instance, the UA Space Echo plugins are fantastic, but the one thing that I don’t get is the ability to drive the input and distort the input in the way that I can with the actual hardware device. So when I’m looking for that kind of character to add to a vocal, I’ll actually use the hardware, but when I need just the sort of repeat delay from the Echo device, then I might use a plugin.

Radial: How does the process of reamping fit into the production decision making down the road, once you’re starting to pull the tracks together?

Joe: When I’m working, I really like to make all my decisions right there off the floor and not leave a whole lot to mystery or to second guessing. So with reamping,  it’s more about if I actually get into the process and find that I’m missing something, I would try something different using reamping.

Radial: And is that generally a decision that’s made along with the artist or is that something that you experiment with and then the artist comes back in later and you say, “Hey, check this out?” How does that collaboration process work?

Joe: Usually it’s me just experimenting with things. I’ll say, “Hey, I wasn’t a hundred percent sold on this sound,” or “I wondered if we could have a change-up in sound for this section of the tune. So I took the guitar and I fed it through the bass amp and I over drove the bass amp and I’m thinking maybe just in the bridge of the song we have this more blown up bass texture.” So it’s usually that kind of thing.

Radial: And, in your experience, is the artist generally pretty okay with that process?

Joe: I would say it works out well more often than not. I mean, I think reamping is a pretty common thing. The nice thing is that now everybody knows about the studio and the tricks and all. People know the terminology. So I think for most artists they kind of understand the reamping process. So it’s not uncommon for somebody to come in and say, “Hey, I like the guitar tone we got, but I’m wondering if it could be a little more? Should we have distorted it more or should it have been chorused or whatever?” And you’ll go, “Oh yeah, well, we could feed it out to a clean amp with some chorus effects and see what that does.” It can be something that’s brought to my attention by the artist, but usually it’s me, as I build the record and get close to mixing, that I start to feel this may be lacking a little something here.

The Full EXTC Range:

EXTC 500

Guitar Effects Interface

The Radial EXTC is a 500 series effects send & receive module that lets you incorporate guitar effects into the realm of pro-audio recording.

EXTC-SA

Guitar Effects Interface

The Radial EXTC-SA is a stand-alone audio interface that lets you incorporate guitar effects into the realm of pro-audio recording.

EXTC-Stereo

Stereo Guitar Effects Interface & Reamper

The EXTC Stereo allows you to connect guitar effects pedals to the inputs and outputs of pro audio equipment such as recording interfaces and mixing consoles, so you can incorporate stereo pedals into your recordings and explore new creative possibilities.

Radial: Before we wrap up, talk a little bit about the Radial gear you use most often.

Joe: Well, I definitely use the Radial EXTC. And I have a Workhorse rack that I love with Radial 500 Series modules with the mixer built in. As I said before, I really like to get my sounds while I’m tracking. So even if I’m overdubbing guitars and I have multiple mics on a guitar amp, I’ll want to take those mics and just sum them together and get my guitar sound right there on the spot as opposed to printing three or four, or whatever it is, individual microphones and printing all those tracks and Pro Tools and then having to decide later which I use or in what balance.

So having the Radial 500 Series workhorse and being able to really sum stuff right there and balance it out and get the sound that I want right there and print it on one track and commit to that, that’s so helpful.

Also, it’s really cool to see that every studio I go in, everybody has the Radial SGIs, the yellow boxes to run out to guitar amps and all. Honestly, they’re everywhere I go. I was in Vancouver, I was in Nashville. So everybody’s got them. It’s kind of cool that the SGIs are a very commonplace thing out in the studios everywhere.

Reamp® Station

Studio Reamper & Direct Box

The Reamp® Station combines two studio essentials in one chassis: an active DI box for pristine recordings of any instrument, and the JCR high-performance Reamper to feed those recordings to your guitar amps and pedals during mixdown.

Workhorse

8-Slot Power Rack

The Radial Workhorse is an 8-slot 500 series power rack with a built-in analog summing mixer, headphone amp and extensive patching capabilities.

SGI 15v

Guitar Interface System

The Radial SGI Studio Guitar Interface class-A line driver with load correction lets you send a guitar signal up to 100 meters via balanced cable without noise.

Radial: Any final words about Radial or the Radial gear?

Joe: Oh man. Radial is the go-to company for any kind of accessory you need. In other words, if it’s a box to interface an iPhone into the studio, or if it’s a direct box or some interface box, you’re always kind of saying to yourself, “I need a box that’ll do this or that and I wonder if Radial makes one.” And nine times out of ten, you’ll find Radial has it. It’s like, “I think Radial must make something that’ll do that!” It’s just a company that you can always rely on to be able to provide exactly what you need to do your job.

The post Reamp® Revelations: Joe Chiccarelli appeared first on Radial Engineering.

 

 

 

SGI-44

Guitar Signal Extender

The Radial SGI-44 guitar interface is a balanced signal extender designed to send the signal from a wireless receiver to the pedalboard and back to the stage amp.

HDI

High Definition Studio Preamp

The HDI is a studio-quality preamp designed to create exceptional recordings with any instrument, utilizing premium Jensen transformers and a unique Color control that provides an entirely new yet familiar-sounding sonic palette to experiment with.

JX44 V2

Concert Touring Guitar & Amp Signal Manager

The JX44 V2 is a guitar signal manager designed to handle four guitar, four amplifier with effects routing and midi control.

 

 

 

 

PZ-DI

Piezo Optimized DI

The PZ-DI is a high-performance specialized active direct box designed to accommodate acoustic and orchestral instruments, with a selectable input impedance that can accommodate magnetic pickups or piezo transducers, and a variable low-cut filter.

Bassbone OD

Bass Preamp & Overdrive

The Bassbone OD is a bass preamp that features two fully-equipped input channels, each with separate level and EQ controls and a shared overdrive.

JDX 48

Amplifier Direct Box

The JDX48 is an amplifier DI box which connects between the amp head and a speaker cabinet, capturing the tone of your amp without the need for a microphone.

Multi-Instrumentalist Chaska Potter uses the Bigshot i/o & SGI

BigShot i/o

Instrument Switcher

The Radial BigShot i/o is an easy to use instrument selector that lets you quickly transition between any two instruments and send the output signal to your amp.

SGI 15v

Guitar Interface System

The Radial SGI Studio Guitar Interface class-A line driver with load correction lets you send a guitar signal up to 100 meters via balanced cable without noise.

Guitarist Molly Miller uses the J48, The ProD8 and the J-Rak 8

J48

Premium Active DI

The J48 is a high performance active direct box for live concert touring and professional recording studio applications, with the ability to handle extreme transients without distortion while delivering the natural sound of your instrument.

ProD8

8-channel Rackmount DI

The Radial ProD8 is a high performance 8-channel passive direct box optimized for keyboard rigs in professional touring.

J-Rak 8

8-space Rack Adapter

The J-Rak 8 allows you to mount up to eight Radial DIs in standard 19″ equipment racks for touring or permanent installation.

The post Backstage with Jason Mraz appeared first on Radial Engineering.

In this interview, we spoke to session drummer, producer and engineer, Shannon Forrest.

Radial: Tell me a little bit about how you got into re-amping and why you started using re-amping in your production work?

Shannon: Well, when it comes to guitar, my approach to recording a guitar is to get the sound at the amp. I don’t usually have an EQ inline or a limiter or anything when I’m recording guitar. And consequentially, a lot of guitar players really like the way their guitar sounds when we work together. I’m real particular about making sure the artist’s voice is captured. The guitar player’s voice is such a unique thing to each player.

And then on the mix side of things, if I’m producing and working on something, reamping gives me the flexibility to go back and adjust. Let’s say you can’t EQ, on the console side of things, a guitar tone into shape. You can do some things to address it, but ultimately it has to happen at the amp coming out of the hands and getting what you want.

So reamping always gives me not necessarily a safety net because I’m a fairly committed guy. I don’t really use reamping in the most traditional way, but it does afford me the opportunity to go back in and tailor the guitar sounds against a mix, not just statically as I’m just capturing them. But once it’s mix time, if I decide I need to saturate something a little more or just layer something in, I can use it for that. It’s a great tool that way.

FIGURE 1

If I’m working with artists that sometimes aren’t necessarily session player type performers but are very uniquely artistic, expressive players, I like to work with tape a lot. And so what I’m doing lately with reamping is, if it happens to be a situation where maybe I’m comping a guitar part together, I will take the end result from Pro Tools and pipe it back out to an amp and capture it analog to go along with my drums and other things I like to have captured that way. And I also like to mix down from analog (see fig. 1)..

It gives me the capacity to work with an editor to comp guitar parts on artists that maybe don’t have the technical capacity that is ideal. When you start working with people on that level intonation can be hit and miss and different things like that. It gives me the opportunity to just comp things together, get the real signature of that particular player, and then capture it in an analog way that I like to work with. So that’s the bigger way that I use reamping lately.

Radial: So you always know you can go back in later and have some flexibility to adjust that and work with that?

Shannon: Well, it’s not exactly that because I’m highly, highly committed to making a decision and sticking with it. You know what I mean? So I do take the time during the recording session to get those things right. But it’s more so when I’m working with someone who doesn’t have an arsenal of a bunch of amps. Or If I’m working with an artist that’s an artistic player and they’re not as refined as, say, a Michael Landau. Although I do use reamping with Michael also.

And I can explain a bit of how Michael showed me how to use some of it and what he likes to do. With reamping, I can be immersed in the creative and not overly analytical about getting the end all, be all. It gives me the flexibility to continue to use that color palette as I finish the record.

Radial: And as far as the Radial units that you use, is there a particular one that you use a lot or one that you like?

Shannon: The one that I literally have right in front of me is the JCR Studio Reamper. And what’s great about it is you can get any signal to any destination. All the options it has on it are really great. The level control, the filtering, and all of that stuff. There are so many unique things you can do with the JCR.

FIGURE 2

I’ve recorded the amp signal straight into tape, if you will. And I can take that line back from my console and bust it back out to a pedalboard. And now the output of the pedalboard is being recorded evenly to the amp signal. So you’re getting the amp sound through the pedals, not vice versa if that makes sense (see fig. 2).

That’s an interesting thing to be able to do. I mean, there are definitely significant values to my ear of doing it that way. Just having the unprocessed guitar going straight to the amp, then taking that signal back out to a pedalboard, it just maintains the integrity of that initial tone.

I’m a drummer, I don’t play guitar, but I can certainly sit here and listen to guys’ equipment. And even when I’m in here, I always prefer pulling the pedalboard out of the chain and getting the sound out of the amp, but then you want all the effects. So that’s a really cool way to use it.

Radial: A question about the process. You hear a lot now about plugins and sims and things like that. Have you experimented with any sims? And do you find that the actual organic process of re-amping through an amp is different enough to using a plugin or a simulator?

Shannon: Well, I’m highly opinionated when it comes to these things. The only thing that matters is the spirit you get coming through a speaker. All the tone and audio quality and reverence to all that, if you don’t have something committed and meaningful coming out of your hands, it really doesn’t matter. But you want to get all of it working together.

For me, it is not subtle at all. I mean, I use tape machines, and I have a controlled environment here where I can very quickly switch in and out of digital domains. And I use almost zero plugins. I’m not a totalitarian about anything so if something gets me along the way I’ll use it. But everything in here is outboard gear. I run through a console.

And I hear records that are interesting sounding that all the guitar was done through a Fractal, you know what I mean? But no, I mean, quite simply, even the Fractal sounds like a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional entity, you know what I mean? To my ear it hasn’t gotten any closer with the sims. They get certain things closer as far as saturation. Spectral information inside of some of that modeling has gotten a little more detailed, but there’s still no front to back in it.

Radial: So reamping might be more work than adding a plugin, but it makes a big difference in the ultimate sound of the song, does that sound right?

Shannon: Yeah, to me, it really comes down to what you’re trying to do. To oversimplify this discussion, you’re trying to communicate. And the more of that expression that you get, the better. And again, people subconsciously or consciously, they play into the motion that’s inside an amp. The way it compresses, the way the speaker moves air, the way everything captures it.

And the more evolved that musician is, the more they’re able to control the nuance of that, and it becomes an extension of what the listener experience is. Even if it’s on some subliminal way that they process that, everybody feels that stuff, they don’t need to know what it is to feel it. And when you start by throwing that character and quality completely out, it’s going to be different. I’m not saying people don’t do great things that way, but it’s just, you’re not going to have that available.

Radial: Do you feel that there are particular types of amps that you tend to gravitate more towards to versus transistor or brand, or Fender versus Marshall or whatever. Or is the amp selection different for each project?

Shannon: I’m a drummer basically by voice, but I love tone. I mean, the first time I got to work with Michael Landau I went and stood out in front of his speakers at 130dB just because I wanted to go, “Why does it sound so different on records?” And it’s like, well, it sounds different at the amp, you know what I mean, that’s why. And what you hear is there.

JCR

Studio Reamper

The Radial Reamp® JCR is a high-performance passive Reamper that lets you take a pre-recorded track and send it through a guitar amp or pedal chain without noise.

It’s like, those things, again being a drummer, I got a million snare drums, whatever so there are variations. But for me, it’s something around an AC-30 kind of thing, that real open, clear immediate thing. Then you have the Fender thing that compresses the way that it does and you have the Marshall thing. And then you get into the modern things with the Bogner, the Mesa stuff, or whatever.

And to me, that’s about three or four shades right there. And then you can do things with pedals. I tend to like things that are a bit more open-sounding. I’m not so much a traditional Fender sound guy. I like things that have a more immediate top end and more spectral sort of harmonic layers to the top end.

The post Reamping Revelations: Shannon Forrest appeared first on Radial Engineering.

This time, we spoke to Billy Idol guitarist, and songwriter, Steve Stevens

Radial: Talk a little bit about reamping and why you use it.

Steve: A lot of times I’ll get sent a song or a track or something, to work on. And I won’t know what the other instrumentation is or will be, exactly. They’ll send it to me maybe early in the process of songwriting.

So for me, it’s great to always have that clean DI guitar track, the guitar track so any sonic commitments can always be made later after all the other tracks are on there. So reamping gives me and the producer total flexibility in a lot of cases to Reamp®. Because maybe the initial guitar sound wasn’t quite the perfect thing. So you have that flexibility with reamping.

Radial: So as the track takes shape, the original tone of the guitar amp, or the guitar, may actually not be fitting anymore. So reamping gives you the chance to go in and maybe tweak that a little bit. Or adjust that to match the track a little bit better.

Steve: And also, a lot of times, if I’m demoing a song, I don’t really have the patience or the time to maybe set up the microphones or anything. So I’ll use an amp sim plugin or something, with the intention that okay, further down the road, we’re going to set up the proper amps and mic up and get our final take. So once again, reamping just gives me that security and the flexibility to tailor the track later on in the process.

Radial: So you mentioned the plugins and the amp sims, as those have actually gotten better and in many cases they’re very good. Do you still tend to go back to the organic process of using the actual amp with reamping, and why do you do that after you print a DI guitar track?

Steve: Well, yeah, definitely, the technology has gotten better. Amp sims have gotten better. I think that what’s good about them is that they’re expedient. I work with a lot of singers, and you want to get the song together and work quickly. So just getting a plugin up is good enough to get the song together.

But at some point, what inevitably always happens is, we take the tracks into a big room, put our real drums on it, get our real guitars done. And we’re not paying the exorbitant price to be in the studio. We’re just there to capture our real-world stuff. But there’s no replicating the sound of not only micing a guitar cabinet, but you’re capturing part of the room.

And I have a home studio, but it’s certainly not like going into Henson or East West in LA or a place like that. So it’s nice to know that at some point in the process of making a record, I’m going to get some real-world guitar tones.

I have cabinets that I’ve used, amps, and cabinets that I’ve used from the beginning of my career. And some of them are quite special, late 60s Marshalls and my Friedmans and stuff. So as I mentioned, there’s nothing like getting in the studio and setting up a bunch of cabinets with amps. So yeah. I always print my DI guitar track.

Radial: When you get your amp set up, what percentage of it is the actual, the micing process, moving around the mics, getting the mics in the right place? How much of that is part of the approach to reamping? Is that important? The mic placement and things like that?

Steve: Sure. I’ve done it enough times now, to know. There’s the tried-and-true SM-57 or Royer 121. As long as I have those two mics, I know what they should sound like with my amps and cabinets. And then I always use other microphones and print them just to have them and see. Sometimes for, let’s say a solo or something, I’ll put an ambient mic out into the room and capture a bit more of that. Usually, my rhythm guitar tracks are close mic’d though. I don’t want ambiance on those.

Radial: What about the Radial gear that you use?

Steve: When I’m in my home studio, the Radial JD7 is what enables me to get multiple different guitar tracks, and a DI track. If I am going to set up an amp and a cabinet in my home studio, the JD7 gives me the flexibility to print multi guitar tracks.

Radial: Is the JD7 the front-end of your rig setup?

Steve: Yes, my guitar always gets plugged into the JD7 first, and then I can split it out to whatever I want. I use a lot of Fractal gear. So sometimes that’ll go out to one of my Fractals, I’ll print that as well as my DI, as well as maybe a real world amp in the room.

It just depends on two factors: A, how much time I have to mess with guitar sounds. And B, how much I want to go down that road before knowing how much I want to commit to a particular sound. As I said, having that clean DI guitar track is really such a safety net, so I don’t have to worry too much about what’s getting printed at the time of recording.

When it comes down to it, as a co-songwriter with most of the artists that I work with, it’s really about getting things done expediently. Singers aren’t the most patient people in the world, and they want to get on with the song. So the amp sim enables me to get a decent guitar sound up quickly, but always knowing in the back of my head that I’m going to probably Reamp® the track.

Radial: So when you first start, you’ve done your clean track, and you’re getting into the process of reamping Is there an amp or a particular sound that you tend to go to first, or does it really depend on the song and what the song requires?

Steve: It does depend on the song. I have a signature guitar amp with Dave Friedman, and that’s in my home studio. And what I strive for with that amp is a great classic rock and roll tone, based on my old Marshall Plexi’s, and it’s also got a super clean second channel in it. So I pretty much designed that amp to have the flexibility to get anything that I need out of it. And so that’s always set in my studio. That’s my go-to.

Radial: You mentioned mics earlier, what are your go-to mics, talk a little more about the micing part of reamping.

Steve: Most guitar players will say an SM-57 and a Royer 121 is the way to go. I have a decent collection of microphones, including a Byerdynamic M-160, which is the ribbon mic that Eddie Kramer used way back. And I’m not an engineer, I’m a guitarist, but I spend time learning about microphones because it’s so important to know about them for reamping. It’s really about trying different things. It’s trial and error, really. You put a mic up on a 4-by-12 cabinet and you go, “Oh, yeah. I like that.” And that’s how you learn. You go, “Oh, that’s a good combination.”

Radial: Do you ever have issues with phase and phase correction when recording with multiple mics?

Steve: Yes, and for that, I use the Radial Phazer phase correction box. I use that for my acoustic guitar because I always take a DI and a mic, and then I’ll kind of sweep that control to get them in phase. And I used to struggle with that all the time, wondering “Why doesn’t it sound good when I combine them?” And the Phazer solved that problem for me.

Radial: Back to the process of reamping. We talked a little bit earlier about the air, or the breathing of the cabinet when you mic it. Is that typically done with one mic, or do you experiment with maybe a mic close up and one in the room?

Steve: It could be many mics. A lot of times, I’ll leave it up to the producer and the engineer and they have their modes of working. And usually, I’m cool with always giving people the opportunity to try what they like. And then if it doesn’t quite match up, then I’ll suggest things. But I always gravitate towards an SM-57 and a Royer 121. The SM-57 captures all that kind of high-end energy, and it’s a classic. And also the Royer gives me the lower mids and the thump of the cabinet.

By and large, most of the rhythm guitar stuff ends up being close mic’d. And then for solos, we’ll kind of put up, sometimes a stereo pair in the room. The stereo pair captures the feeling of standing in the room. And especially if you’re in a great studio known for its room sound like East West or Henson. Capturing that room sound is essential. You’re not going to replicate that with an amp sim or a plugin. You get the real thing, that way.

Radial: Have you experimented with using foot pedals as part of your reamping process and setup? Is that something you’ve ever done or thought about doing?

Steve: I haven’t done that. I’m not opposed to it, but usually, if I’m going to use a pedal, I’m going to commit to that at the time of tracking. So that would already be on the DI track. Say, a wah pedal, or an overdrive pedal or something, that’ll already be on that DI track. I think guitar pedals, by and large, are going to go on that original DI track.

Radial: Any final words about Radial gear?

Steve: Thanks to Radial for making such great products. I think I’ve used Radial for 20 years or so. The stuff’s awesome. It really is. And as I said, that JD7 is the centerpiece of my rig. That’s where it starts, for me.

JD7

Guitar Distro & Splitter

The Radial JD7 Injector is a class-A guitar distro/splitter with built-in Radial DI and Reamp® that can drive up to seven amps or pedal chains simultaneously.

Phazer

Phase Adjuster

The Radial Phazer is an analog phase alignment tool that lets you combine two sources and bring the fundamentals together for a more natural tone.

The post Reamping Revelations: Steve Stevens appeared first on Radial Engineering.

First up is superstar producer Jacquire King.

Radial: Talk about your approach to reamping.

Jacquire: I’ve been reamping for a very long time. Years ago, I worked at a studio in San Francisco where John Cuniberti was an engineer. John was a reamping pioneer and developed some of the early reamping devices that kind of led to what we all now normally use. There were a couple of John’s prototype boxes at the studio.

As I mentioned, I’ve been reamping a long time. So it’s not a new idea because people like John had done it before. It’s just now we have tools, such as those made by Radial, that are specifically designed for reamping instead of having to sort of piece things together.

But originally reamping was just the ability to kind of reshape a sound or record more conveniently in the control room. And then you have the ability once you had things put together to, instead of wearing a musician out getting a sound and deteriorating their performance energy to get that sound, you capture the performance energy, and then you can worry about finalizing the sound later.

I’ve taken that thought process, adopting it very early on, to now utilize it with non-guitar instruments or non-bass instruments — other instruments that you’ve put on tape, and want to run through amps. For example, if I’m doing some programming and drum samples, I’ll kind of give them some acoustic dimension by running those through guitar amps, and then mic the space. I’ve done stuff like that with Tom Waits many different times.

I really view reamping as this incredible creative tool that you can use in so many different ways to give dimension to sounds in a post-recording environment or treat samples through amps or just kind of pipe them into an acoustic space in the way that you would use a chamber in a traditional way. A Reamp® device gives you the ability to put absolutely anything into that type of environment.

Basically what I’m talking about is using a Reamp® box as a way to take prerecorded material and then play it back and then re-mic it. I do that with Tom Waits’ vocals.

FIGURE 1

But then maybe in the last 10 years, it occurred to me to try it with drums. In certain spaces with a drum kit, although I was getting a good drum kit sound with close mics, the room itself wasn’t necessarily reacting with as much low-frequency build-up as I might like it to for certain sounds. I might be trying to get some more distant ambient micing, for example, in order to have a richer, more impactful sound.

Now I will take a microphone and I’ll put it in front of the kick drum or find a spot around the drums that is close that really accentuates the low end. You’ve got a microphone going into a mic pre. That’s a line-level signal. My desire in this case is to get that sound that I’m capturing with that mic placement and have it be reinforced in the room. Then, I’ll take the output of the mic pre that’s giving the signal for the microphone and put a Reamp® device there so then I can take it and plug it into an amp.

Sometimes, even before going to the amp, in between the Reamp® device and the amplifier, I’ll put in some pedals to do some tone-shaping or add an effect. If I want to reinforce a kick drum or the low frequencies of a drum kit in a room, I’ll take that set up and I’ll use a bass amp. I’ll use an SVT or similar amp and face it out away from the drums, put it in front of the drum kit, but facing away from the drums in the way that you would imagine the kick drum is projecting sound into the room. Then, focus it on the low end (see fig. 1).

Now, you have to be careful, obviously in a situation like that, to not create a feedback loop, but if you use gain structure properly and the amp is not too loud and the microphone and the amp are facing opposite directions as well, you can kind of get into reinforcing a space.

FIGURE 2

And I’ve taken that even a step further. For example, for a song I did with the Punch Brothers, an all-acoustic sort of five-piece bluegrass configuration. In order to create a sound in the room, I’ll take a blend of the live microphones that I’m recording, send them from the desk back out into the room off an aux send. In this case, we’re sending a line-level signal from the desk back out to the room. I’m taking the signal off the aux send from the desk, blending certain microphones, and then running it through an H3000 and generating a chorus or pitched sounding effect. And then with amplification out in the room, adding that affected sound into the space — all happening live (see fig. 2).

The acoustic space now has this affected, treated version of the instrument blend is. It’s then bleeding back into the microphones and coloring the space. It kind of gives a really unique dimension to the sound. I’ve made some recordings that I thought were pretty good at the time, but in hindsight, it’s like, “Well, I could’ve done that better, or I there’s a part of the spectrum or the feel that I’m missing, so, hey, let’s Reamp® the sound and kind of get that additive texture that I need.”

Honestly, the thought process and the ability to Reamp® things has kind of given me a thought process that you can apply across many kinds of production ideas and executions

FIGURE 3

Radial: It’s kind of like you’re experimenting with this environment, as in a laboratory.

Jacquire: Absolutely. For me, reamping has created production techniques and sound stage options. I go back to the Punch Brothers example. I was taking the live mics and choosing one of them for reamping because I had the instruments multi-mic’d.

In that case, I’d choose a microphone, typically kind of a mid-range one, because that’s typically a friendlier sort of sonic signature to put into a guitar amp, if you will. I’ll pick a mid-rangey sounding mic or the one that sort of fits that color the best. Then I’ll use a Reamp® box to take that live mic and send it to an amp in isolation where I could put in a very affected sound of the instrument. For the Punch Brothers project, we’re talking about a very acoustic traditional-sounding instrument, like a banjo (see fig. 3).

FIGURE 4

I’d take the live mic off the banjo and I’d put it through a Leslie cabinet with a delay in between the Reamp® box and the input to the Leslie. That creates unique textures, so maybe in the mixed presentation or the sonic presentation of the band, I’ve kind of got the banjo off to the left a bit.

I would use the affected amped interesting textural sounds and I’d pan whatever sound I was creating for the banjo to the other side. That gave it this depth and texture. So the banjo still sounds like a banjo in its spot in the frequency spectrum and in the sound stage, but then there’s this texture and depth to it that you’re kind of able to create with a Reamp® box (see fig. 4).

That leads to having the Radial EXTCs, where we are kind of taking that idea further and using things like guitar pedals which can be very unique sounding. Guitar pedals are very tactile. With the EXTCs you can use the pedals as if they were plugins or just as part of the signal path, like a balanced line-level signal path.

And you can kind of get the sound back into a pedal, do something cool with it and inject it back into the mix. That’s an evolutionary sort of process that we’ve gotten out of this whole reamping thing.

EXTC 500

Guitar Effects Interface

The Radial EXTC is a 500 series effects send & receive module that lets you incorporate guitar effects into the realm of pro-audio recording.

EXTC-SA

Guitar Effects Interface

The Radial EXTC-SA is a stand-alone audio interface that lets you incorporate guitar effects into the realm of pro-audio recording.

EXTC-Stereo

Stereo Guitar Effects Interface & Reamper

The EXTC Stereo allows you to connect guitar effects pedals to the inputs and outputs of pro audio equipment such as recording interfaces and mixing consoles, so you can incorporate stereo pedals into your recordings and explore new creative possibilities.

Radial: It sounds like reamping is giving you the ability to create a unique signature sound.

Jacquire: You’re 100% right. Honestly, my goal with all the recording that I do is to make it have some element of uniqueness that really places it just emotionally and impactfully in a unique place. I like being able to experiment, to be that scientist in the laboratory tinkering.

Radial: How do plugins fit into the bigger reamping picture?

Jacquire: I predominantly use plugins for my effects in mixing. I mean, I still use the pedals sometimes in mixing, but a lot of times I’m prerecording all these effects. I record effects with reamps and EXTCs and just parallel paths and just different things as part of the sound anyway.

The problem with plugins is that we are now all using the same sounds. So many of the classic traditional signature rooms that we have heard throughout the history of recording — those that we’ve become very used to, now a lot of them are packaged into plugins. This is amazing on one hand, but too many people are using presets and so we don’t have as many unique spaces in recordings.

All of us are recording in smaller, more streamlined, less unique environments in some way, so having the ability to Reamp® can let us use the spaces that we have available to us to create things that are unique. For example, being able to get a unique reverb, or maybe reamping something and micing it in your kitchen.

If you’re doing a record at home kind of Indie style, and as an example, my studio is in a house, so I do that kind of stuff. You’re able to capture very unique spaces. Spaces that nobody else really has. You can optimize the amplification and microphone capture and all that kind of stuff, and create these unique spaces.

So, with plugins, we’re able to give ourselves back some of the character that we are losing by using these incredible tools in the digital domain that kind of move us away from the actual spaces that we would have traditionally recorded in. The use of both plugins and reamping really gives us the ability to have the best of both worlds.

Radial: What about the use of amp sims in lieu of reamping?

Jacquire: I think it really depends. I mean, there’s a lot of really good sims out there. In some ways, I view sims as a different amp. It’s like using a different guitar.

Let’s talk about guitar-based music for a second. A lot of times you layer guitars. So you’ll have one pass that’s going into a sim maybe for convenience sake. It’s a great sound and it really works really well.

Then what if you take that direct signal you recorded and you give it a partner that’s a little bit more analog real world by reamping? They pair well together as opposed to just stacking up the same sim texture.

I think sims are all incredibly useful. I mean, it started more about reamping guitars and those sorts of things, and then for me, it’s moved into all these other areas. I probably use reamping a little bit more on instruments other than guitars, just because of all of the advancements that have been made with amp sims.

FIGURE 5

Radial: You’re talking about using it with the drum set or to get the capture that kind of tone from the kick and things like that so maybe less traditional and to capture the feel of the space that you’re in, things like that?

Jacquire: Exactly. For example, I’ll take my old Juno synth and instead of just plugging it straight in direct, put it through a Reamp® and run it through an amp and mic that. Because there I’m creating a texture that’s kind of a little bit unique. It still sounds and feels like a Juno, but it now it has an extra dimension because I haven’t just done the normal simple thing of simply taking it direct (see fig. 5).

Maybe I’m still taking the direct signal and the Reamp® signal is that secondary texture that I was talking about earlier that kind of gives it some dimension and character that you wouldn’t normally have with just recording it direct and then maybe throwing a plugin reverb or space on it. If I re-amp it into a space and mic it, well then that becomes a unique sound.

Radial: What are your kind of go-to boxes for reamping?

Jacquire: I’ve had a JD7 for, I don’t know how long, since they were new, so however long that’s been. I’ve used that a lot. I also use the 500 series EXTCs. I have a pair of those. I use those quite a bit. They’re in the control room, but then I also have EXTC Stereo.

If I’m not using the 500 series modules, the EXTC-Stereo is the one that I go to. I also have some SGI’s. I’ve used those for a very long time as well. Those do get used in the process of creating sound combinations. So, it’s the JD7, the SGIs, the EXTC Stereo and the 500 series. Each of those boxes gets used a ton.

JD7

Guitar Distro & Splitter

The Radial JD7 Injector is a class-A guitar distro/splitter with built-in Radial DI and Reamp® that can drive up to seven amps or pedal chains simultaneously.

SGI 15v

Guitar Interface System

The Radial SGI Studio Guitar Interface class-A line driver with load correction lets you send a guitar signal up to 100 meters via balanced cable without noise.

The post Reamping Revelations: Jacquire King appeared first on Radial Engineering.

“We first tried making a record in this format in 2009 for ‘Tell Your Friends,” said Snarky Puppy founder/leader Michael League. “People had been telling us that they enjoyed our music much more live than they did listening to the records. So we thought that a live record made sense. But we wanted the sound quality of the performance to be stellar — I’m not a big fan of most live recordings because of the poor audio quality.”

An obvious hurdle with this approach had to do with bleed from live mics. Additionally, external noise coming from the less-than-acoustically-ideal setting would be an issue. There were 20 band members and over 100 channels of audio to keep track of. Keeping mic bleed and noise to a minimum would be critical. Snarky Puppy producer Nic Hard and League knew that having control over each instrument’s input signal would be important. For this reason, direct inputs to the console would be the best solution.

To address the challenges, Hard and League turned to Radial D.I.s and line-level splitters. 

“We knew that the biggest challenge recording-wise was going to be bleed,” said Hard. “And we’d need mics on the drums, but felt that everything else could run direct, using amp sims on the guitars. We used about 20 D.I.s for the show, including a D.I. for bass guitar and Mike’s Moog Model D keyboard bass synth. We used Radial HDIs for bass because we needed a high-end studio-quality sound out of the basses. And then the rest of the instrument inputs were the Pro D2s, J48s, and ProDIs.”

Photo credit Brian Friedman

The use of the HDI for bass was something Hard and League had been looking forward to. “This was my first time getting to use the HDI outside of seeing it at NAMM, and I was really impressed,” said Hard. “We chose the HDI upon the recommendation from others, along with the fact it’s a studio-quality D.I. And from a tonal perspective, it does a lot of cool things, including colorization of the sound.”

The Radial LX2 and LX3 line-level splitters were used for audience headphone distribution. “There were 10 headphone boxes that all required a line input,” said Hard. “So we had feeds coming out of outputs of the console into the LX2 and LX3 splitters. Then, we distributed the signal to the headphone boxes. It was a clean way to split things, as opposed to using a Y cable, which usually introduces impedance issues. We didn’t have any impedance issues using the LX2 and LX3.”

In the end, League and Hard both credited Radial gear with the reason the session went so well.

“I use Radial gear in these situations because it’s so well built,” said Hard. “It’s so sturdy that you don’t run into the problems that you get with cheaply built gear. Equipment like D.I.s can get tossed around. Radial gear is built solid, it just works, and it doesn’t break.”

League echoed Hard’s sentiments about Radial gear.

“I think I’ve been using Radial D.I.s as long as I’ve been using D.I.s,” said League. “For me, it’s an incredibly trustworthy brand and product and it’s why we have them in my studio here. Radial gear is super durable, it’s reliable, and that’s really one of the most important things … that you can count on the gear, and it’s built like a tank. It’s just amazing gear!”

For more information on Snarky Puppy visit snarkypuppy.com

HDI

High Definition Studio Preamp

The HDI is a studio-quality preamp designed to create exceptional recordings with any instrument, utilizing premium Jensen transformers and a unique Color control that provides an entirely new yet familiar-sounding sonic palette to experiment with.

J48

Premium Active DI

The J48 is a high performance active direct box for live concert touring and professional recording studio applications, with the ability to handle extreme transients without distortion while delivering the natural sound of your instrument.

ProD2

Stereo Passive Direct Box

The ProD2 is a 2-channel passive direct box designed to connect stereo keyboards or high output instruments to a PA system or home recording setup without noise or distortion.

ProDI

Passive Direct Box

The ProDI is a passive direct box designed for use on stage or in home recording studios, with the ability to handle high output instruments without distortion, and a transformer-isolated output to eliminate noise from ground loops.

LX-2

Line-Level Splitter & Attenuator

The LX-2 is a balanced line-level audio splitter designed to send a signal to two destinations at once and attenuate as needed.

LX-3

Line-Level Splitter

The LX-3 is a balanced line-level audio splitter designed to send a signal to as many as three destinations at once without noise.

The post Snarky Puppy Relies on Radial to Record Seventh Live Album appeared first on Radial Engineering.

Jacquire King

 

 

Engineer/Producer Jacquire King has been using Radial Reamp® boxes ever since he saw Cuniberti’s original design in a San Francisco studio many years ago. “Radial Reamp® boxes allow me to utilize the sonic benefits of reamping with other instruments such as drums and vocals,” says King. “For example, I use reamping on Tom Wait’s vocals quite often.”

King prefers a non-traditional approach to reamping. “I’ll like to use reamping on drum tracks,” says King. “I’ll take an SVT or similar amp and face it in front of the drum kit, away from the drums in the way that you would imagine the kick drum is projecting sound into the room. Then, I’ll focus the amp on the low end and Reamp® it. It works great. I use a lot of Radial Reamp® gear, including the JD7, SGIs, EXTC Stereo and the 500 series.”

Steve Stevens

 

 

Guitarist Steve Stevens relies on reamping and Radial gear to produce his signature guitar sound, whether it’s on tracks with Billy Idol, his own projects, or with the many singer/songwriter performers he works with.

“Reamping gives me and the producer total flexibility in a lot of cases to customize the sound as the track is built,” says Stevens. “Because maybe the initial guitar sound wasn’t quite the perfect thing. So you have that flexibility in the mix later with reamping.”

Stevens is a long-time fan of Radial gear. “My Radial JD7 enables me to get multiple different guitar tracks, and a DI track during recording,” says Stevens. “If I am going to set up an amp and a cabinet in my home studio, the JD7 gives me the flexibility to print multi guitar tracks. I’ve used Radial products for over 20 years. The stuff’s awesome. It really is. The Radial JD7 is the centerpiece of my rig. That’s where it starts for me.”

Shannon Forrest

 

 

Toto drummer Shannon Forrest, also a noted producer and engineer, relies on Radial Reamp® boxes to dial in tracks to fit his demanding standards. “On the mix side of things, if I’m producing and working on a track, reamping gives me the flexibility to go back and adjust the track later without burning out the player during the original track,” says Forrest.

Forrest has found that reamping comes in particularly handy during mixing. “Once it’s mix time, if I decide I need to saturate something a little more or just layer something in, I can use a Radial Reamp® box for that. It’s a great tool that way. It gives me the capacity to work with an editor to comp guitar parts for those artists that maybe don’t have ideal technical ability.”

Click here for more information on Radial’s range of reamping products.

JD7

Guitar Distro & Splitter

The Radial JD7 Injector is a class-A guitar distro/splitter with built-in Radial DI and Reamp® that can drive up to seven amps or pedal chains simultaneously.

JCR

Studio Reamper

The Radial Reamp® JCR is a high-performance passive Reamper that lets you take a pre-recorded track and send it through a guitar amp or pedal chain without noise.

EXTC-Stereo

Stereo Guitar Effects Interface & Reamper

The EXTC Stereo allows you to connect guitar effects pedals to the inputs and outputs of pro audio equipment such as recording interfaces and mixing consoles, so you can incorporate stereo pedals into your recordings and explore new creative possibilities.

The post Jacquire King, Steve Stevens, and Shannon Forrest Rely on Radial Reamp® Boxes appeared first on Radial Engineering.

Jordan Rudess of Dream Theater and Liquid Tension Experiment has been using KL-8s for many years and will be carrying several with him on the road as his live show schedule picks up.“The KL-8 is awesome in that we can combine all of my instruments down to a stereo pair, which we then send to front-of-house and monitors,” says Rudess. “The sound quality is awesome and meets our high standards, while the laptop integration makes it easy to do tracking during our live shows.”

Keyboardist Mike McKnight, who has worked with a wide range of artists, including Roger Waters, Mariah Carey, Paris Jackson, Harry Styles, and Paula Abdul, relies on the KL-8 to manage outputs from the multiple keyboards he uses during live shows.“The KL-8 allows me to have three high-quality stereo analog channels and a USB channel for my virtual instruments with the flexible routing in a single space rack mixer that’s built like a tank,” says McKnight. “When I add my Radial SW8 USB, I can do a full-on playback gig with live keys in two spaces without sacrificing quality and reliability.”

Evan McElhinney, currently the monitor engineer for Styx and Gowan, relies on the KL-8 to make sure the on-stage keyboard mix is perfect for the musicians.“We began using the KL-8 when we added a Roland Jupiter to the existing 5080’s for our synth sounds,” says McElhinney. “We now can switch between them with a touch of a button for redundancy during the show. The KL-8 is very transparent and doesn’t add any color to the sound, which is exactly what we wanted. And, like all Radial products, the KL-8 is bulletproof!”

Danny Mitchell, who is currently handling keyboards, vocals, as well as being band leader for Miranda Lambert and Pistol Annies, uses the KL-8 in both live and studio environments.

“The KL-8 has profoundly changed both my studio and live keyboard rigs and become a rock-solid centerpiece of my setup,” says Mitchell. “The mute switches paired with the onboard headphone outputs make programming a dream!”

For more information on the Radial KL-8 Rackmount Keyboard Mixer, visit the KL-8 product page.

KL-8

Rackmount Keyboard Mixer

The KL-8 is the ultimate professional keyboard control station, allowing you to mix and monitor multiple keyboards and instantly switch between two USB playback systems.

Key-Largo

Keyboard Mixer

The Key-Largo is a unique and powerful device that combines a multi-channel keyboard mixer with the performance attributes of real-time footswitch control!

The post Pro Keyboardists Turn to Radial KL-8 as Live Shows Ramp Up appeared first on Radial Engineering.

The list of high-profile artists relying on the HDI in the studio continues to grow.

Bassist Tony Levin, currently on tour with progressive rock band King Crimson, has used the HDI to track bass on numerous projects. In addition to his association with King Crimson, Levin has worked with a long list of high profile artists over his extensive career, including Peter Gabriel, Mark Knopfler, John Lennon, and Paul Simon, to name a few.

“I’ve already used the new HDI on my bass for a number of recordings, with great results,” says Levin. “It’s super clean, and has some dial in options that are wonderful to have on hand. Another home run for Radial!”

Bassist Mark Egan’s credits include Pat Metheny, Sting, Bill Evans, Joan Osborne, and Marianne Faithful, to name a few. Egan has been recording bass tracks through the HDI on a number of current projects.

“The HDI surpasses all of my expectations for what I’ve been looking for in a direct box,” says Egan. “It’s so simple to go from ultra clean, with the enhanced Jensen transformer, to a warm and colored sound with everything in between. This is a serious tool for any musician’s tool box.”

Currently using the HDI on the new Megadeth album, Nashville-based producer Chris Rakestraw had this to say of the HDI: “It’s one of those boxes that when you need something to just sound better, use the HDI,” says Rakestraw. “Most tracking sessions, I’ll just keep it plugged in so if any point I need a sweetened DI quick, it’s my go to.”

In addition to Megadeth, Rakestraw’s credits include Danzig, Dead Label, and Dark Heavens.

Producer Michael Dean, who has worked with Madonna, Travis Scott, Kanye West, to name a few, has found the HDI enhances the sound of a Rhodes piano when tracking. “The Radial HDI makes my Fender Rhodes sing,” says Dean. “It sounds really good. I recommend the HDI to anyone who wants serious quality DI.”

Most recently, Dean has used the HDI on projects with Madonna, Christine and the Queens, FKA Twigs, Noah Cyrus, and Iann Dior.

Studio guitarist Jason Hook has come to rely on the HDI for both his original and independent production projects. Currently, Hook is “…producing an amazing singer-songwriter from Toronto named Alex Coles while working on assembling my new band, with tons of songs ready. I really love the HDI. It has the most sonic options of all the DI’s out there,” says Hook.

For more information on the Radal HDI high-definition studio DI, visit Radial Engineering’s HDI product page.

HDI

High Definition Studio Preamp

The HDI is a studio-quality preamp designed to create exceptional recordings with any instrument, utilizing premium Jensen transformers and a unique Color control that provides an entirely new yet familiar-sounding sonic palette to experiment with.

The post Radial’s HDI Becomes the Go-To Professional DI For World Class Artists appeared first on Radial Engineering.