Re-amping is too complicated? No, it isn't!
You’ve dialled in the perfect tone from the guitar amp while recording? Good! But what if later during mixdown you notice the song needs a different guitar tone or character?
That's where re-amping comes in. You can decide everything at a later time: amp and effect pedal settings, microphones and their positions. Re-amping even allows you to swap out the entire amp.
You might think re-amping requires lots of gear and involves a complicated signal path and workflow. It’s nothing of the sort. In fact, re-amping is quite easy! All you need is a DI box or an instrument input on your preamp or audio interface when recording and a re-amping box. This will act as a reverse DI, transferring the line output signal from your DAW and interface back to instrument level needed for amps and pedals.
The Locomotive Z-Car makes things even easier. It is the perfect tool tailored to the needs of guitar recording and re-amping. It serves as both a high-end DI box and a re-amping device, giving you the flexibility for re-amping and guitar recording you need. You don't even need to touch a single cable when switching from recording to re-amping!
For recording, you plug your guitar into the Z-Car's DI input and select the „DI“ function. You record while sending the signal via XLR to your DAW and simultaneously and latency-free via Thru to the pedals and the amp.
For re-amping, you simply switch to „Amp-Up“ and hit „Play“ on your DAW. That's it.
The passive Locomotive Audio Z-Car gives you two tonal voicings when re-amping and two pad options for recording and re-amping. Locomotive Audio is known for their boutique preamps and compressors made in USA. The Z-Car comes with a very refined sounding, but not too colourful transformer, leaving all the sound decisions up to you!
Of course, there are other options available, too. The Little Labs Redeye 3D is quite similar, but uses active electronics (48V phantom power from a mic preamp). If you don't intend to re-amp, but want to use the superb possibilities today's guitar software offer (like the Waves GTR3 for 34 EUR!), you might want to ensure you capture the best possible signal. Among the high-end DI boxes you will find the HLabs DI02 with the legendary Carnhill© VT24499 transformer or the ACME Motown DI for a vintage, Motown-style tone.
