I don't know if anybody will make any use of this video, I basically did it because I see people around talking about this technique as if it was their invention. Just wanted to give credit where credit is due.

Sounds excellent.

Thanks! I've used this technique as a substitute for a summing box. The underlying idea is similar: forcing independent audio channels to somehow interact with each other.

Adding air and early reflections into the equation makes everything more interesting and "alive." For those who rely heavily on virtual instruments, this technique is incredibly useful IMO.

Thank you for reminder. I remember reading about this technique also elsewhere. There's a track called Death Alley Driver by Rainbow in the early 80's. That Minimoog solo in the middle of the song was allegedly reamped with a similar technique.

Bruce didn't invent it either.

Same procedure neighborhood as any 1960+ routine of sticking a mic + spkr in a room (or small tile bathroom in the case of the popular 1963+ approach) and then sending an already-recorded signal through the loop and back to a track.

Isn't this just using a room as a reverb chamber?

Does anybody know who first used a reverb chamber, or is that lost in the prehistory of audio?

EDIT: I've seen the claim that Bill Putnam Sr. used a bathroom as an echo chamber as early as 1947, recording the Harmonicats, but I wonder if he was really the first.

You were using a cheapo Zoom recorder. How different is it when you use actual SDCs or other, better quality mics? Is it noticeably different?

This is cool. Thanks.

Thanks for the info, didn't know that. I also started out reamping single tracks or busses, but the result was way too messy and I got lost the main ingredient (interaction between tracks).

As I see it, what I'm using here are early reflections from a very small space... I wouldn't call it reverb, and to my ears it doesn't sound like it either. What I like of the reamped track is the harmonically richness and saturated sound that blends perfectly with the clean and aseptic sound coming from the virtual instruments. To my ears, this is the sparkle that is missing from the original mix.

Never tried, but IMO it wouldn't add to the final result. Any stereo pair with a range of about 200 to 20k will do (as you can see in the video I do a robust hipass of the reamped signal).
I already have a super-clean sound from the VST's, what I need is some roughness, saturation and air molecules reacting to the whole mix .

I guess it seems to me that technically it actually is just an echo/reverb chamber, but doing it with a small room may well sound very different than you'd normally expect "reverberation" to sound.

AIUI early reflections from small rooms may be perceived more via comb filtering (in the frequency domain) than as echos/reverb (in the time domain)... you notice a comb filter effect on the timbres, not a reverberation over time, because the delay isn't long enough to easily perceive it as a delay.

Yep, I think that's a good explanation of it, although the summing is way more relevant than the comb filtering, which is pretty much avoided by placing mics in XY configuration as Bruce did (or using a handheld recorder with a similar mic positioning as I do)

Pietro, it isn't re-amping if you aren't amplifying something that was supposed to be amplified in the first place. I think many (or most?) engineers will think of "reamping" as meaning that you record an electric guitar or bass direct and then "reamp" it by sending the signal out to an actual amplifier and recording that signal.

So to me too it looks like "just" a real room/chamber reverb added to the mix.

And on that note it isn't summing either if the signal being re-recorded is a mix already. Summing is, well, literally summing signals, which isn't really what you're doing.

I think it sounds really good in your example but for the sake of clarity I would stay away from the words "reamping" and "summing", because that's not really what's happening.

Well, but indeed I am recording a bunch of instruments directly (virtual instruments that were tracked internally on the hard disk), sending the signal out to my active studio monitors (which have amplifiers in them ;-) and recording that signal.
I get your point, but IMO that doesn't mean that the concept of reamping cannot be applied to whole mixes, instead of single tracks, or realized through studio monitors instead of bass/guitars amplifiers.

Honestly I'd stick with the idea of summing, even just because it conveys the real purpose of this technique.

As I said before, the problem I personally struggle with is the fact that digital summing with virtual instruments, especially those trying to emulate real ones (this is my main playground) is completely flat and bi-dimensional.

And the main reason is because there's no bleed, no interaction whatsoever among channels. This process, although not technically summing, is the nearest I can come to have an analog console or a summing box. These are devices in which, at some point of the chain (the inner circuitry? The output stage? IDK), channels somehow interact with each other, giving that extra-spice and depth many are looking for.

Well, eventually we can "agree to disagree"!

The semantics don't really matter.

When I read the title, I too thought it would be traditional reamping. No biggie though. The end result was a little added clarity and dimension to the mix, more alive sound.

If I get my mics right and my tracking done well, I may not need this. But as you say Op, with an all digital mix it could add a spacial effect that more closely mimics what our ears do in actual space. If you can suspend the disbelief that digital can create, you win.

Ok, but the word for it isn't "reamping" is all I'm saying. What you're doing is adding room / reverb by using a real room / chamber fed by a speaker.

Just do this: Type in "reamping" into the search box here on the forum and you'll see a page full of people talking about recorded guitar and bass using a DI and then outputting them to a guitar or bass amp/cabinet to re-record using a microphone.

No it doesn't.

Again, when people are talking about summing they are talking about summing multiple channels, I'd say usually no less than eight, electrically in the analog domain, rather than in the digital one. If your signals are already summed then you aren't doing summing.

What's the point in using words that already have a well established meaning within our community in ways that will just confuse people?

I don't dismiss the goal with your technique at all, I think it's great that you're doing it this way if it sounds much better to you. In fact I would encourage everyone to try things like this out to make their music sound more personal...

The comb filtering I was talking about isn't due to having multiple non-coincident mics. It was the comb filtering that you normally get due to early reflections, which are delayed relative to the direct signal (because they take a longer path at the same speed of sound) and combine with it to make a comb filter.

Often people try to avoid or reduce early reflections and the resultant comb filtering, by using big rooms, treating first reflection points, and/or putting a pre-delay on artificial reverb.

IMO, yes. Room mics are "reverb". It would be pure semantics to say this is "not" reverb. Reverb doesn't have to be big and swimmy to be reverberant. A spackle bucket or a washing machine tub can be "reverb". Any physical space that the sound is bouncing around in, is reverb. Especially when you are pointing the mics away from the speaker.

I remember hearing this story in great detail but I forget where. Maybe one of the many audio magazines that I subscribed to in the pre-internet days. Maybe just a tall tale told around the campfire.

As I heard it, at first they stuck a singer or musician in the bathroom with a mic, but it was way too much bathroom sound. So they made a send-return parallel with a speaker and a mic, so they could blend it in different percentages.

The story went on that there was some trouble that arose from this. Supposedly, the bathroom in question was for all of the tenants on that floor of the building they were in. Obviously, nobody could use that bathroom as a bathroom while they were recording because flushing toilet sounds (and worse) would end up on the track. So they posted a sign saying the bathroom was 'out of order'.

Eventually complaints from the other tenants on that floor about the "out of order" bathroom got back to the landlord and he made the studio pay to rent an extra room if they wanted to use it exclusively for their own purposes. And of course, that new room had to be empty. It could not be used for storage or anything because boxes and stuff would absorb sound and make it less lively.

Anyway, that's what I remember reading, but I have no idea what the source was. But IMO a great story that illustrates the pluses and minuses of acoustic chambers.

For those who are further interested, I did another video with the recording and mixing process, from start to finish.