Guitar Recording and Reamping Workflow
Connections
AES Out of AxeFX at 48khz into RME Converter ADAT Out of RME Converter at 96khz or native rate (clocked and switchable by Apollo) ADAT In to Apollo with sample rate already converted
ADAT Out of Apollo with switchable Clock into RME Converter AES Out of RME Converter into AxeFX at 48khz
Analog Output 1 stereo in to Apollo for monitoring
Tracking
Settings On AxeFX
Switch Input 1 to Analog Switch AES output to Input 1
Apollo Console
Mute Digital Input Channel Listen to Analog Channel connected to AxeFX Output 1
Logic
Mono DI channel input from AES digital input (AxeFX AES) Stereo scratch track input from Analog (AxeFX Output 1) Third stereo reamp track empty for now All three of these on a summing stack (bus)
Recording
Record both the unprocessed digital track and the processed analog scratch track. When editing, group the tracks together and sample lock them. That way it’s easy to edit the scratch track and get the same changes on the digital track. Any rough edits will probably be polished up when the dry track is reamped.
Reamping
On AxeFX
Switch Input 1 to Digital Switch AES output to Output 1
Apollo console
Mute Analog input (Or use a different console layout that has it muted)
Logic Session Setup
Mono DI channel has an I/O plugin with input and output set to the AxeFX digital in and out and latency set to 447 samples (or whatever it pings at) Mono DI track is unmuted, scratch track and reamp track are muted Manually set the input of the DI track to None and set the input of the empty reamp track to the same bus that these three tracks are on (muted! and make sure input monitoring is OFF)
Logic Process
Open up axe edit and play back the song. Dial in a good sound while song is playing Once it’s good, record the reamped track all the way through (Logic cannot do a realtime bounce in place) Select “new version” and dial in a slightly different sound and re do the recording step - repeat a few times so there are some different options. Try some very different cabinets. I’m often surprised how good a 1x10 cabinet sounds when I’m sure the song calls for a big stack of 4x12’s. Click on clip that just recorded. Select normalize region gain. Do this on each of the alternative versions you recorded. Affect “Individual regions”, Algorithm “Loudness”, Target level - this will be your zero reference. You have a zero reference right? This is the 202x’s. If you’re using R-128 this would be -23. For K-14 (another good option) you’d use -14. For K-20, you’d use -20. If you’re using analog VU meters, use -18. The idea here is to get all the clips the same loudness (not the same peak volume) so they can be accurately compared. If you don’t have a zero reference, you won’t be hearing enough detail for this to matter and you can skip this step. Don’t worry at this point about which version you’ll be using. Dial in your plugins. I usually like a Helios or Neve preamp first, then EQ, and possibly a compressor depending on the song. This will totally depend on the song, so I can’t help with which ones to use. Try to keep them at unity gain so the volume doesn’t change when they are bypassed. Add reverb, delay, and room ambience sends now too. Now play back the song and switch between versions to see which one sounds the best. 90% of the time it is not the one that sounds best when dialing them in.