SansAmp Questions

[Alex Wyler]

It's a great priviledge to have you here!

I know that you are an advocate of using the SansAmp analog amp simulation hardware to add dirt and other magical tricks to your direct and mic signals.

I wanted to know which of the SansAmp line you use or which you use the most and prefer?

Also if there were only one SansAmp product out of the entire line that you could have access to which one would you choose?

And lastly, of the ones that you do use, what do you use them for and what instruments do you use the different SansAmp models on?

Thanks for your time.

[tchadb]

Originally Posted by Alex Wyler

It's a great priviledge to have you here!

I know that you are an advocate of using the SansAmp analog amp simulation hardware to add dirt and other magical tricks to your direct and mic signals.

I wanted to know which of the SansAmp line you use or which you use the most and prefer?

Also if there were only one SansAmp product out of the entire line that you could have access to which one would you choose?

And lastly, of the ones that you do use, what do you use them for and what instruments do you use the different SansAmp models on?

Thanks for your time.

Sans Amp Classic. Sans Amp Classic. Plug in is good too.

Kick, snare, toms, always on bass (haven't recorded a bass amp for 15(?) years), sax, wurly, B3, samplers, etc........

On a send, add in. Play with phase and LP/HP filters for even more phasey fun.
I often run it through a Rocktron Hush to control noise.

[D'Andrew]

Hello Tchad Blake,

so do you record bass direct through the Sansamp Classic? Do you use an D.I. box, too? Do you use any other tools between bass and the console?
What about the drum things you mentioned. Snare, BD etc. Do you record them through an Sansamp and why? (or just run through SansAmp at the mix? - Jules)
What about all the keyboard stuff? Sansamp plus DI box?

A short answer would be great.

Thank you for sharing all the knowledge.

Greetings

[D'Andrew]

Hi,

I want to continue with a question...

Would you use the Sansamp Classic or the Bass Driver for recording bass?
And what Sansamp is the most universal tool for guitar (and bass)?

(I have a feeling he likes ALL of them, even the plug in - Jules)

Thank you.

D'Andrew
Germany

[tchadb]

Originally Posted by D'Andrew

Hello Tchad Blake,

so do you record bass direct through the Sansamp Classic? Do you use an D.I. box, too? Do you use any other tools between bass and the console?
What about the drum things you mentioned. Snare, BD etc. Do you record them through an Sansamp and why? (or just run through SansAmp at the mix? - Jules)
What about all the keyboard stuff? Sansamp plus DI box?

A short answer would be great.

Thank you for sharing all the knowledge.

Greetings

Always the Classic in those days. Now, sometimes, the plug.
Mic channel=
DI>desk>DBX160x???>tape..
+pre/send>SA>
Line In channel=
DBX160x????>Hush>tape.
Separately.
Bass, drums, the same. Always additive. Rarely on it's own.

??????='I don't remember' or 'whatever'

[tchadb]

Originally Posted by D'Andrew

Hi,

I want to continue with a question...

Would you use the Sansamp Classic or the Bass Driver for recording bass?
And what Sansamp is the most universal tool for guitar (and bass)?

(I have a feeling he likes ALL of them, even the plug in - Jules)

Thank you.

D'Andrew
Germany

CLASSIC, CLASSIC, CLASSIC. I don't think I've ever used one on electric GTR.
Accoustic GTR, YES! Lots of that on the Ron Sexsmith records.

[D'Andrew]

Thank you for the information!

D'Andrew

[tchadb]

Originally Posted by doorknocker

Hi Tchad,

in the Bomb Factory manual for the PSA-1 plug-in you state that putting a kick drum thru a Sans Amp pedal while flipping the phase will drop the sound down an octave.
I never really understood how this works. Could you explain it a bit more?

thanks for being here!

Andi

Get yourself a good honkin kick sound with the SA added in, flip the SA phase and play with HiLoPass filters. Sometimes you can manipulate it so it sounds like the K drops an octave. All your doing is changing phase relationships just like EQ does, only more so.
Good example is 'Wicked rain" on the album Kiko by Los Lobos and probably a few other tunes on that and the album "Colossal Head".

[Ribbonmicguy]

Hi Tchad,

When you use the Sans Amp Classic, do you use anything like Little Labs PCP to convert the instrument signal into line level?

Thanks for being the guest mod!

[tchadb]

Originally Posted by Ribbonmicguy

Hi Tchad,

When you use the Sans Amp Classic, do you use gears like Little Labs PCP to convert the instrument signal into line level?

Do you also use other Sans Amp gears?

Thanks for being the guest mod!

No. Just a .25" jack to TRS. Rarely a problem. When it is PCP is great. The only other thing I use on them is a Rocktron HushII. A single end noise reduction box that sounds great.

[Tibbon]

Is this a trick unique only to the software PSA-1? I've got the hardware one, and wasn't that impressed with the software one... but this sounds interesting.

[tchadb]

Originally Posted by Tibbon

Is this a trick unique only to the software PSA-1? I've got the hardware one, and wasn't that impressed with the software one... but this sounds interesting.

Hardware Classic and PSA-1.

[tho_dk]

Originally Posted by tchad blake

No. Just a .25" jack to TRS. Rarely a problem. When it is PCP is great. The only other thing I use on them is a Rocktron HushII. A single end noise reduction box that sounds great.

In another thread you mentioned using the dyna-comp guitarpedal in mixes sometimes ... Do you hook that one up the same way ... no reamping-box on the way into the pedal and no PCP / DI-box going back into the mixer?
Also what stuff do you find yourself using the dyna-comp on?

Thanks a lot!

Thomas

[MHB850]

hay Tchad,

I was mixing an R&B tune today and multed the kick and snare through a couple of sansamp plugins and messed with the settings /did the reverse phase and it totally kicked ass. Awesome idea of yours, thanks for sharing it. Michael brauer

[pete]

hi tschad

nice to have you here answering some questions

could you tell us something about how you use sans amp on snare tracks? I use to duplicate the snare track put a sans amp on it and mess around... what about phase? do you invert the phase of the second track? do compress after the sans amp?

just some impressions

thx

[tchadb]

Originally Posted by pete

hi tschad

nice to have you here answering some questions

could you tell us something about how you use sans amp on snare tracks? I use to duplicate the snare track put a sans amp on it and mess around... what about phase? do you invert the phase of the second track? do compress after the sans amp?

just some impressions

thx

Sounds like your in the box. ?? In the analog world you don't usually have undesirable phase effect but I sometimes flop phase for added nastiness. Compression is often good. Apply to the box as well. Hear what happens.

[tchadb]

Originally Posted by MHB850

hay Tchad,

I was mixing an R&B tune today and multed the kick and snare through a couple of sansamp plugins and messed with the settings /did the reverse phase and it totally kicked ass. Awesome idea of yours, thanks for sharing it. Michael brauer

Wow, Did it really work?? ......just kidding.

[tchadb]

Originally Posted by tho_dk

In another thread you mentioned using the dyna-comp guitarpedal in mixes sometimes ... Do you hook that one up the same way ... no reamping-box on the way into the pedal and no PCP / DI-box going back into the mixer?
Also what stuff do you find yourself using the dyna-comp on?

Thanks a lot!

Thomas

I don't use it much but have in a pinch. No nothin'.
Drums and GTR.

[Oroz]

Hi Tchad, thank you very much for helping us here in the forum. It's an honor to have you here.
I was doing some tests trying to mimic your approach to distortion with the SansAmp PSA-1 plug in but I'm hearing phase problems even though delay compensation is activated. Have you experienced similar problems before? And if you had, how do you deal with that? What do you recommend me to do?

Thanks in advance!

Francisco Oroz.

[tchadb]

Originally Posted by Oroz

Hi Tchad, thank you very much for helping us here in the forum. It's an honor to have you here.
I was doing some tests trying to mimic your approach to distortion with the SansAmp PSA-1 plug in but I'm hearing phase problems even though delay compensation is activated. Have you experienced similar problems before? And if you had, how do you deal with that? What do you recommend me to do?

Thanks in advance!

Francisco Oroz.

In the box I ususally copy the track to be processed with SA and mix it in. I don't usually have problems or maybe they just don't bother me. But if I did have an undesireable phase effect, I'd probably start shifting the SA track backward or forwards with single samples until I got what I wanted. Also, play with HiLo pass filtering before you start moving things. That can alter your phase relationships drastically.
EQ=selective phase shift.

[bgrotto]

Originally Posted by Oroz

I was doing some tests trying to mimic your approach to distortion with the SansAmp PSA-1 plug in but I'm hearing phase problems even though delay compensation is activated. Have you experienced similar problems before? And if you had, how do you deal with that? What do you recommend me to do?

Heh. I was having the same problem. I found that the SansAmp plug causes about 36 samples of latency. My fix was to put the SansAmp on a duplicate track, than use Digi's Time Adjuster (set between 34 and 36 samples) plug on the clean track. It's a bummer you can't set it up an an Aux and send multiple sources to it...Oh well.

Hope that helps!

And Tchad - I really dig your work. Thanks for taking the time to geek out with us here!

[Jules]

RE Sans Amp phase & drums...

Originally Posted by tchad blake

In the box I usually copy the track to be processed with SA and mix it in. I don't usually have problems or maybe they just don't bother me. But if I did have an undesirable phase effect, I'd probably start shifting the SA track backward or forwards with single samples until I got what I wanted. Also, play with HiLo pass filtering before you start moving things. That can alter your phase relationships drastically.
EQ=selective phase shift.

Very interesting because like others here, I find there is no '100% perfect' phase relation ship with a clean snare and a processed Sans Amp copy, (even after the 1 sample increment shift game - it just always seems to have a close but not perfect phase relationship) . I can see that doing things like rolling off bass on the processed version might suddenly make more bass come through on the clean track etc etc..Cool tip must remember to try that more often.

I think the key is, some of the Sans Amped frequencies may be close in phase to the original but others will be further out of phase and have a subtractive effect on tone..

Using eq on one or both of two combined signals with close but not exact phase coherant signals can be weird (in a good way), sometimes subtractive EQ of a certain totally unexpected frequency - can have a profound (and sometimes very cool) BOOSTING effect on another frequency of the combined signal output..

[tchadb]

Originally Posted by Jules

RE Sans Amp phase & drums...



Very interesting because like others here, I find there is no '100% perfect' phase relation ship with a clean snare and a processed Sans Amp copy, (even after the 1 sample increment shift game - it just always seems to have a close but not perfect phase relationship) . I can see that doing things like rolling off bass on the processed version might suddenly make more bass come through on the clean track etc etc..Cool tip must remember to try that more often.

I think the key is, some of the Sans Amped frequencies may be close in phase to the original but others will be further out of phase and have a subtractive effect on tone..

Using eq on one or both of two combined signals with close but not exact phase coherant signals can be weird (in a good way), sometimes subtractive EQ of a certain totally unexpected frequency - can have a profound (and sometimes very cool) BOOSTING effect on another frequency of the combined signal output..

If it was IN phase it probably wouldn't sound very good to me. I've never compared on any meaningful level. Wack in on, does it sound cool? manipulate it, does it sound even cooler? yes? move on , no? move on.

[Oroz]

Just wanted to comment that this technique is helping me a lot, specially with bass, it's giving it more definition and I can hear or understand more what the bass is doing. More often than not I find myself automating the processed bass volume, dependant on song section (lowering the processed bass on soft passages and stuff like that).
Have been experimenting with drums with good results on snare and kick but not so with OH's, it's sound phasey, I need more time to figure that out and I can't wait to use it on acoustic guitars.

Thanks Tchad!

[tchadb]

Originally Posted by Oroz

Just wanted to comment that this technique is helping me a lot, specially with bass, it's giving it more definition and I can hear or understand more what the bass is doing. More often than not I find myself automating the processed bass volume, dependant on song section (lowering the proceesed bass on soft passages and stuff like that).
Have been experimenting with drums with good results on snare and kick but not so with OH's, it's sound phasey, I need more time to figure that out and I can't wait to use it on acoustic guitars.

Thanks Tchad!

Cool. Don't stop there.

[Local 47]

Tchad,
May I ask what you're trying to get out of the sansamps? Slight distortion, like an SVT set moderately, or more down and dirty fuzz tone to blend with your original drums and bass?

And second, replacing a bass amp by the SA track is probably just fine for you, but how do you deal with it when the bass blayer can't play on just the DI and SA tracks alone and wants to use his/her amp anyway? Cause now, you'd lose the added benefits of not having low end fly around the room.
Thank You,
Doug