Playing live - direct box questions

[warble]

Hey all-
Played live quite a bit, but never worried too much how I was connected as it was taken care of (maybe lazy, but everywhere I went the sound was already set up and ready to roll). Well, now I'm heading out with my Dad's band and we'll be doing the sound ourselves and are needing some new equipment.

My question is about direct boxes. I'm planning on running my keys (1/4" out) into a direct box and maybe the bass guitar. One of the singers gave me this input transformer and said it could be used for the same purpose:

http://www.radioshack.com/product.as...D017&hp=search

I'm thinking I want to pick up a couple high quality direct boxes, but am curious if the above mentioned transformer/adapter isn't doing a similar thing.

[boingoman]

It does the same thing, but a nice DI box will have a better transformer, which is the most important part.

A DI box will/should also have a signal ground lift to help break ground loops, a must, especially when travelling to venues where the wiring is an unknown.

As far as the bass, well.....try things out. It may just sound better one way or the other.

[Cave Dweller]

a ground lift is absolutely necessary

[warble]

Thanks for the input - definitely going the direct box route.

[SKYflyer]

i hope you dont mind answering this kind of off topic thing but, why do you need a direct box for keys? is it just so that there is less interference and stuff in the signal as the cable would have to be very long and interference might be picked up were it not using a direct box? Or am i completely wrong here?

[mikeh]

Skyflyer - Valid question.


My guess is that the mixing board may indeed be too far from where the keys are - which would require too long of a Hi Z cable. I wnat alos prefer a decent DI box to a Radio Shack transformer.

I've worked with bands that simply want everything into the snake (even if you are relatively close to the board) - which often means a DI for anything with a 1/4" jack.

[warble]

We'll be using a 100' snake, so I'm thinking that going balanced (XLR) will be a good choice in regards to signal quality. That and it will be nice to have the ground lift if needed. I have a Yamaha S80, and I've encountered AC hum before at various places.