Best Bass DI box

[Reggaesoldier]

I was curious about your experiences with bass DI boxes. I know there are $600 ones such as the Demeter VTDB-2B Tube Direct Box And even cheap ones such as the Hartke VXL Bass Attack Pedal and Direct Box but I wanted to know what kind of ups and downs any of you have faced with any Bass DI box you use. What are the good, the bad, and the ugly?

[bcains]

The ones that are pretty popular are;
Countryman DI, Sansamp, Radicals' and Whirlwinds'.
The countryman i see recommend on every forum, yet i havent had any
experience with it, i cant seem to find one here in AUS.
But i have the Radical JDI MK3 and also the Radical X-amp and they are very solid. IMO

[Bassman Brad]

Well, I have a Whirlwind passive direct box. I've owned it for at least a couple of decades. Don't have much to say about it either positive or negative. It does what it's supposed to do - match the impedance of your bass so you can jack in direct to a recording console. But it really doesn't do anything for your tone. In these situations, you basically find your tone through the use of EQ and compression. I've also used the Countryman DI on several occasions, and I'd have to say that I find it somewhat more "musical" than the Whirlwind, although the difference is subtle. I don't know if I would call either of them "the best" though. I do understand that Avalon makes a really, really nice one.

The SansAmp is really nice, but it's not actually a "DI" per se. It's a full featured bass preamp, which just happens to fit in a convenient stomp box. I would personally be MUCH more likely to record bass through something like this. I have the MIDI-capable, rackmount version, called the PSA-1. I also use the preamp output jack of any of my assorted bass amps for recording. This usually give much better results than a plain vanilla DI, as far as I'm concerned. In fact, I can't honestly remember the last time I recorded bass with a DI. I usually record direct from some sort of bass preamp. Either the SansAmp, or my Boss GT6-B, or the pre from one of my bass heads.

Another good way to direct inject your bass signal into the recorder is to use a mic pre. The tube pres tend to sound pretty good on bass. In fact, I've heard people claim they got excellent results with the Presonus Tube MP, which is generally NOT well thought of as a mic pre. I've been very tempted toward getting a Groove Tubes Brick for this same purpose. At $400, it's reasonably priced for a quality direct box. You could consider it's uses as a mic pre to be a free bonus and, unlike the Presonus, it certainly IS considered a nice tube pre for a mic. For that matter, almost all of the quality mic pres out there these days have a 1/4" high impedance jack, and can be used with great results as a bass pre.

My point is, although people always talk about recording bass "direct" with a "direct box," much of the time that they are tracking bass, they are actually using a preamp of some sort (either a bass pre or a mic pre), rather than a passive direct box. And this approach will generally yield better results, IMHO. As always, experiment as much as possible and find what works for you.

Brad

[Fenderville]

If you have a passive bass should the DI also be passive?

[Adam P]

A passive bass into a passive DI is still going to have to be run to a preamp. All the passive DI is doing is changing the impedance. You still need to bring it up to the proper level. You'll be at the mercy of whatever tone shaping capabilities your preamp provides you with. It's useful if you want to reamp, but I don't think I'd record a DI bass track to keep this way.

I use the SansAmp for my bass DI duties. Its a full bass preamp that can also function as a stomp box for live use. For recording I just run the XLR output directly into my HD24 using a XLR-TRS cable and tweak the settings until I get a sound that I like. Live, I plugged my bass into the SansAmp, sent the XLR output to the house PA, and sent the parallel unaffected output to my bass amp. I used the SansAmp to simulate my amp's sound in the house PA, getting a sound very similar to my amp without having to mic up my cabinet. I then used my amp's sound to fill out the stage sound so I could hear myself. It's a really versatile little unit and well worth the price, especially if you can pick one up on eBay for around $100 or so.

[nkjanssen]

Originally Posted by Bassman Brad

My point is, although people always talk about recording bass "direct" with a "direct box," much of the time that they are tracking bass, they are actually using a preamp of some sort (either a bass pre or a mic pre), rather than a passive direct box.

You're always going to need a preamp with a DI. Some DI's, like the Avalon, have a low-gain preamp built in and you can actually go to a line-in with those. Many mic pres have instrument inputs, which is really just a DI in front of the preamp stage. But whether the components are in the same box or not, you're pretty-much always going to need a gain stage after a DI before you hit your converters (or tape).

I like the Radial stuff (note: it's "Radial", not "Radical"). Both their passive JDI and their active JDV are very nice. I have an Avalon U5 as well, and its definately more flexible than the Radial units (has EQ, gain stage, etc.), but I wouldn't say it necessarily sounds better. If you can't get a good sound out of the Radial units, the DI definately isn't the problem.

[Adam P]

Originally Posted by nkjanssen

You're always going to need a preamp with a DI. Some DI's, like the Avalon, have a low-gain preamp built in and you can actually go to a line-in with those. Many mic pres have instrument inputs, which is really just a DI in front of the preamp stage. But whether the components are in the same box or not, you're pretty-much always going to need a gain stage after a DI before you hit your converters (or tape).

I think what he meant was that some people might be under the impression that they can go out, buy a $20 passive DI, plug the bass into the DI and the DI into the recorder and they're good to go, which, as you've pointed out, isn't the case.

[easychair]

Originally Posted by Fenderville

If you have a passive bass should the DI also be passive?

In general, a passive instrument will work better with an active DI.

[vcgeetar]

I generally used my trident 4t celebration channel strip for bass di. its got this knob called eq magic which i think is just a variable shelf but im not sure but it seems to fatten up my bass tracks plus its got a killer eq, compressor, and mic pre.

[robin watson]

I picked one of these up as 'junk' for $5 a while back, and got it up and running. It's a fully-featured bass preamp with DI out, and built in compressor. I'm not sure if the comp is up to snuff, but it works. It's so tonally flexible that you should find pretty much any tone you want from most any instrument. The DI works well. It's pretty quiet, too.

[Reggaesoldier]

Thanx for the input. I actually have a DMP3 witch has direct ins for both channel A and B do you think that would work for the bass aswell? I am getting a bass pretty soon, and I don't want to get an amp yet because I live in an apartment and my friendly neighbors would become unfriendly once the damn thing was turned up, so that's why I was interested in a DI box. Plus I've heard of people getting better results with a DI box that just miking the amp.
Thanks again.

[Adam P]

The DMP3's instrument inputs would work. You wouldn't have any EQ control though aside from the low-cut filter.

[Reggaesoldier]

Originally Posted by Adam P

The DMP3's instrument inputs would work. You wouldn't have any EQ control though aside from the low-cut filter.

That makes sense, but my dmp3 runs into a mixer then on to an Mr8. Is there anything else that I would need or you would recommend, when it comes to EQing the signal other than the Hi Low and Mid?
Thanks again.