What is the decent DI box?

M

musicmaker

New member
I am looking for a decent DI box for direct recording into my VS recorder. The DI box able to work as mic-pre is also an extra advantage for me as I going to get a Rode NT1 mic.
The DI should be able to work with heavy guitar signal such as the heavy distortion guitar signal out from my guitar effect. Rackmount is preferably but no problem with the box type as well. The budget is around 100-150 US dollar. Thank you.

wai
 
Or the presonous Bluetube.

Do a search on those two here on the BBS and you'll find loadsof discussions about em. If you get an ART Tube MP, get the one with a VU meter, and not the one with just a clipping LED.
 
Waitaminut.....

...A DI box is a DI box, a mic pre is NOT a DI box.

A DI box is used to take guitar/bass (or any high-impedance signal) and run it into the console (or a mic pre!) directly. No effects/amps are involved at all - it's simply an impedance-matching device between the guitar's pickup signal and the console/mic-pre input.

Using a separate mic pre changes nothing, as you still need a DI box to get the signal into it. If your amp has a line out, then THAT can be connected to the mic pre or console directly, WITHOUT a DI box.

Geddit?

:)

Bruce
 
DUDE!!!!

Guitar and vocals are 2 different monstes completely.
A d.i. is made by sans amp and can be had for under $200, but its not the type of thing you use for vocals.

For vocals Id avoid the art mp's as theyre design is inherently flawed being that it doesnt generate enough voltage to actually drive the tubes.The pre sonus blue tube is a much better choice, but for under $1,000 the difference between a blue tube and peavy's tube pre amp or a joe meek is noticable.You pay for quality.

Perhaps if you can bend the budget a little the best way to go would be a yamaha dg, or j-station for guitars and the pre sonus blue tube for vocals.
 
Actually ive found some d.i's that are selling for $60
http://www.samash.com
just go there and look under d.i.

for vocals you could getb the pre sonus blue tube($150)

with that combo youd stay wihin budget.
but a yamaha dg, or a pod would give you more for guitar.D.I's are usually really useful when using a high quality pre amp such as an avolon or manley, but other than that theres better options for direct guitar.
 
Thank for the useful reply from all you guys.
ok, if DI and Mic-pre is totally different thing, then I probably will looking for the mic-pre only since I can use my line out of my Marshall guitar amplifier to go direct into the VS recorder. But what is the result by using line out to my VS recorder when recording distortion guitar sound? Will the sound become very plastic?

I would like to ask another question as well. I am not really understand the stereo track mean. I have ask this question so many time but I can't get a solid answer, they usually told me, stereo track mean record the sound into 2 track......etc, is it that simple to create stereo image? If I record a guitar sound into track 1, and pan it slightly to left or right, then I will hear different level of sound come out from L and R speaker, the sound now is much better than which the pan is set to the middle, the sound seem a bit away from my face, is this can be consider the stereo sound?
Ok, I record the guitar by channel link, track 1 and 2 will record the exactly same thing at once, now how I am going do with the pan setting of these tracks so that stereo image can become obviouly?
If I set both pan at the middle, it will sound exactly a single track playing with pan set to middle, if I set the track 1 pan to slightly L or R, then some image starting to creat, futher on, set the track 2 pan to slightly L or R, thing will change again, with these two track ........ok, I just want to know can single track creat stereo image by using the pan knob? And, what is the main purpose to record two tracks? How is the pan setting? How you guy difine stereo image in fact? Hope you guys will help me on this so basic matter. Thank you!
 
You can pan a single track and place it anywhere in the stereo field but that is not stereo recording. All you are doing when panning is changing the relative volume of the left and right speakers so that you are creating the illusion that the mono source is situated somewhere in the stereo field. There are some general rules about where to place things but those rules can be broken also. There are some good books on the subject.
 
I'm almost certain that the Blue tube doubles as a di box. At. I've been using it for bass di with good results.

-Jett Rocker
 
A direct box and preamp aren't really the same thing. A direct box converts an instrument-level input (like a guitar) into a balanced line-level so that you can plug directly into a mixer via an XLR connector. They are also used when running a really long microphone cable on stage. Do you need one in a home studio ? I don't but I know people who use them to go direct with a bass guitar or acoustic-electric.

The Presonus BlueTube will work for recording bass but doesn't give you any real tone controls other than driving the tube. A Bass Pod is a better alternative. Having said that, the BlueTube is great with drum machines and keyboards, especially if you are going for a fat, slighty-dirty sound. Well worth it considering the high price of most tube preamps.
 
Wide Awake, your descrioption of a DI box sound amazingly much like what a preamp is... :)

I think the confusion arises from that many boxes do both the impedance matching AND the level boost, right?

Both ART and PreSonus does claim that their preamps can take both mics and instruments, so it should be able to work as a DI box too, right? Or am I missing something? I hate analog electronics... :)

Mics are low-impedance, right?
 
Reg...

The use of DI comes from the concept of getting the guitar's pickup sound directly to the console, bypassing the guitar amplifier completely. The intention after having recorded that way would be to re-amp that signal to restore the "tone" of the guitar that is lost not having gone thru its amp.

The reason is that the tone directly off the pickups is not generally usable in many cases - it simply doesn't have the coloration it normally would have. This is ok though, because you're going to be "coloring" it by running the recorded signal back thru an amp, or a POD or some other guitar processor that will restore the typical tone.

SO.......... if you then use a preamp to try and "color" a direct guitar signal, you are still not acheiving that amp-driven guitar tone (because a mic-pre is not designed to do that) but yet you're changing the signal off the pickups in a way that may affect how easy it is to "re-amp" that guitar signal after the fact.

Mic pres advertised as instrument pres is not wrong or false advertising - but the instruments they're talking about is keyboards and the like - ones that don't require an amp to "give it the tone".

The guitar is different in that there are really 2 stages to the sound - the signal off the pickups, and the end resulting sound of THAT signal being run thru an amp or POD-type device. In recording using a DI, you simply want to accurately capture that first stage only - signal right off the pickups. The second stage gets applied later. I suppose the next question might be why? This technique allows you get the guitar performance recorded first, then the actual tone can be worked out later, during mixdown. This allows for great flexibility because right until mixdown you can select an appropriate amp tone to suit the song, without having to have the guitarist around!

If you had originally recorded the sound with the amp and at mixdown found the sound inappropriate, you'd have no choice but to re-cut the track.

The downside of the DI technique is also its advantage - flexibility - if you defer enough of these sonic decisions until mix-down, you can easily lose perspective of what the song originally was supposed to sound like in the first place. There IS something to be said for finding the guitar tone you want and simply recording it right then and there (without DI) - and NOT waiting unitl mix-down to decide the tone.

Yikes... long thread! ;)

Hope it explains it though!

Bruce
 
regebro--I think there are blurry lines between what direct boxes and preamps do. For instance, what would be the difference in sound between recording a synthesizer with a direct box and a very transparent, solid state preamp? I don't think there would be much of a difference, so I use preamps instead. A Pod or J-station type of device probably converts the signal the same way a direct box does because you are able to plug the Pod directly into the mixer. Someone probably has that answer.

bvaleria is right about using a direct box so that you can later re-amp the part. I like that concept but whenever I have tried that I didn't like the results and I ended up just re-playing the part again.
 
Well a pod and the blue tube are pre amps that have instument inputs eliminating the need for a d.i.

A di does not act as a pre amp, it merely converts the signal into something a mic pre amp can accept.The pod and the blue tube dont require this as theyre made with that use in mind.

higher end "d.i.'s" such as the one by manley are actually pre amp and di hybirds.A di is simple, but with units such as the manley and blue tube marketing departments have blurred the terminology i guess.
 
Well a pod and the blue tube are pre amps that have instument inputs eliminating the need for a d.i.

A di does not act as a pre amp, it merely converts the signal into something a mic pre amp can accept.The pod and the blue tube dont require this as theyre made with that use in mind.

higher end "d.i.'s" such as the one by manley are actually pre amp and di hybirds.A di is simple, but with units such as the manley and blue tube marketing departments have blurred the terminology i guess.
 
The Art MP's make a good DI box for acoustic guitars, and it's ok on bass. I disagree with some things said in this thread a little here. We've actually made it more complicated than it is! The DI dosen't convert the signal into something a mic pre can accept, it converts it to a line level signal to go into a recorder, or a line input on a mixer. You would be defating the pupose by going into a mic pre inbetween. A mic pre can accept any level (well, not really speaker or headphone levels!) but a DI can't accept mic levels. So in short a mic pre can be used as a DI and a DI can't be used as a mic pre.

The trick of "reamping" that Bruce talks about is a good one. There is a company that make a box called "reamp" that converts a line level signal back to a high impedence signal like that of a guitar pickup. NEAT! I like to do this on synth tracks especially, send them back out to a tube amp and mic the amp. (my keyboard is a toy, but this way I can get some OK sounds) ON a recent project I did something similar to this but with a snare track. It's machanically a very different process, but it's reamping in a way. I placed a speaker on top of a (better sounding) snare, soloed (and gated and put on a high pass filter)the snare track, cranked the speaker, and miced the bottom of the snare. It sounds more "natural" than you would think! I was surprised at how well it turned out, blending the now two snare tracks, and I was very happy to have a snare sound that was useable! anyway... I'm done rambling....

-jhe
 
Suggestions for mid-price segment

for guitar: POD
for bass: sansamp
for vocals: joemeek

That's it.

David
 
Well, thing's are not very clear too me...

So the DI is used for impedance adaptation, because of the very special impedances of guitar pickups, but also of bass pickups (that's what I play...), OK.

The preamp on the other side is an AMPLIFIER as it names implies, it usually colors the sound through personnality, and sometimes EQ, compressor, whatever. So a preamp output is line-level. OK.

For me, the mystery resides in mixers inputs : you usually get 2 type of inputs : mic inputs, with built-in pre-amp, so it AMPLIFIES the signal, and line-level inputs, which don't AMPLIFY the signal (yeah, I know, my AMPLIFIER is loud...).
What are those inputs respective impedance (I mean, low, mid, high or fuc***' high ?). If you use a external preamp, you plug it into a line input, no ? And if you want to get a good bass sound for example, why can't you plug the bass into an outboard preamp which has an instrument input ?

Sorry if I just seem dumb... And if you feel like you thought you understood everything before my message, but now you just don't understand a god damn thing, well, I apologize once again :)

El BoJ
 
Hehe, lovely lot of confusion here.
Wide Awake: Yup. Someone has the answer. Like me and Bruce. I think my answer and Bruces basically is the same, but with different wordings.

El Boj: Excellent question. I'd like a comprehensive answer to that to. I THINK I know how it is, but I don't want to guess right now. :)
 
regebro....I still don't think a direct box and preamp always do the same things. Most direct boxes on the market don't allow you to control the amplification of the signal, that's a huge distinction. Most direct boxes are only converting an unbalanced instrument-level signal into a balanced line-level signal. That's why direct boxes are not called preamps.
 
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