Choosing a direct box for bass < $50

osus

osus

New member
Hey-yo.

First up the ususal blah, blah about sorry-if-this-has-already-been-covered-to death, i've searched and read but i'd like some practical-experience responses to a specific set of questions, so I have thus posted:

I'm looking to buy a direct box for my bass. I'm playing in a bedroom with a band (bass / vox, guitar, drums, keys / bell kit / 2nd guitar, sax, it gets cramped) and we're recording through a delta 1010 to audition. we're trying to isolate sounds as much as possible (tough in the space) for work-in-progress recordings.

I love my amp (70's ampeg v4) and would like to get as much of it as possible onto the recording, so i'm leaning towards something that can take speaker-level input. I'd like something that is relatively transparent (again, i like my amp) although the Behringer GI-100 says it should do exactly what I want, I'm into simplicity and tend not to trust emulation and modeling.

I've read that passive DI's cut frequencies that active ones preserve. I've read that active DI's 'color' frequencies that passive ones preserve. I'm guessing that a lot of both of these possibilities have to do with the unit in question moreso than the principle they're built upon.

Behringer seems to be the object of a lot of love/hate on these boards, but they are exactly in my price range, and I haven't found much outside of my price range that doesn't have a lot of features I'm not interested in (effects, eq, tubes, modeling, etc.)

So, with all that in mind, what would the assembled community recommend?

Right now my contenders are (for > $ 50):

ART PDB (or dPDB)
Behringer DI-100
Behringer DI-120
Behringer GI-100
Rolls DB 25

Oh, and i don't have phantom power (unless m-audio snuck it in without mentioning it).

cheers,

osus
 
hmm... looks interesting

looks nice, right price... and it could have other applications if it didn't work out with bass the way i wanted... anyone here have good / bad experiences using it as a bass DI?

thanks for the reply,

osus
 
osus said:
looks nice, right price... and it could have other applications if it didn't work out with bass the way i wanted... anyone here have good / bad experiences using it as a bass DI?

thanks for the reply,

osus
Click to expand...
From what I've read on this board and other boards, and some reviews on Musician's Friend, et al, bass is about the only thing they are good for...

But don't take my word for it, I don't use a DI box. I plug my bass into my mixer (which I bought a week or so ago, before that, I plugged it straight into my MR-8).
 
Well, this is a pretty difficult question that I don't think I can answer for you entirely, but I'll try to give you as much help as I can.

First of all, I get the sense that you have some confusion about direct boxes and how they work. A direct box simply takes a high impedance signal and converts it to a low impedance signal, or vice versa. Most of the time, you plug your bass (or whatever) directly into the direct box and then go out from that to your recorder or mixer. Used in this fashion, your signal never passes through your amplifier at all, it's just the bass to the direct box and on to the recorder. You were talking about DI's that have effects, tubes, modeling, etc... Most of the units that have these features are not direct boxes, they are preamplifiers. There are a few direct boxes that do, indeed, have tubes, but they are rather expensive. (Ampeg makes one, as does Groove Tubes. The GT unit is basically just a stripped down version of the Brick, from what I can tell, the main difference being that it does NOT take a mic signal.) But, if a device has eq and/or effects, then that would be a preamp, not a direct box. I can sort of understand your confusion, since you use a preamp in very much the same way as a direct box. You plug your bass into the unit and go from there to the recorder. But, once again, if you go this route, you are still BYPASSING your amplifier entirely. The preamp is, essentially, your bass amp in this case.

The Ampeg V4 is, indeed, an awesome sounding rig, and I certainly don't blame you for wanting to track with it. However, you need to be aware of a few things. First of all, of the devices that you listed, only the Rolls appears to be able to take a speaker output. This means that this is the only one that would even allow you to have the V4 in the signal chain. However, the V4 is also an all tube amplifier (i.e. it has a tube preamp AND a tube amplifier, which is the main reason that it sounds so damn good in the first place). Anyway, if you have an all tube amp, then you MUST have a speaker plugged into the output of the amp, or you can blow your amplifier up! Even if you find a direct box that will take the signal from the amp, and use this to plug into your recorder, you will STILL need to have a speaker plugged in. And, if you have to have a live speaker in the room, then you're not gaining all the things that (I assume) you are trying to accomplish with a direct box (namely, isolation from the other instruments). In other words, if you have to have a live cabinet in the room anyway, you don't really need a direct box in the first place. Just throw a mic in front of the speaker to get your signal, and call it done. Furthermore, most heads have a "direct out" or "recording out" jack on the amp head itself, that takes the signal off of your preamp (but before the power amp) and will give you a signal that you can record with. (All five of my bass amps have one, including my Ampeg, which is not a V4.) This would give you what you need withOUT buying a direct box. But still, never forget that with an all tube head, you STILL must plug in a speaker cabinet.

Don't know if this helps you or just confuses you more, but feel free to ask more questions if something is still unclear.
 
now i'm confused about whether i was confused....

i'm pretty sure i wasn't confused, but then, i've read a lot of philosophy and after a while reality becomes a pretty shifty prospect...

the websites for most the DI's i listed indicate that they take speaker-level inputs (which is why i'd narrowed down to those). The v4 has both an amp out (preamp stage, like you said, to allow you to go to a second power amp) and an extension speaker out (if you have multiple cabs). I was planning on using the speaker out, so that i'd get the oomph of my four glowing 5881's. Is this infeasible / unwise? I had supposed that with a direct box that is switchable to accept line, preamped or speaker level sources that i could mess around with choosing whichever works best.

has anyone had any experience with the GI-100 'Ultra-G?' (names like that are really cool, aren't they? I think I'm gonna change my name.) It does sound like it does the thing that i'm imagining i need something to do. And it says that the speaker simulation was designed by Juergen Rath. So, I mean, come on--that right there, it's like shooting a fish in a bucket.

now i'm getting out of hand in my own thread.
 
osus said:
has anyone had any experience with the GI-100 'Ultra-G?' (names like that are really cool, aren't they? I think I'm gonna change my name.) It does sound like it does the thing that i'm imagining i need something to do. And it says that the speaker simulation was designed by Juergen Rath. So, I mean, come on--that right there, it's like shooting a fish in a bucket.
Click to expand...

I have a GI-100. The cabinet simulator actually makes the bass tone sound really nice. However, it also adds a significant amount of noise to the signal, which is not cool for my mostly acoustic music. I use it for DI purposes, but rarely have the cabinet simulator engaged. I'd rather add that effect later with a less noisy plugin.
 
osus said:
the websites for most the DI's i listed indicate that they take speaker-level inputs (which is why i'd narrowed down to those). The v4 has both an amp out (preamp stage, like you said, to allow you to go to a second power amp) and an extension speaker out (if you have multiple cabs). I was planning on using the speaker out, so that i'd get the oomph of my four glowing 5881's. Is this infeasible / unwise? I had supposed that with a direct box that is switchable to accept line, preamped or speaker level sources that i could mess around with choosing whichever works best.
Click to expand...

Brad is correct. If the DI takes speaker level, it still must be connected to a speaker, if the amp is tube or solid state.

Oh, and watch the wattage. ;)
 
sorry, i think i was unclear--i'm planning to connect the DI to the speaker extension out, and leave the main speaker out connected to my cabinet. would this pose problems? (so my head is running both the cabinet, and the DI as a secondary 'cabinet')
 
Well, you wouldn't plug it into the extension speaker out, you'd just plug it into the primary speaker out. You would come out of the speaker output jack, into the direct box, and then from the direct box into the speaker. You COULD plug it into the extension speaker out, but you'd still need to have a speaker plugged in after the direct box. The DI is not a substitute for a speaker cabinet.

Once again, you need to remember that most of the direct boxes will not handle a speaker level signal. (Certainly none of the Behringer units that I did a quick search on at Musician's Friend appeared to do that.) And, as Boingoman pointed out, you would have to watch the wattage, too. That is, if you do find a DI that accepts a speaker level signal, you'd want to make sure that it could handle as much wattage as you'll be feeding it. (Although this shouldn't be a problem with a 100 watt amp.)
 
First of all, osus, I apologize. I should have read your message more closely. It sounds like you've already done your research and have found that all the DI's that you mentioned will, indeed, take a speaker level signal. So, you've already got that settled. My mistake.

I would like to point out, however, that you can probably get a perfectly acceptable sound without buying ANY direct box at all. Just take the preamp out to your recorder. While much of the tone of an electric guitar amp is, indeed, dependent on the sound of the POWER amp tubes being driven into distortion, the vast majority of the tone of a bass amp comes from the preamp section. So, before you spend any money on a cheap DI, which might be too noisy to use for recording, I'd recommend that you first experiment with the signal from the preamp output of your head to see if that works for you. You might be perfectly happy with the sound that you get, and then you'd have saved yourself some money.
 
Ah. That makes sense--so the DI needs to be connected in series, with the cabinet as the final output... I wasn't getting that you needed to connect the speaker to the amp through the DI box, I thought you just meant that the amp still needed to be connected to a speaker. duh.

I'm curious--according to Behringer's website both the DI-100 and GI-100 can take speaker level inputs... what are they referring to? Their exact words are "Go ahead and plug that guitar amp's speaker output into the ULTRA-DI—it’ll deal with ratings of up to 3,000 Watts". Obviously I'm not messing around with that much power...

Thanks again for the responses--I'm glad I second-guessed myself and solicited you guy's assistance before buying...

osus
 
oops, i was writing my reply at the same time as you were writing yours... no need to apologize--I was being obtuse. And thanks for the suggestion--I'll definitely try running straight from the preamp out... money saved and all that. I'm assuming this won't cause impedence problems?

Hmmm... which prompts an amplifier question... I'm assuming that the 'ext. amp' output on the back of the v4 is unbalanced, is this correct?

Thanks again
 
Hey Osus, I have the GI100 and it works fine as a DI. I usually phantom power it (which is easy on battery cost, and guarantees solid power). Im not a bassist, but I use it on bass sometimes when our band gigs. I've used it in other applications with good success as well.

I wasnt sure I really needed a DI, but I bought one so the band could inject bass into the PA mix when gigging. They're a nice little tool to have, especially for the cost. I have no illusions that its great quality though. Mind you, I've never heard a real high quality input transformer anyways (jensen etc)...

To echo Scrubs, the cab simulator is noisy sounding, and Í dont like the effect either (with guitar anyways). I havent tried the direct-speaker thing (that I can remember) because I prefer to mic my guitar amps at this point.

The input pad is useful.
 
I have had the GI-100 for a few months, and I like it (and you can't beat the price!).
I use it in between my amp head and the speaker cab, then take the balanced line out to the board and recorder. I use the cab simulator and I do not get any additional noise out of mine - in fact, with the cab sim ON, there's less upper noise/hiss/frequencies coming through. Maybe the design was changed, maybe I got one that doesn't make noise, who knows? I also tried it with phantom power and battery - same good results.
I run my amp around 30 watts with one pad switch in, and it takes the power fine.

I tried plugging my bass directly into the GI-100 (no amp) and used the cab simulator, and it really sounded good! Full frequency, no low end cut off or rumble, I was pleasantly surprised!

I completely recommend this unit - I didn't have too large an expectation when I bought it, but I've since been using it for all recording - I put the mics back into the closet! And for live use, sending a feed to the PA it's perfect!
 
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