Direct Boxes

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spantini

spantini

COO of me, inc.
I was doing a little online snooping for direct boxes when I came across this article. I'm lightly acquainted with Passive, Active and Re-Amp models but have no previous knowledge of Acoustic or Stereo.

I've used DIs in other studios - they looked like big, grey, electrical boxes with fat cables. Nothing like the small, colorful units home studios might have at hand.

This article mentions Active DIs amplifying the output of passive basses, but reducing headroom. I'm curious to know how much difference in output (sound) I could expect using one with my passive bass(es). I wouldn't want the cheapest DI, so putting out $150-200 for a model that would actually boost output without deteriorating sound quality is what I'd be shooting for.

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Radial is about as bullet-proof and neutral sound as you can get. Something like the J48 that uses phantom power, assuming you have that on the interface you're plugging into is probably going to lift your signal and keep it clean, if that's what you are looking for.

But, it's a good chunk of change for something you may not be able to hear. if you have a good interface with an INST input, that's effectively a DI. Use a good, short cable to your bass and if you're putting an amp sim on ITB, I'm not sure most folks would hear a difference on a bass track in a mix.

If the bass output is seriously wimpy, or (especially) if you're looking for something to actually change the sound, then a pickup change might be a better place to put some $. And, alternatively, an actual bass preamp with balanced output will give you more flexibility.
 
I've used the Countryman DI's on bass for stage and studio and never felt it hindered output but also always had solid phantom power. For recording and for passive, Radial Engineering makes the JDI premium with a Jensen transformer. At about $250, it is a bit over your budget but is a quality piece of gear.

There is the debate active or passive. While a transformer may have a higher input/output ability, even the Jensen isn't neutral as to sound, if the ideal is whatever you place inline should act as a wire with no color. How much and is it a bug or feature is another question. I also often used the Countryman on keys which would have a higher output than your passive bass without issue. A good quality DI of either type will work well on bass.

At one point I had a big collection of DI's including the Baggs ParaDI which was made for guitars with Piezo pickups. I kept a couple Countryman and the JDI.

Note: I skimmed the article after writing the above. While I would quibble over a few points about the Countryman, there are some solid choices and advice. For Re-amping, I just used a Whirlwind IMP for years and just reversed input and output. It's passive and doesn't care you just need to use an adaptor to make the XLR an input.
 
Spantini, do you have an instrument input on your interface? I'm wondering why you need a separate DI? I have bought and used DI's but I no longer have one and currently only use the DI's that are supplied when I play live. I found that there was no benefit to the DI's at home since the instrument input on my interface works well for me and my runs are short.
 
markmann said:
Spantini, do you have an instrument input on your interface? I'm wondering why you need a separate DI? I have bought and used DI's but I no longer have one and currently only use the DI's that are supplied when I play live. I found that there was no benefit to the DI's at home since the instrument input on my interface works well for me and my runs are short.
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Yes. There's INST selection, which is what I'm using. I don't really have a need for an outboard DI, just wondering what any increased output may sound like - how I could use it.
 
I get plenty of gain through my interface via 1/4" TS input, I've swapped out the factory pups for Geezer PJ Passives. Maybe a preamp would be more in line with what I may want - a fuller, more powerful sound going into the interface. Like a live bass rig with a separate preamp to pump up the sound in small clubs - preamp off is pretty timid, preamp on is chest-thumping. I'm using a SansAmp ITB right now and it pumps up the sound ok.

I found the Radial Engineering JDI w/Jensen transformer on sale for $194.55 + $5.49 (alternate Amazon shipper not shown). It'll probably go off-sale by the time I decide to buy - if I do.
 
Gotcha. I had high hopes that something like the Para DI would give me some kind of magical acoustic tone but I was disappointed. I get better tone with the instrument input and EQ. One thing I do at times is to use clean boost when I need a little extra oomph to my signal.
 
I don't think a passive or active DI is going to really do anything (and it shouldn't) to the "sound" going into the interface... when you say "more powerful sound" going in, are you talking about "level"? Your noise ratio shouldn't be that bad that you can just raise the volume/gain in the DAW... unless you think something else is going to happen using a DI in front of your Inst Input (DI), I think you're just throwing money out the window... ;)
 
I'd like to find out just what a DI is going to do. I don't want to change the sound, really. I guess what I'm after is more of what I described earlier about using a preamp in a live situation to increase output. I don't suppose a passive DI is going to do this.

The only analogy I can come up with is to have a bass head on top of a bass cab with a small preamp laying atop the head. Without the preamp, the bass would be plenty loud but with the preamp it would thump the chests of the audience, as well as the room itself. I'm wondering if a passive DI could somehow provide that type of preamp gain going into the interface.

So this comes around to "why not just use a preamp?" - answering the question. @keith.rogers proposed this earlier.

I'll do some further snooping on preamps for this..
 
The thing with DI boxes is that the differences between really good expensive ones and dirt cheap ones tend to relate to construction, reliability and doing the job as cleanly as possible. The thing really is that you need to think what is going on with the entire concept. You have a balanced input to your mixer, interface or recorder. It is expecting maybe micro-volts from a quiet source into a dynamic mic. On the other hand it might be milli-volts from a dynamic in front of a kick drum. Or - it could be millivolts from the output of a guitar, or a bit more from a guitar medal. Worst case it might be being fed from a computer or ipod headphone socket. All you want is no noise introduced and no distortion.

Many DI boxes have switches to allow more accurate connection to loud or quiet sources to maximise the signal to noise ratio. Most will give you things like phase switches (which are really polarity swapping switches). Some will simply be a transformer to carry out the matching process, but of course this means the number of turns inside the transformer has to be a 'best guess', so being optimum for common connections, like a guitar into a mic socket. Connected to a hot ipod, you could overload the transformer - it's called saturation and is a colouration caused by the magnetism levels. You also come across impedance problems. We've all heard about how some huigh impedance guitar pickups, especially the piezo ones becoming very dull and HF-less with long cables? Well, the same thing happens to a lesser degree with some transformers. Lots of DI boxes feature electronics to help handle the conversion between levels without becoming dull.

The upshot is the DI I bought for £8 in 1980 still works for loads of things with transparent quality as long as I use it sensibly. It rattles, because I've dropped it a few times and the brackets inside are loose, but it still works. Unlike many DI boxes, it does NOT have a through output. These are very useful - plug in a bass, use the XLR out to the PA and use the output jack to go to the amp - it simply 'sniffs' the audio passing down the cable. I have some BSS DIs - now 20 years old. They just carry on working. I don't believe in buying kit I don't need, so until one fails ....... keep using them.

The point of a DI is to not change the sound at all.
 
A bass Amp generally compresses the signal which adds "umph" to the sound the more signal you pump into it. Your interface won't do that, but the sansamp will. You can simply add gain itb to push the sansamp more.

A di won't help with what you are wanting it to do.
 
Yeah.. that's what I'm looking to find out. My SansAmp is ITB and does ok. I'm checking out bass preamps, all the accompanying videos seem to focus on mids, highs and distortion - pretty much ignoring the lows.. the guys doing the demos are more into the effects and slap. The MXR M81 has some of what I'm looking for but hardly different from my SansAmp plugin.
 
spantini said:
Yeah.. that's what I'm looking to find out. My SansAmp is ITB and does ok. I'm checking out bass preamps, all the accompanying videos seem to focus on mids, highs and distortion - pretty much ignoring the lows.. the guys doing the demos are more into the effects and slap. The MXR M81 has some of what I'm looking for but hardly different from my SansAmp plugin.
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I had a hardware sansamp (the rack mount one) and it did everything you are asking for. It seamed to give e you control over the way the highs, mids and lows distorted/compressed separately from each other. That would let you do things like distort the lows to keep them even, while having cleaner mids and highs.
 
Way back in the day doing live sound, I worked with an artist named Willy Porter fairly often. He was a protege of Michael Hedges of Windham Hill Aerial Boundaries fame, in the same vein of heavy acoustic guitar percussive style. He used a Pendulum guitar preamp with a parametric EQ and a multi-band compressor in a small rack he toured with. The point to this is that just plugging a guitar with a piezo or even a Fishman Blender system into a DI through my console and processing, it would be beyond a nightmare to get his sound right. You are searching for something, and you'll need to figure out what that is and how to achieve it.

Among the shows I've seen recently with killer bass sound. Tower of Power, Arrested Development and Michael Franti. I'm not seeing a bass amp on stage. Not a bass player but I've heard some really tasty bass sound with the bass plugged into a small stage rack with everything via PA and in ears.
 
A unit for bass that I found to be particularly excellent is the Line6 Bass Pod XT Pro. It is a modeler not a direct box.

It gets the job done.
 
Going to the extreme side, that's one of the reasons I got a Kemper. Kind of an all in one box. Haven't tried a bass through it yet, but it's ready for that too.
 
I think my difficulty is not being able to articulate what I think I want. It might be that I need to try a different bass with dual humbucking pups - something like a Music Man Sting Ray (way outside my current budget).

I'm getting the sound I want from my GZR PJ (split single humbucking + single) but want a deeper, richer low end. I had been wondering if a DI (passive or active) might push it into that area, giving me more of what I've already got, but ..
 
What happens if you just use the p-bass pickup? That should give you a darker, richer tone.
 
LazerBeakShiek said:
A unit for bass that I found to be particularly excellent is the Line6 Bass Pod XT Pro. It is a modeler not a direct box.

It gets the job done.
Click to expand...
That's got 2 or 3 models I could work with, I'd never use the rest. Even used, I couldn't justify the cost for my own use.
 
Farview said:
What happens if you just use the p-bass pickup? That should give you a darker, richer tone.
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It's always seemed what I call cloudy, so I blend in a little Jazz PU and that just eats the low end. I suppose adding a mic'd cab to the DI would produce better results, I'm looking to try a live combo under a blanket for that later this year (hopefully) and see how that works out.
 
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