Direct in box

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Joyof60

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Recording two acoustic guitars with internal pickups. Both are powered with a 9v battery. Should I still use a direct in box to bring the signals up to line level or should the powered pickups be sufficient. I have a pair of cheap MXL 991s, would it be better to mic them and turn the pickups off?
 
Recording acoustic guitar is usually best recorded with microphones.
 
Microphones will usually sound better.

The answer to your question depends on the exact unit you have. Some acoustic guitars actually have xlr mic level outputs. The battery is to run the eq and preamp that brings the extremely low level piezo pickup signal up to something useabl, but whether that is line level or instrument level kind of depends on which one you have.

Sometimes a passive direct box will take off some of the nasty high end that those pickups tend to have.
 
But most passive direct boxes will step down the level, which is probably the wrong direction to go. As was mentioned above, mics are best. I've never tried one, but the 991 is said to be pretty good for acoustic guitar. Otherwise, and without knowing more, I'd guess you can get away with just plugging straight to a line input.
 
There are a variety of ways to record acoustic guitar but it really depends on the sound you want.
You can get away with using both mics and the internal pick ups and blending the two into one sound or using creative panning for your guitar sound.
But everything I've said is and will be dependent on the sound you are aiming for.
 
Thanks guys! sorry it took so long to respond. It seems that the line level is sufficient to record nicely, and yes the 991's do sound better! although they pick up a good bit of ambient noise.(I gotta turn the air off, shut down the cooling fans in the DAW, muzzle the dog, feed the neighbors etc.) Although Grims idea produced some nice tasty tracks. Thanks for steppin a little outside the box for me! Thanks again to everyone for the help once again!!
 
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