Using A Direct Box From A Guitar Amp Live?

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ghetto3jon

New member
hello. i'm tired of brainless soundguys mic'ing my guitar amp like an idiot. the past three shows, the sound guy mic'd the wood next to the speaker in my amp, and mic'd the wood in between the two speakers in my friends amp. then the stands fall over while we play...THUD!...what a disaster.

so has anyone had any experience with the following: plugging an output of an amp (send, line out, speaker out) into a direct box, and the direct box goes into the house pa...wouldn't that result in a more reliable connection to the house pa, while still retaining the tone of your amp? it sounds like a good idea to me...but i don't know much about live sound, i have to admit.

thanks,
jon.
 
Mics sound better.

If you are going direct, do not use the speaker out. It has too much power. You want to use either a line out, or the send from the effects loop. However, if you use the send, you need to make sure that it is a half normalled connection (which is to say, the signal still shows up at the return when you plug into the send).


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
i have no doubt that a well mic'd amp sounds better, but that's the thing. i play out quite a bit, mosty at rock and roll clubs where the sound guys don't even try to mic things correctly. in a small/medium sized club (when 60% of you guitar sound is coming out of your amp, and 40% is coming out of the house pa), a direct box out of the amp's send seems like an easy way to get a reliable signal to the board, allowing me to concentrate on other sound issues (hearing vocals in the monitors, perhaps?). i've played way to many shows where the sound guys spends too much time mic'ing all of the members of my band (three guitars, a bass, drums, and a sampler), and then we have to play without a sound check.

i'm just looking for a faster, more reliable way to get our guitar sounds to the house so they can fill the room a little bit, and give us enough time to sound check. knowing that most of our volume would still be coming from our amps (and only a small amount from the house pa) do you still still a DI from the amp is a bad idea?

(i really appreciate the advice...thanks!)
jon.
 
ghetto3jon said:
i have no doubt that a well mic'd amp sounds better, but that's the thing. i play out quite a bit, mosty at rock and roll clubs where the sound guys don't even try to mic things correctly.

. . . [stuff cut for brevity]

i've played way to many shows where the sound guys spends too much time mic'ing all of the members of my band (three guitars, a bass, drums, and a sampler), and then we have to play without a sound check.
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We specify that we *must* have a sound check, and that we must appriove the setup, as part of the contract if we're not doing our own sound. We also specify there's a 25% additional charge if THEIR sound guys are late and throw us off schedule. If we're late, then we play half price.There's no excuse for not doing a sound check if everybody shows up on time to set up.

We're weekend warriors, but we've been doing this for twenty years, and have a few simple rules when booking a gig:

1) Get it writing - terms, times, fees, etc.
2) Make sure that if one party (you or the venue!) doesn't hold up their end of the contract, it costs them.

It's amazing how much this simplifies dealing with clubs - especially the smaller ones.
 
yeah. that's good advice. it's just that sometimes we find ourslves scrambling to get our stuff set up in a reasonable amout of time (restless crowds are not good). i thought the DI would really simplify the live setup, and allow us to concentrate on other things. has anyone had any experience with running a DI from a fx send? (keeping in mind we're going for a 50-50 guitar amp/house pa mix)
 
ghetto3jon said:
has anyone had any experience with running a DI from a fx send? (keeping in mind we're going for a 50-50 guitar amp/house pa mix)
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Usually when I do this I regard my amp as a monitor for the guitar. Matter of fact, if I KNOW the venue's large enough for the guitar to need "help" from the PA I"ll bring my 15 watt Vox or my 25 watt Fender instead of humping my 120 watt (and 85 pound) Peavey Duel 212. That way I let the PA do the work, while saving my back and my ears.
 
ghetto3jon said:
do you run a DI from your amp send, and the results are ok?
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All my amps have a line out that I can use for a patch to the PA. This is what I use. Make sure the PA channel you're using is set to expect a line level signal, otherwise unpleasant sounds may occur.

If all you have availble is an effects loop, you'll need the send to be half normalled, which means the signal to the effects loop is split off from the feed to the power amp, instead of simply being shunted into the send when the loop is in use. (Blue Bear will correct me if I'm simplifying too much ;))

Quick check: patch from the effects send to the PA. If there's no sound from the amp speaker, the send isn't half normalled.
 
"All my amps have a line out that I can use for a patch to the PA. This is what I use."

...and how does it sound compared to your amp mic'd through the pa?
 
ghetto3jon said:
"All my amps have a line out that I can use for a patch to the PA. This is what I use."

...and how does it sound compared to your amp mic'd through the pa?
Click to expand...

Depends on which amp, how well the mike is placed and which mike is used. I'll break it down by amp for ya:

Peavey Duel 212: This one's all tube, 2x12, 120 watts, born to rock. I mike this one with an SM 57 on the left speaker (starts to break up at lower volumes) pointed at the sweet spot I marked with one of those little "dot" stickers. Mike grille is 2 -3 inches from the speaker grille, back of the mike angled slightly towards the left side of the amp. The sweet spot? I had to hunt for it, sat in front of the amp with headphones on for hours looking for it :eek:

The line out sound on this one doesn't compare at all. Mike it.

Vox Pathfinder 15: Solid-state, 15 watts, best sounding $99 amp I've ever heard in my life. Great for jazz and blues by itself, with the pedalboard and the amp set sqeaky clean, makes a good, easy to hump rock rig.

This one's line out all the way on a gig. It's miked sound and line out sound don't differ that much, and it's simpler just to plug a cord between the line out on the amp, and a line in on the PA.


Fender Bassman 25: This one's solely a stage monitor used with the guitar. The signal from the pedalboard is split, with one out running to the PA and the other to the effects return on the Bassman so I'm just using the power amp stage.

Hope this helps ya out.
 
What I used to do back in the years when I was playing, I had my own mic Shure SM57, and my own little "shorty" stand - you know the ones that are like 8 or 10 inches high. I would just put it in place and tell the soundguy that I brought my own mic, and he can just hook up to it.

Direct outs just ain't right.
 
The problem with direct outs from tube amps is that they are generally preamp outs, meaning that you are sending your preamp signal to the board. In doing so, you defeat the purpose of using a tube amp, which is to saturate the power tubes. That's where your warmth, harmonics and response come from. A properly placed mic is the way to go.

That being said, however, I used to run a direct out from my Laney Pro-Tube 30w combo back in the day. However, we were just playing parties and small clubs and we powered our mains with an ancient Fender 100w tube PA head. It had four inputs and we used two for the board and I sent my Laney's direct out line to another one and cranked the volume on it. We sent the Fender outs through a crossover and into a pair of JBL loaded EAW three way cabs. It was unreal. Basically, it was sending the output of four blazing 12AX7's into a 100w class A amp. It pretty much made your hair stand on end and took the paint off the walls at 10 paces. I always wanted to try driving a couple of 4X12 cabs with that rig instead of the PA mains, but I never got a chance to. I wish I still had that head.........
 
"The problem with direct outs from tube amps is that they are generally preamp outs, meaning that you are sending your preamp signal to the board. In doing so, you defeat the purpose of using a tube amp, which is to saturate the power tubes. That's where your warmth, harmonics and response come from. A properly placed mic is the way to go."

thanks, jinker. that's the most convincing argument i've heard so far. maybe i should drop the direct idea...sometimes convenience should not be my number one priority...

thanks everyone. if anyone else has an opinion on this matter, please chime in.

thanks again,
jon.
 
There are two ways you can go there. One is to use a direct box that connects dierctly to your amp speaker output. The Behringer Ultra DI100 can do that and handle up to 3000 watts.

The other option is to use a miced speaker approach, where the mic clamp is permantently mounted to your cabinet. I use this approach and it works great. The product is called an Amp Clamp, and costs about $30.

http://ampclamp.com


Ed
 
the fact that running a DI from the fx send bypasses the power tubes really explains why a DI does not sound as good as a mic'd speaker...but what about running a DI from an external speaker out? wouldn't that signal have gone through the power tubes, and therefore sound better? just a thought...i could be wrong.
 
so how much better would running a DI100 form the speaker output instead of running a different DI from the fx send? does anyone have any experience with that?
 
IF this unit actually WORKS, it 'could' (I say that tentatively :)...be the answer to the modelling dilemma.

I've palyed guitar for 33+ years, but for the past 4 years have been using Line6 gear for my 'direct' recording...simply coz of the ease, variety of tones, great inbuilt FX, and 100% stability.

However, (as most will know)....the only real downside...is that for direct recording.....all modellers do lack the warmth of a tube power-saturation stage...(although, I must say these units are getting real colse today, and in a full MIX, one can hardly tell the difference)...

So, being able to hook up a decent power amp to the Line6 XTPro (for example)...and then use this little BOX to convert the speaker out power stage....right into one's PC audio interface/DAW...would really do the trick...

I would assume, that this scenario....would indeed, sound much better than a regular 'direct out'...used alone...

However, there STILL would be the "AIR-Push" component missing, that one gets when mic'ing up a Cab...

So, it still wouldn't sound as good as the real thing.....in my not so humble opinion :D

Definitely worth trying tho, for $50

KEV
 
I am going to be purchasing a Behringer Ultra-DI DI600P. I will be using this to DI into my mixer to my mac for recording, on top of micing the guitar cab. So the situation will be similar to what ghetto3jon is asking, just won't be done in a live situation. I'll let you know how it goes when i've tested it out! :)
 
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