Using DIs That Are 50 Feet Away

[The Garage]

I have two firepods and am about to purchase a 50' snake to complete my mobile recording setup. The firepods have two channels of DI each. What is the best way to use these four channels of DI remotely?

Should I get a 50' snake with 4 x 1/4" jacks? Can I just pop on XLR-to-1/4" adapters on either end? Or am I liable to pickup so much hum that it's not even worth it?

 

[xstatic]

You will really need DI's at the source end. 50 feet of unbalanced instrument signal sounds like a nightmare to me. 25 feet starts to push it.

 

[maestro_dmc]

Not a great idea on the face of it.

Are the DI's on the Firepod Balanced? What are you going to plug into the DI's? If you are balanced all the way, it may work clean. . . but

If you can, your best bet is to use a mixer to interface the Firepods at the fan end, and get separate DI's to go at the snake box, to plug unbalanced stuff into. Then you could use the DI's on the firepods for overdubs or something?

 

[The Garage]

i figured as much. unfortunately, my budget is pretty damn tight right now. what are the cheapest DIs that are still useable?

i have an 8-channel behringer (DI800), but it's not very good and i'd prefer to have only mono and stereo DI boxes if they are going to be on stage by each instrument.

 

[mshilarious]

Should I get a 50' snake with 4 x 1/4" jacks? Can I just pop on XLR-to-1/4" adapters on either end? Or am I liable to pickup so much hum that it's not even worth it?

If this was just for live, I'd say pop one of the $20 transformer jobs on the stage end and be done with it, but you are recording so What instruments are we talking about here?

 

[The Garage]

bass (mono)
keys (stereo)
roland percussion (stereo)

 

[mshilarious]

bass (mono)
keys (stereo)
roland percussion (stereo)

Can you mic the bass amp? Or maybe the bass amp has a line out?

Also the keys (and probably drum machine) should have line level, not instrument level impedance. Thus there is no impedance mismatch to your pre's line in, just the possibility of noise, although the signal level is high enough it might not be a problem. Try it and see. If you still have trouble, a little mixer should work, since you don't actually need more than one hi-z in.

 

[The Garage]

are you saying that running line level for 50' is better than running instrument level for 50'?

 

[mshilarious]

are you saying that running line level for 50' is better than running instrument level for 50'?

Yes. Instrument level for 50' is certain doom, whereas line level is only potential doom It depends on how much noise you have, and how loud that noise is relative to the signal.

I dunno why they don't make keyboards with balanced line outs. Cheap bastards!