Yo Pixel! I'll take a shot at this. First, let me state that I have nothing whatsoever against DI boxes, they just aren't generally for recording a guitar. They are often used for live input of an acoustic pickup into a mic input on a PA, for recording bass or keyboards into a mic input, or for recording a dry (unprocessed ) guitar track for re-amping. Let's deal with re-amping a ways into this.
First, for over 40 years, electric guitars have been recorded by slightly (or greatly) overloading the tubes in the preamp section of a guitar amplifier, and then sticking one or more mics in front of (or behind) that amp, and recording them. First, this creates the unique sound of tube saturation, and the unique sound of moving air impacting a microphone's diaphragm or ribbon. Most engineers agree that this sound *cannot* be produced by any amp modeler, software, solid state amp, direct box,distortion pedal, or *anything* else.
Secondly, for clean (little or no distortion) sounds, a solid state amp can often work very well. Not everybody lives by distortion. In general, this holy grail guitar sound is achieved not by using any form of distortion device, but merely by cranking the living bejesus out of the amp. Hence, small amps are often used in studios, as cranking a Marshall stack in a small room will test the limits of the room, and your ears. Often, in fact, the amp and its mics are in a different room altogether than the guitarist. The amp may be used in combination with many different types of pedals, including distortion pedals.
Many amps have a line output. This adjusts the impedence of the instrument input to match a line level input before the signal hits the poor overloaded preamp and distorts like a mother. This allows you to run that unprocessed signal back later into one or more amps, and put mics in front of *them*. That way, you can hear what it would have sounded like if you had played it through a Mesa, a Vox, Soldano, or whatever, if you have those amps available. In some cases, the engineer may use a mixture of 2 or more amps, and may delay one a couple of milliseconds to add depth. Many engineers re-amp when the guitarist insists on using his Crate.
In recent years, amp modeling has produced a different breed of DI box, which attempts to shape the tone of the guitar signal to come closer to the sound of that cranked up, mic'd up, amp. These devices are in their infancy, and they don't do what they claim to do, but they are getting better every day. Some people, even ones that don't like amp modelers, will use them for practising late at night, when they don't want to wake up the baby, or will take one for a traveling headphone amp. Other people are on the bleeding edge, and are experimenting with producing actually usable sounds with them.
I split the difference. I run amp modelers into power amps and cabs or powered speakers, or even reference monitors, and mic up the speakers. This gives me that moving air sound into a real mic, and comes *much* closer, IMHO, to the sound of the amp being simulated. I will admit, however, that the sounds I need are mostly clean, so I'm not nearly as concerned with tube saturation as most folks.
So there it is. Why do people hate your DI box? They don't. What they hate is the sound of an electric guitar with a distortion pedal recorded through a DI box. You will find that for most professional guitarists, and most professional audio engineers, there is only *one* way to record an electric guitar. You plug it into an amp, crank the shit out of the amp, and put one or more mics in front of it. Nothing else will produce the sound they are looking for, and they *don't* want some *other* sound.
So why do I use amp simulators? Because I can't afford a 1964
Marshal JTM-45 or a Dumble Special Overdrive. I have found, though, that jacking simulators into real amps and speakers, and mic'ing them up, helps a lot. My advice is- if you insist on recording guitar direct (I'M SORRY, IT'S THE WRONG WAY TO DO IT), get an amp simulator. It won't sound like a mic'd up tube amp, but it will sound better than your DI box, and will give you access to a lot more sounds. If you like your distortion pedal, turn the drive on your amp modeler all the way down, and patch the pedal into the signal chain. Or you can try a combination of drive from the pedal and the amp model. As far as amp simulators, Behringer Vamp II wins in the most bang for cheap department. Pod or Pod Pro produces some useful sounds, and the newer XT version is more versatile than the older 2.0. Vox Tonelab is the current state of the art. I assure you, it will be obsolete in 3 years. Modeling technology is exploding, and eventually, I believe it will do what it intends to do. For right now, top notch guitar sound is achieved using mics, and amps with vacuum tubes.-Richie
