Subject: Re: [linux-audio-user] recording guitar interfacing
From: Paul Winkler (slinkp23_AT_yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Nov 29 2001 - 21:17:06 EET
On Thu, Nov 29, 2001 at 03:59:31PM +0100, Tobias Ulbricht wrote:
> So for a beginner like me: What is a DI ?
It's a simple device that lets you plug a guitar into a mic preamp or
mixer. Usually it has no controls, except possibly a ground lift
switch to try to kill hum problems. Price range is maybe $40 to as
much as you want to spend. There's nothing inherently wrong with cheap
passive DI boxes, except that some might not be sturdy, and some might
have crummy transformers which don't sound good; and some people
prefer the sound of more expensive acive (or even tube) DI's.
They're most commonly used for bass guitar, live and in the studio,
since many engineers prefer the sound of running the bass
"direct". They're also used live for acoustic guitar pickups, which
are less prone to feedback than using a mic. (OTOH some people, like
me, hate the sound of these "acoustic" guitars and would rather hear a
mic any day. For that matter, I don't like direct bass sound much
either. I'm in the minority here.)
Most DI's can also be used to connect a line-level signal (synth,
sampler, etc.) to a mic preamp. This is usually done for convenience
in a live situation when the sound system only has XLR inputs on the
snake onstage.
A few DI's have speaker-level inputs so you can connect a guitar amp's
speaker output to the DI and get the coloration of the power amp
without micing the speaker. Some of these have a "cabinet simulator"
switch which probably just rolls off some treble. The resulting sound
is not exactly like miking the cabinet, but it's sometimes more
convenient and it might sound OK.
--paul winkler home: http://www.slinkp.com music: http://www.reacharms.com calendars: http://www.calendargalaxy.com
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