DI Box?

omen80

Hi, just looking from some advice here. My band have a gig on Friday night and we have to bring our own PA etc...usually we use the in house PA. Two of us will be using acoustic guitars straight into the desk. Will we need DI boxes? Do people ever play acoustics live without them?
Thanks......

wonski

omen80 wrote: »

Hi, just looking from some advice here. My band have a gig on Friday night and we have to bring our own PA etc...usually we use the in house PA. Two of us will be using acoustic guitars straight into the desk. Will we need DI boxes? Do people ever play acoustics live without them?
Thanks......

We tried it before last gig, and it sounded dull.
I am afraid regular dibox will not make much difference, apart from better signal...
I used zoom pedal effect instead, and run it's output to the mixer, and it did good job. Level was fine and some EQ did make a difference.
Not a perfect solution. but definitely better than just plugging it into the mixers. Is it a powered mixer you use btw?

omen80

wonski wrote: »

Is it a powered mixer you use btw?

Yeah it's a powered mixer. Does that make a difference when using a DI box?

wonski

omen80 wrote: »

Yeah it's a powered mixer. Does that make a difference when using a DI box?

I think the best thing is to try if it works for you. We tried it and it sucked - lot of frequencies lost etc
I only used dibox for recording, but there was lot of processing added later as the original sound was lacking pretty much everything. You don't want it at live session.

Not sure if powered or not makes a difference, i only used powered one and it could handle those guitars, but with limited quality.
If you are using two acoustics, i would try micing them up - better than anything else really.
Look online for <di box acoustic guitar live>, you will see more answers, here it is rather quiet...
There are some nice di boxes out there that would work great with guitars in live situations, the cheaper, basic ones only even out input/output levels(or just match impedance of said input), and don't make them sound great.
Good luck with your gig anyway, hope you find a solution.

QuadLeo

Definitely use DI boxes for acoustic guitars live. Using mics will cause more trouble than it's worth and plugging straight into the desk could damage the desk after a while as well as sounding sh!t. And a few DI boxes will never go to waste if you're gigging, they last for years if looked after. Go for an active one (needs battery/phantom power) if your budget allows, they generally do a better job. Either way, the biggest factor of how good/bad the guitar will sound is the guitar itself and the pick-up.

If you're on a budget grab one of these

or if you can spend a bit more go for one of these bad boys

Don't over do the EQ either, lots of bands seem to do this. Try to cut rather than boost if you know what I mean.

omen80

QuadLeo wrote: »

Definitely use DI boxes for acoustic guitars live. Using mics will cause more trouble than it's worth and plugging straight into the desk could damage the desk after a while as well as sounding sh!t. And a few DI boxes will never go to waste if you're gigging, they last for years if looked after. Go for an active one (needs battery/phantom power) if your budget allows, they generally do a better job. Either way, the biggest factor of how good/bad the guitar will sound is the guitar itself and the pick-up.

If you're on a budget grab one of these

or if you can spend a bit more go for one of these bad boys

Don't over do the EQ either, lots of bands seem to do this. Try to cut rather than boost if you know what I mean.

Good advice, thanks!

wonski

QuadLeo wrote: »

Definitely use DI boxes for acoustic guitars live. Using mics will cause more trouble than it's worth and plugging straight into the desk could damage the desk after a while as well as sounding sh!t. And a few DI boxes will never go to waste if you're gigging, they last for years if looked after. Go for an active one (needs battery/phantom power) if your budget allows, they generally do a better job. Either way, the biggest factor of how good/bad the guitar will sound is the guitar itself and the pick-up.

If you're on a budget grab one of these

or if you can spend a bit more go for one of these bad boys

Don't over do the EQ either, lots of bands seem to do this. Try to cut rather than boost if you know what I mean.

Ever used one of those for 39 Euro?
Sounds like a good deal if it is as good as you say!
I used/use some of thomann brands at the moment (including t.bone and t.amp/mix), let us know, please.

QuadLeo

yea the art DI's for €39 are fine. I've used them a few times and they do everything you could need including xlr-xlr which is really handy for cleaning up noisy xlr lines. They do the job well enough. Radial or BSS are really good though, but a bit more expensive.

franktheplank

Definitely use a DI box, unless you're just miking up the guitar. It's not a good idea to use an unbalanced signal straight into a desk. An unbalanced signal is your standard guitar cable, it has two cores of wire running through it.

A DI box converts this signal to a balanced signal with three cores. One of these three cores takes the noise and interference from the cable so this doesn't get amplified when you plug it into the desk. The DI box also matches the impedance from the guitar to what the desk wants to see (this can get very technical) so it's a good idea to have this.

I strongly recommend using a DI box especially if the signal is traveling any distance to the desk.

flyswatter

Hope the OP doesn't mind me asking something related. Should you use a DI box along with an audio interface say just recording guitar at home or do interfaces include di boxes in them already?

flyswatter

Hope the OP doesn't mind me asking something related. Should you use a DI box along with an audio interface say just recording guitar at home or do interfaces include di boxes in them already?

wonski

flyswatter wrote: »

Hope the OP doesn't mind me asking something related. Should you use a DI box along with an audio interface say just recording guitar at home or do interfaces include di boxes in them already?

I use m-audio interfaces and they all have dedicated instrument input, which can be used without di box.
Check your interface manual to make sure.
As someone wisely mentioned before, it is the output of the instrument with higher impedance causing a trouble when connecting straight to the desk.
If interface has dedicated input for guitar, that shouldn't be a problem.
What interface are you using?

flyswatter

wonski wrote: »

I use m-audio interfaces and they all have dedicated instrument input, which can be used without di box.
Check your interface manual to make sure.
As someone wisely mentioned before, it is the output of the instrument with higher impedance causing a trouble when connecting straight to the desk.
If interface has dedicated input for guitar, that shouldn't be a problem.
What interface are you using?

M Audio Fast Track Ultra. Not sure if I'm getting the best sound from the guitar with the instrument cable , haven't tried recording it too often mind but I think there was an unwanted hiss or feedback off it.

wonski

flyswatter wrote: »

M Audio Fast Track Ultra. Not sure if I'm getting the best sound from the guitar with the instrument cable , haven't tried recording it too often mind but I think there was an unwanted hiss or feedback off it.

No need for DI box, hiss and feedback must be related to something else.
Make sure you set right levels. Also check your cables.

There could be a problem with your pc and DAW configuration if you experience noise.

flyswatter

wonski wrote: »

No need for DI box, hiss and feedback must be related to something else.
Make sure you set right levels. Also check your cables.

There could be a problem with your pc and DAW configuration if you experience noise.

As for levels, are these the knobs on the interface, the levels in the DAWs mixer or both?

wonski

flyswatter wrote: »

As for levels, are these the knobs on the interface, the levels in the DAWs mixer or both?

I meant gain at the interface. You want the signal to be strong, but not going into red at any time.

flyswatter

wonski wrote: »

I meant gain at the interface. You want the signal to be strong, but not going into red at any time.

I get you. And it's ok to let the guitar just play through the monitors when recording or are headphones better? I'm presuming I should set the latency as low as I can.