I've tried the amp sims, guitar rig and what not. I now use the toneport, the lower end model, but it's line 6 and uses gearbox. So it's basically another amp sim, since it's software. But I like it way better than Guitar Rig. When you use the reverb and delays it comes with, you can get some pretty great sounds.
Of course If I could I would use a miced tube amp anyday. Just don't have a soundproof studio in my house.

My apologies up front, but I’d like to tag a related question onto this thread. Just to understand why I am asking this question here is a short background. My area of expertise is drumming and I only play guitar out of necessity so, real guitar players can replace what I play. Recently, I added the rhythm guitar part to one of my compositions (and it didn’t sound half bad) … and I think I will continue down this path.

When I recorded it, I went directly into my Mackie board and the cranked the trim all the way up and then just used the default guitar effects in Sonar 5. After reading these posts and doing a bit of research I learned I should have invested in a DI box. Now I have several very remedial questions about DI boxes.

I want the simplest setup possible and my goal will be to rely on plug-ins for experimenting with tone (I generally have a good idea of the guitar tone I want for a song I just don’t know how to get there).

Outside of this forum, the Behringer Ultra-DI DI-100 Direct Box ($40) and the Boss DI-1 ($100) seem to have reasonable reputations. They are apparently active boxes. Additionally, Sweetwater carries several passive boxes in the $50 - $100 price range (e.g., Whirlwind IMP 2 and Radial ProDI).

Question 1. Does anybody have opinions on these DI boxes or something in this category/price range (I am just looking to record clean tone)?

Question 2. Is there a good reason to consider a passive box over an active box?

Thanks,
Dave

ORIGINAL: quantumeffect

My apologies up front, but I’d like to tag a related question onto this thread. Just to understand why I am asking this question here is a short background. My area of expertise is drumming and I only play guitar out of necessity so, real guitar players can replace what I play. Recently, I added the rhythm guitar part to one of my compositions (and it didn’t sound half bad) … and I think I will continue down this path.

When I recorded it, I went directly into my Mackie board and the cranked the trim all the way up and then just used the default guitar effects in Sonar 5. After reading these posts and doing a bit of research I learned I should have invested in a DI box. Now I have several very remedial questions about DI boxes.

I want the simplest setup possible and my goal will be to rely on plug-ins for experimenting with tone (I generally have a good idea of the guitar tone I want for a song I just don’t know how to get there).

Outside of this forum, the Behringer Ultra-DI DI-100 Direct Box ($40) and the Boss DI-1 ($100) seem to have reasonable reputations. They are apparently active boxes. Additionally, Sweetwater carries several passive boxes in the $50 - $100 price range (e.g., Whirlwind IMP 2 and Radial ProDI).

Question 1. Does anybody have opinions on these DI boxes or something in this category/price range (I am just looking to record clean tone)?

Question 2. Is there a good reason to consider a passive box over an active box?

Thanks,
Dave

DI boxes do two things: they balance the signal, and they do impedance matching. Balancing the signal allows to transfer it through longer distances without loss, and impedance matching allows to plug a HI-Z source (guitar pickup for example) into a LO-Z input (mixer mic preamp).
If cable distance is not an issue, and the console has adaptable impedance inputs (many modern sound cards / preamps / consoles have at least one), then you don't need a DI box.

1) If you only want to do some experimentation and lay down the guitar parts so that a "real" (:D) guitar player can record it later, I don't think you should spend much on a high quality DI box, since you could probably live with some hum and some sound coloring. The Behringer DI-100, or a Behringer Mic-200 (DI/preamp) seem to be good choices.

2) AFAIK, active DI boxes are useful when there's a long distance between the instrument and the console, and several humming sources around (like on-stage :) ). Some claim they are better quality than the passive ones, yet a cheap active DI will never be as good as a high end passive DI ;)

Some mackie boards / consoles have HI-Z inputs.. Maybe it's the case for your board, which would avoid you and extra piece of gear ;)

ORIGINAL: mike_mccue

The intended difference between a passive direct box and an active direct box is the input impedance.

A passive unit can only exhibit a moderately high impedance while an active box will be able to go into the mega ohms.

Yes and a 1 mega ohm input will really take the load off your pickups and let the guitar sing.

POD X3 as a front end to monitor a processed signal --- Recording a Dry signal --- Using POD Farm to process the dry signal.

Yes - using a real amp with tubes adds magic and inspiration when playing guitar. But the conveinience and ease of using the POD and PodFarm allows me to concentrate more on the music and less on technical aspects of micing an amp. If I want to change or add a guitar part to an existing guitar track two days or two months later, I can get the exact sound as on my original recording. I don't have to worry about replicating the exact room, mic position, age of the tubes, line levels, EQ, etc.

okay, my research shows that the spec sheets (assuming you can trust em) from an emu 1820 have a 330 kohm impedance for the two hi-z inputs, which makes them arguably not hi-z at all.  many consider 1mohm to be hi-z, so the 1820 is off by about 670 kohm....to add insult to injury the cheaper emu 0202 and 0404 have impedances options of 1mohm and 1.5 mohm on each of the two input/preamp jack/xlrs on their docks... thats just great?  does anybody know what interfaces have the highest input impedance?  does having the highest impedance make that interface the best for recording guitar?  or is the 330 kohm impdedance on the emu 1820 easily overcome by running the guitar through, say, a boss pedal, set to clean even if on the distortion stomp setting, thus boosting the signal?  or using like an me-30, which is a floor unit with a bunch of fx's inside....

or a di box?  or a tube preamp? 

does a pod or vamp have an input impedance value?


You guys are great, thanks for your thorough responses.  I have a new question, I don't think it is related to the emails between us copied below.

Basically, how good is the emu 1820, 1820m and the 1616/m for recordign guitar direct?  I have the 1820.  the 2 preamps on it are apparently mic/line or maybe mic/line/instrument inputs...  Please take a thorough look at this thread (which says emu 1820's only have a 500 kohm impedance, which is half the accepted 1 mohm for Hi-Z, thus they really are not very good for guitar inputs....

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=1436553


its a damn interesting thread, but towards the end it just gets theoretical and boring....

basically the 500 kohm on the 1820 (is this the actual spec?)  is half what it should be.  Is the 1820 better in that regard.  what the 1616/m an improvement there. 

Can one just plug in a guitar to a Boss pedal like the os2 distortion pedal (the thread comments on this:

" A band aid for everyone that works!!! : There are 2 types of pedals :True bypass and Not True bypass. As the names implies, true bypass means that when the FX is OFF, there is a JUST CABLE from input to output. You can recognize those for its switch, like a wha wha or a RAT (Pro co) distortion. Not tru bypass is like any BOSS pedal. When they are off they STILL GO thru circuit. That is why you can not use without a battery!!!! HOLLY SOLUTION: Take ANY pedal (BOSS preferable) and put a good power supply. Put it in off (Bypass). Connect your guitar to its input, and its output to any line level input. BINGO!!!!! you have a SUPER DECENT DI with propper 1 mohm input impedance!!! I guaranty you will see the difference. I record my guitar traxs like this thru my EMU1820 (it has a 'fake' hi z input)."

FWIW, for this purtpose a simple transistor preamp like those found of boss pedals is just perfect. The sound is goos thru the whole guitar spectrum.
the idea describen in this topic is enter the guitar signal into the computer as clena s posible.


I tried to plug my guitar in to the line in in the back of the 1820 with a boss os2 distrotion pedal (the yellow one) between my guitar and the dock....i had to engage the pedal, so that the red "check"  light came on....and i turned the drive setting to zero so there was no distortion, ie basically a clean tone (so I can keep my options open for later)  and that seemed to work really well in terms of getting a hotter signal into my recording software via the 1820....the quote from the thread above seems to think i would not need to stop on the pedal and get the red "check"light (which to me means you have stomped into the distortion and out of the clean area)  but I find if I click the pedal out of the distortion zone, the signal is as weak as if there was no pedal (ie, I click onto the distortion part of the pedal, and turn all the distortion setting so low that the tone is essentially clean, but i think the pedal acts as a preamp or di or something when i do that, thus making my emu have an acceptable hi-z input, in the line in in the back (ie not using the preamps in the front of the 1820) no less. 

Would it be even better to utilize this boss pedal with the preamps on the front of the emu?



Thanks, for you help and insight.



also, what about this thing:
"ank you all for your interest and kind replies!

A couple of things useful for all 'Direct Recorders' out there:

1) Build a preamp. http://www.till.com/articles/PreampCable/index.html
They explicitly say that 1mohm is the minimum acceptable. This (or similar things) are actually a BUFFER: an preamp with 0dB of gain, but adapt impedances: In -->1mohm. Out--> 10Kohm (like a line out level).
This leads to 2)


Sincerely,


Me

I use an ART SGX 2000.  It's an oldie but goodie!

And I use a Martech MSS-01 (which has both active and passive circuit paths, but no line amp) into the line inputs of my audio interface, or the instrument input of my Presonus Firestudio 2626, or my Alembic F2B tube preamp into a line input. It's all different, but it's all good.

You don't mention the sound you want.

I have a Boss GS-3(?) which is very useful, with effort you can get very nice sounds, problem is you really have to ignore the presets and start from scratch and it's still a bit dull sounding.

To replace the Boss I spent a couple of months going around testing every DI style unit I could find.

* I felt the POD had too much lag.
* the Marshall rack unit unit sounds like a Marshall
* the old SanAmp rack was a bit weird and I couldn't dial in my sound
and so on.
* Hughes and Ketner Tubeman II is fanstastic but like the Marshall it does the H & K sound.

What I bought was a Damage Control Womanizer. This was one of those few wow moments in my life. It's fully analogue and high voltage tubes and blew me away with it's sound. It does a clean through overdrive very well and does a generic classic rock sound brilliantly. The DC Demonizer is a higher gain version for more modern sound. Of all products I've owned the Damage Control stuff is the stuff I am most loyal to and whole heatedly recommend.

I've experimented with splitting the sound and recording a clean track but I don't have any suitable software guitar processors.

Brett

i don't... i prefer a cabinet with a 57 about a foot back from the paper with a 103 for room or if it's open i use it on the back

I have Line 6 Tone Port I use alot, and have used the Guitar Rig 3 LE included in Sonar. I still enjoy and like the tones I am able to get with my Digitech GNX3, plus the control I have wit the expression pedal is a plus. If I am feeling old school I will fire up the old Digitech GSP5. It's a little on the noisy side but some great tones in that rack.

For direct input, I use the ZOOM G2.1u and love the tone I get.