Hi everyone, first thanks for always clearing these things up for me when I post something.

What I'm wanting to do is split my guitar/bass signal to two different DI setups I have going that both get sent to two separate amp sims. Basically I'm doing the "playing through two amps simultaneously" thing except the amps are in my daw. Sure, I can just use one of the DI setups, send guitar to amp sim through it and then, once in the daw, split the guitar signal to a second separate, isolated amp sim using auxes, which I also do. But the reason I want to split to two DIs is that one of my two DI rigs is a Sansamp PSA-1 which has an amazing sound of its own and I'd like to blend that sound w/ an amp sim in parallel on input, essentially playing through two separate amps simultaneously, but digitally.

There's aby boxes at all different price points and I've read plenty about how they can suck tone especially if you have to flip the polar switch if it even has one. Phase shouldn't be a problem though in my case because my amps/speakers are digital; no physical speaker interaction to deal with, but ground lifts are still helpful.

Here are my two DI rigs and their respective signal flows:

DI 1: Golden Age Pre-73 which has a DI function and I plug into its "Instrument" input to utilize it. The GAP output goes directly to the interface/sim.

DI 2: Sansamp Psa-1, line output goes directly to interface where it then reaches Recabinet IR loader using Ownhammer IRs, which has worked out famously as the PSA-1 has no speaker sim of its own and benefits greatly w/ some.

I want to play both of those DI rigs as if they were two separate amps w/o any gain loss or high end roll off on either rig and I don't want to spend more than $200 to make it happen.

So for now it came down to two aby boxes: the Radial Twin City and the Lehle P Split II. The Radial has buffers etc and Radial claims that this box will not alter your tone at all - and sorry, but it *absolutely does alter the tone* in my case, where Output A to the Golden Age adds a bit of gain, which was actually ok, but Output B on the Twin City to the PSA-1 suffered gain loss and high end roll off. Wtf. This is confusing as I thought the buffers on the Twin City were supposed to retain signal integrity. Anyone know what's happening here?

At this point I'm feeling like combining these two DI rigs the way I've described is a pipe dream. I've read that you're going to suffer some change in signal no matter what when you split and that it comes down to what changes to the tone you can/can't live with. I can't live w/ tone loss on either side. If the Twin City had just boosted the gain a bit ON BOTH outputs I could have worked w/ that but I'll have to send it back.

Idk if this post is so much a question or a lament. Well is anyone else out there trying to do what I've described here? Any tips? Should I even bother trying the Lehle P-Split II or will that suck tone too? Is there another box anyone recommends? Ok thank you

$

I'm about to do something very similar, with a DI via PRE-73 and the other through a bass amp pre/simulator.
 
Luckily for my guitar setup, my VG-88 has a DI output that I can put through the PRE-73, but for the bass I'll need a splitter.
 
I don't want to go the buffered splitter route, as it'll colour the sound, so I'm going the passive route.
 
Option 1:  3 x 1/4" jack sockets + 2 x 470 ohm (or less) resistors. This WILL lower the volume and introduce some noise though.
 
Option 2: Use a direct connection to the input for the 1st output, and an isolating transformer for the 2nd:
 

Whether this will work for you or not, I don't know.
 
 
 

Yeah I was wondering about the passive boxes. I specifically chose the Radial Twin City over their BigShot because I thought the buffers, though they may add some gain, would otherwise preserve the sound. But I recall the Radial BigShot being said that its passive circuitry will just pass through what you give it, also supposedly sans coloration though I have my doubts now that I've tried their active model. I think the Lehle p split is passive but idk, I guess I just hate the fact that the only real way for me to know is to buy, try, and send back a bunch of these.

I would give the passive model a try.
 
The resistor based circuit (basically a passive mixer in reverse), will cost less than $10 to build, maybe even less than $5. A resistor won't colour your sound in any way, but it will reduce the volume slightly. Noise shouldn't be an issue as long as the resistor value is low enough.
 

 
A transformer will colour the signal, but probably not in a bad way.
 

$

msmcleod,
We're you looking at any particular splitter or are you building your own it looks like?

csnack
msmcleod,
We're you looking at any particular splitter or are you building your own it looks like?

I'll be building my own.
 
I've got the parts lying around, so it'll cost me nothing. If it's too noisy or affects the level too much, I'll consider another route, but it's worth a try!

msmcleod

csnack
msmcleod,
We're you looking at any particular splitter or are you building your own it looks like?

I'll be building my own.
 
I've got the parts lying around, so it'll cost me nothing. If it's too noisy or affects the level too much, I'll consider another route, but it's worth a try!

If you don't mind and if you remember let me know m how it works out.

Quick update in case anyone should research these aby boxes.

So as previously stated, the claims that the Radial Twin City "will not alter your tone at all" is simply not true in my case anyway. There is a noticeable loss of gain and high end compared to plugging straight to amp.

Some guys who use this box and even the passive version of this box (BigShot) say they can hear no change/loss in tone compared to plugging straight in. But I'm thinking it would be harder to discern a change in tone when trying to guage it from physical amps and speakers pushing out the sound as opposed to headphones. I'm testing these boxes out via headphones and as such I'm able to be super critical of what I'm hearing as the sound is "right there."

But yesterday I decided to plug into my Boss TU-2 tuner for its buffer before plugging into the Twin City and doing so helped the tone considerably, where now, plugging into tu-2 and then into Twin City the sound is almost identical to going straight to amp. If going straight to amp is a 10 I'd saying the tu-2/twin city sound is a 9.25. Lol yeah I'm very particular, but there's still the tiniest bit of difference between the two and some people probably wouldn't notice it.

I know the tu-2 is a known buffer, but the Twin City is supposed to already be buffered so I'm not sure why the tu-2 is needed to improve things. Anyone know what the deal is here? I know little about buffers and whether or not they're all created equally.

I'm testing the Twin City more today and I now have the passive Lehle P Split on the way, which also claims to not color tone at all, so we'll see. The psychological aspect here is hard for me to overcome; it'll be super difficult for me to build a new sound from the tone-sucked foundation when I *know* the best sound is still going straight in. *sigh*