DI Boxes and your live rig journey.

[Gypsyblue]

Guitar > K&K Pure Minis > RedEye > Snake > PA board...or my own amp.

Strong believer in KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid.

Also a believer in keeping effects pedals and excessive EQ out of my signal chain and letting the man or woman at the PA board do his/her job.

Pickups and preamps I can remember owning (although there have been more!):

1. Takamine w/Bill Lawrence sound hole pickup

2. Ovation Custom Balladeer

3. Lowden w/Sunrise pickup and Sunrise preamp (GREAT amplified tone but the pickup was to heavy, IMO, and I worried that it was weighing down the top and interfering with the guitar's unplugged acoustic tone)

4. Takamine acoustic/electrics (the one Bruce Springsteen plays - black) through an Aura. I liked this a lot although it felt less organic than my ideal. Sure sounded good though)

5. Taylors w/K&K pickups and K&K preamps

6. Taylors & Blueridges w/K&K pickups and RedEye preamps: THAT did the trick once and for all.

I'm no longer searching for an onstage pickup and preamp I love.

I stopped looking when I bought my first RedEye and plugged my Taylor w/K&K Pure Minis into the RedEye.

I got a great tone pretty much automatically just by plugging the K&K's into the RedEye and the RedEye into the PA board.

[Br1ck]

Guitar w/ Dazzo pickups into RedEye, into Carvin AG300. That will fill most rooms. If not, XLR output from amp goes to board.

The RedEye for me was an eye opener. Perfect input impedance for piezo pickups of any kind.

[The Kid!]

Originally Posted by Br1ck

The RedEye for me was an eye opener. Perfect input impedance for piezo pickups of any kind.

Absolutely!

I ran an acoustic open mic this summer and all of the players would comment on how great their acoustics sounded when they went through my board. That little box does wonders, and having a volume boost for solos is just icing on the cake.

[jalbert]

I've used this setup the last couple of times: Taylor GA8-12 --> PUTW Dynamic Duo (UST/AST combo) --> PUTW Power Plug preamp --> 15' Asterope Stage cable --> TurboTuner ST-300 Mini (strobe tuner) --> 15' Asterope Studio cable --> Fishman Loudbox Performer for monitoring myself; the house takes the pre-EQ XLR out for DI.

[sam.spoons]

It varies depending on the gig and the band. Solo usually TC Ditto (of some flavour) with, maybe Mooer Delay, TC Spark booster and Polytune Micro in front. For Amps I have an AER Compact 60/2 and recently acquired a Roland AC33 for off grid gigs/busking and I use Orchid Electronics DIs for my own gigs and for my PA work (as good as Radial at 25% of the price and made in the UK).

Guitars are a 1981 Brian Eastwood Custom with a Fishman Rare Earth, A 2010 Rob Aylward Selmer style with a Bigtone (passive) bridge and my newest, an Emerald X7 with a B-Band UST and preamp (oh and a 'The Loar' F style mandolin with a fishman passive bridge).

Observations, The AC33 lacks a little gain for the passives (or possibly the input impedance is not high enough) but sounds good with the actives in the Eastwood and Emerald.

They all sound good with a minimum of tweaking through both acoustic amps and also through the desk. I leave the sound guy to make the FOH sound good, if that soundie is me I usually get what I want

[Fairlight]

With a Taylor 714 and Larrivee C-10, both with LR Baggs Anthem SL pick ups. Through the years, here's what I've used and some comments.

Boss AD-5
+'s Stereo, on-board blend-able chorus and verb FX, good anti-feedback sweep, FX loop, good-size knobs, lots of volume.
-'s Famous Roland wall wart, twice the size of the Para DI and EB-2, can be a little noisy

TB PZ-Pre
+'s Good volume boost, FX loop, good EQ. Big, rubber knobs, solid build.
-'s The mute is too close to the boost and EQ knobs on the side-using as a foot pedal, I was always stepping on the Boost and Low EQ knobs too, moving their settings. They seemed to make the mute placement more asymmetrical in design rather than for practical use. Didn't care for the EQ notch. Odd shape/heavy.

Headway EB-2
+'s great sound, EQ and volume (equal to the Para DI in an A/B shootout), good EQ and routing, mute switch, small size.
-'s Wall wart, overkill for simple non-blended pick-ups (iPod, multi-channel, mic blending options), no phantom for main power, 2 batteries, small knobs and switches

L.R. Baggs Para DI (currently in full-time use)
+'s Phantom power or single battery, great sound, EQ and volume, good freq notch, FX loop, simple set up, solid build and small size.
-'s tiny knobs, XLR is on top of the unit when unit is on floor.

[CaffeinatedOne]

How about your experience with outboard blenders? I have a b-band dual source system in my Taylor 815C and have struggled with finding good blenders. Presently I'm using a Presonus starved plate tube acoustic blender (Acousti-q) that does the job, but is pretty ratty to adjust on stage - clever but small multifunction knobs; my vision is not great. I'm also not a fan of low wattage tubes and wall warts. Lately I've run the output into a Vox Lil Night Train head and dumped the low power output into the FOH board, but the Presonus can send an XLR low impedance signal directly to FOH. So the sound is OK but not stellar; I think I can get better sound out of the b-band system.

I'd love to find something like the Raven blenders and preamps of a few years ago (before Raven went out of business). Those were bulletproof and beautiful sounding. Anyone messed with signal blenders?

[jseth]

I'm pleased to say that I finally have the live rig I have always known was possible, ever since I first tried to amplify my acoustic guitar through a Shure 565 into a Shure Vocalmaster PA, back in 1969... (I can tell you that using a mic in "bar" setting was just dismal!)

I have the LR Baggs Anthem SL in both my Mark Angus 6 and 12 string guitars... I use a Bose T1 Mixer/Tone Generator that sits on a (newly acquired!) tray that clips to my mic stand... short cables (10'~) into the T1, then to my Bose L1 Model II via the special cable for the T1 that both sends signal to the main unit and powers the T1. ONE cable from where I sit to the PA!

The sound is full, warm, rich, lifelike - a friend told me that when I play through this rig on stage, it sounds like I'm sitting in his living room, playing and singing, something I've done many times...

I'm pretty sure I could handle a very big room with the Bose, although I've only used it in more like 40' x 50' rooms for ~50 people...

When I'm not using the Bose, I have had great success using the T1 as a front end into my AER Compact 60/2... and use the direct out on the AER to another PA if needed. I will add that I used this set-up with the AER in a crowded room full of people who were drinking and talking, with the room being ~25' x ~100' with 20' ceilings, all hard surfaces (brick, tile and glass) and that little AER did not need any help from the "big" pa in the room... I had a good friend in the audience who tweaked my EQ a bit, but he said it sounded phenomenal with ONLY that little 60 watt amp! I was pleased and amazed...

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by CaffeinatedOne

I'd love to find something like the Raven blenders and preamps of a few years ago (before Raven went out of business). Those were bulletproof and beautiful sounding. Anyone messed with signal blenders?

Well, you can still get the Raven preamps used. They show up on ebay regularly. Someone recently had 2 posted in the classifieds here. Might still be there. Or check out the new high end option, the Grace Felix. There are quite a few other options, the K&K Quantum, Headway EDB-2, Baggs MixPro, some more. We had a thread recently where people attempted to list them all. There were a few I didn't know about or had forgotten.

[Mr Blues]

Hi Pandapandelo
Just checked out your video. Really nice sound.. Great combination the M80 and LR Baggs Para DI.
Dave

Originally Posted by PANDAPANDELO

I'm plugging my Martin HD28 with a LR Baggs M80 into a LR Baggs Para Acoustic DI.

Pretty nice sound.

Here's a video of the setup in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3QHWEd3KUU

PS: I'm the one singing, too.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by CaffeinatedOne

…I'd love to find something like the Raven blenders and preamps of a few years ago (before Raven went out of business). Those were bulletproof and beautiful sounding. Anyone messed with signal blenders?

Hi CO…

Ravens are great - I own two and managed to snag one for my gigging partner as well…they show up in the Classified section (other) pretty often. They still command a pretty good price, but are worth it.

The DTAR Solstice has more features for connecting to external systems, and for input, but essentially for practical purposes, it's the same quality as the Raven. I like the fact my Ravens are battery powered.

[rokdog49]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

Hi Rmz

The direct box is to transform high impedance to low, and these days most microphones are already low impedance, so they can be plugged directly into a snake/mixer. So no, we don't ordinarily plug mics into a direct box.

How important are they? Indispensable!

High impedance signals are good for about 15-20 feet before quality and levels are impacted negatively. Low impedance signals can have runs of well over 100 feet and retain full quality.

Many venues have the mixer at the back of the room, connected by a snake box which sets on stage. The signals going into it need to be low impedance for that long run, so a direct box to convert the signal is critical.

At an open mic where the amp/head/mixer is sitting 5-10 feet behind us on stage, one can plug a ¼" cable directly in and be good to go.

Another use for the direct box is that many of them offer the ability to plug my acoustic guitar signal into a ¼" input, and then I can simultaneously feed another ¼" cable to my stage amplifier, and an XLR (mic cable) to the PA system. By doing that, I can adjust the tone and volume on my stage amp without affecting them in the PA system's mixer.

Hope this answers your question…

That was very well put.

[Johnny.guitar]

K&K mini into Red Eye or god forbid....a UST into ReD Eye. Just picked up a TC Electronic Body Rez and won't be returning it....ever!
Depending on gig also a small pedal board with Delay & chorus. The Red eye also serves as a boost Less is more

[davander2000]

I use my Taylor, with Expression System, straight to my Genz Benz Shenandoah, along with a SM58 mic for my vocals. I run the amp at about 2/3 volume most of the time. Then I take the XLR line out from the Genz Benz to a powered speaker (or 2 speakers if I need even more volume) stand mounted, and set the volume accordingly for the room. It works great. I have a Behringer DI that I use only when doing something like a festival or other outdoor event that has a sound guy with a snake and a big PA. In that case, I go direct from the guitar to the snake via the DI box.

[midwinter]

For just solo/guitar stuff, I used this into a powered speaker:

Board by Scott, on Flickr

When I play more than just guitar (banjo, mandolin/octave mandolin, bass), I use this monstrosity, which gets me ~5-6 instruments with one line out to FOH:



When I add in electric, I bring an additional board with an amp simulator pedal: