Need Help Choosing a Direct box

[Simon Langley]

I have an Alembic Essence bass that unfortunately makes a lot of 60 cycle hum when neon lights are around. The easiest way for soundmen to solve this problem has been to run it through a direct box and take Their feed off of that rather than the direct out on my amp. I have been thinking of getting a descent direct box so I don't have to use theirs and can still maintain control over some of my tone. I used to have a sansamp but didn't like the way it colored my tone. Don't know if I want one with a built in preamp but some EQ control might be nice. Any thoughts?

[JanusZarate]

I might have a solution for you:



And as per jetpackbassist's review of it a while back... yes, it works fantastically for hum issues!

[bongomania]

Originally Posted by Simon Langley

Don't know if I want one with a built in preamp but some EQ control might be nice.

Important distinction: There is a lot of "grey area" around the way manufacturers and consumers use the terms "DI", "EQ", and "preamp". There is often technological/electronic overlap between them, and a great many products out there use the terms misleadingly, or at least in a simplified way.

The vast majority of EQ's are active devices; a preamp is an active device; a DI may be active or passive; a preamp puts out a buffered or boosted signal, but may or may not be able to drive a power amp; a DI may or may not have a line-level output in addition to the XLR main DI output. So you may get some random combination of these elements, designed to different functional specs, with each model of so-called "preamp" or "DI".

Take the Sadowsky outboard preamp/DI (which incidentally would be a great choice for you based on what you're saying): it is an active device, so it's technically a preamp, but I don't think it's able to drive a power amp. It features a two-band boost-only EQ and two outputs, a DI and an instrument level out.

However most DI's (that are marketed as DI's) don't have EQ or other tone shaping. Another consideration is whether you want the onboard tone shaping to pass through the instrument level "thru" output to your amp. The thru out on most DI's is "dry", i.e. identical to the signal going in. But there are a few like the Sansamp that have an "effected" instrument-level out as well.

Then there are a few DI's (that are marketed as DI's) which have a +4dBu line-level output in addition to the DI out, and thus are able to drive a power amp. Most of those don't have EQ though... and the ones that do are marketed as "preamps" that feature a DI.

[RickenBoogie]

That's alot of knowledge from bongomania, and well put. I'll add a recommenation for the MXR M80. It's a DI with tone control, distortion, (not Good distortion), and a parrallel output. Works for me as a DI that I can shape a bit before the soundguy does what he'll do anyway. But, I'm not a fan of onboard processors anyway, so that's just my 2 cents.

[johans]

di ..

i think two of the more famous ones..

sansamp bddi
radial tonebone bassbone

owned both, happy with both .. just that bassbone need a separate 15v adapter.. compare to bddi's regular 9v

[The BurgerMeister]

the radial JDI is fantastic. it doesn't change your tone, but it does represent it as accurately as possible. also, it's noiseless (thanks to the Jensen toroidal transformer and a whole buttload of quality components). it won't get rid of any noise, but it won't cause any, either.

[superkicky]

Avalon U5?

[Simon Langley]

For some reason plugging the bass into even the cheapest of direct box gets rid of the noise completely. I have tried several things including taking it to Alembic to have them check it out. They were gracious enough to give me a different set of pickups and try some other things but nothing so far has worked short of a direct box. Just wanted to get my own so I don't have to keep using the same piece of crap the sound man usually hands me.