The Countryman Type 85 Direct Box is an industry standard for conveying an instrument's signal to a PA system or direct input recording. At the gig or studio, pull out a Countryman and the sound man will breath a sigh of relief. The Genz Benz Shuttle 6.0 is reputed to have a DI of quality that's nearly equivalent to a Countryman. If this is true, those of us who own a Shuttle can save a couple of pounds by leaving the Countryman at home - or not own one at all.
To test the quality of each DI, I recorded arpeggios for a simple chordal scale in G with a Fender Aerodyne Jazz bass using a Countryman and a Shuttle DI. All Shuttle DI tests were set to pre-EQ, which is the default (and only) setting for the Countryman. The G chordal scale is G, Am, Bm, C, D7, Em, F#m7-5, and G. The bass has some extra goodies to improve sonic quality - Seymour Duncan pickups, BadAss bridge, HipShot Ultralight tuners, and Status Graphite Hot Wire half wound strings. The signals were routed through an ART Tube MP preamp and a dbx 266SL compressor (3:1). Recordings were made with Cubase LE4 onto a Dell laptop.
The first test simultaneously recorded the Countryman and Shuttle with a split connection: an XLR mic cable from the Countryman to the preamp, and a connector from the Countryman to a Boss TU-2 chromatic tuner, another connector to the Shuttle amp, and an XLR mic cable from the Shuttle to the preamp. Here's what this looked like:
Here is what each device sounded like:
http://www.davebuerger.com/music/misc/Countryman DI.wav
http://www.davebuerger.com/music/misc/Shuttle DI.wav
To my ear, the Countryman recording sounded more fat and sweet. The wav forms confirmed this impression. As shown below, the Shuttle wav form is thinner and more spotty than the Countryman.
On a hunch, I disconnected the instrument cable from the Countryman and inserted it directly into the Shuttle, then re-recorded the chordal scale. It sounded much better - virtually identical to the Countryman:
http://www.davebuerger.com/music/misc/Shuttle DI - 2.wav
The wav form also improved to nearly match the Countryman's:
This test confirms that the quality of the Shuttle 6.0 DI is virtually identical to the Countryman Type 85 Direct Box. It also provides evidence that for the best signal quality, it's important to eliminate the Boss TU-2 tuner (and perhaps other stomp boxes) from the signal chain. I've switched my tuner to the Shuttle's tuner out jack. I'll miss being able to step on the tuner to activate muting, but will regain that capability with the Shuttle's front-panel mute button.
To test the quality of each DI, I recorded arpeggios for a simple chordal scale in G with a Fender Aerodyne Jazz bass using a Countryman and a Shuttle DI. All Shuttle DI tests were set to pre-EQ, which is the default (and only) setting for the Countryman. The G chordal scale is G, Am, Bm, C, D7, Em, F#m7-5, and G. The bass has some extra goodies to improve sonic quality - Seymour Duncan pickups, BadAss bridge, HipShot Ultralight tuners, and Status Graphite Hot Wire half wound strings. The signals were routed through an ART Tube MP preamp and a dbx 266SL compressor (3:1). Recordings were made with Cubase LE4 onto a Dell laptop.
The first test simultaneously recorded the Countryman and Shuttle with a split connection: an XLR mic cable from the Countryman to the preamp, and a connector from the Countryman to a Boss TU-2 chromatic tuner, another connector to the Shuttle amp, and an XLR mic cable from the Shuttle to the preamp. Here's what this looked like:
Here is what each device sounded like:
http://www.davebuerger.com/music/misc/Countryman DI.wav
http://www.davebuerger.com/music/misc/Shuttle DI.wav
To my ear, the Countryman recording sounded more fat and sweet. The wav forms confirmed this impression. As shown below, the Shuttle wav form is thinner and more spotty than the Countryman.
On a hunch, I disconnected the instrument cable from the Countryman and inserted it directly into the Shuttle, then re-recorded the chordal scale. It sounded much better - virtually identical to the Countryman:
http://www.davebuerger.com/music/misc/Shuttle DI - 2.wav
The wav form also improved to nearly match the Countryman's:
This test confirms that the quality of the Shuttle 6.0 DI is virtually identical to the Countryman Type 85 Direct Box. It also provides evidence that for the best signal quality, it's important to eliminate the Boss TU-2 tuner (and perhaps other stomp boxes) from the signal chain. I've switched my tuner to the Shuttle's tuner out jack. I'll miss being able to step on the tuner to activate muting, but will regain that capability with the Shuttle's front-panel mute button.
Talk about 'non true bypass'
I agree though, that TU-2 unit, as you can see on the frequency plots, is just awful. I tried one in-line once, and it sucked about 80% of the top end out of my tone. Simply horrible.
