for clean clear and colorless sound yes, but that’s the exact opposite of the Motown DI.
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Acme Audio Motown DI
- Thread starter jnewmark
- Start date
for clean clear and colorless sound yes, but that’s the exact opposite of the Motown DI.
In my opinion, I don't think there is any magic in a crappy transformer. There are better ways to add distortion in a controlled manner.
Don’t we all!!!
Actually I don’t think you need this DI at all for that. I think it’s most important to have a string mute that works well for your bass to get his thumpy sound.
To be honest I decided to get the Motown DI when I saw an old IG post from Stephen Campbell (from the Marcus King Band) praising this DI for its rich sound when Recording the wonderful Carolina Confessions album with producer Dave Cobb. I can certainly live without it. The Noble DI puts much more of a smile on my face.
The last DI I have any interest in getting is the Useful Arts BF-S Pro. I’ve been told by a few sources that the weird impedance does wonders for bass unlike anything else… (GaS)
One of my old threads resurrected! BTW, I wound up getting the SVT DI, and really dig it. Every engineer I've worked with loves the sound coming out of that box. Using it mostly for Blues, RnB stuff.
i agree. but the types of metal used DOES make a difference. Jensen goes for as clean and clear a sound with as little distortion as possible. Vintage Triad and UTC (what Motown used) had different tolerance levels back then (higher distortion was ok) and used different metals, some of which are no longer used for transformers. this is supposed to be the "magic" of that old sound. Acme tried to get as close to that as possible. FWIW i have DI's that i made with vintage 60's UTC transformers, and compared to the Radial (Jensen) and ProDI (cheaper Jensen) they are very different sounding. Also Triad and UTC were not "crappy" transformers, they were top of the line quality in the 60's.
A transformer DI steps the signal down in voltage and in impedance. That means the signal will survive a very long cable run without changing frequency response, and work into a mic input - your raw bass signal won’t do that. You aren’t actually losing signal, you’re trading off voltage, and gaining in current as a result. Plug it into an input it isn’t designed to work with, and you might get the wrong impression.
It’s not a “lousy” DI, it’s doing its job very well.
All that said, If you’re looking for the magic of the Motown sound, it ain’t in the transformer - it’s well before that in the signal chain.
Don’t we all!!!
Actually I don’t think you need this DI at all for that. I think it’s most important to have a string mute that works well for your bass to get his thumpy sound.
To be honest I decided to get the Motown DI when I saw an old IG post from Stephen Campbell (from the Marcus King Band) praising this DI for its rich sound when Recording the wonderful Carolina Confessions album with producer Dave Cobb. I can certainly live without it. The Noble DI puts much more of a smile on my face.
The last DI I have any interest in getting is the Useful Arts BF-S Pro. I’ve been told by a few sources that the weird impedance does wonders for bass unlike anything else… (GaS)
If my understanding is correct, only the XLR out is affected by the transformer? One of the draws of the Noble DI for me is that both the balanced out and the 1/4" are effected by its electronics and tubes which is really nice if you plan on using it both in front of an amp at home, and as a DI at a venue.
No, I plugged the other 1/4” out to my amp thinking it was a dry thru and the signal clearly sounded to my ears that it was affected by the transformer. Even the Direct/Attenuation switch and control are in the circuit when using only the 1/4” cables
It’s also mentioned in the manual and in online videos that the XLR can be used as an input from an output such as PA or DAW to reamp with the signal coming out of the 1/4” on the face of the unit. Haven’t tried it this way.
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Judging by wiring in this photo, I don't think the Thru would be affected by the transformer as they are wired in parallel (I think that is the correct word). Would be super cool if they were. However, I may be completely wrong.
A/B double blind test with Jamerson and, Jensen VS UTC?
Its all about the player, bass, strings, and signal chain in this example.
The idea that a DI would allow you to sound like someone else is a pipe dream.
Have you actually run power through one of these?
I built a clone from the original design. The "attenuator" is a standard two watt, 100K pot with series resistors either side of it. Not a 100 watt L pad, or anything like that.
If you ran your amp out to the D.I. in, then came out of the parallel 1/4" jack to your cab, it might be OK.
It certainly won't provide a proper load for your amp (especially tubes) by itself.
I was never under the impression that they were designed to take power, so am interested in your experience.
Couple years later and the link 404'd for me. I've seen this elsewhere as well with other Wolfbox links. Wonder if someone is trying to scrub info about this?
The thru jack is exactly in parallel with the input jack. The only thing it will have is some loading applied to the pickup, compared to the bass being plugged straight into the amp.
Yes, I used to run the speaker out of my B15S head through the DI. No issues whatsoever. Would I try using it without a speaker load? No. ACME told me that it was fine to run up to 100w through the box. That was several years ago and have since replaced the ACME with a P-15.
It's probably just a T pad, which should be able to attenuate enough to keep the transformer core from saturating.
I'm not talking about the drop in output. I'm talking about how people refer to the amount it changes its sound. Many passive DIs drop the output - it's not unique to the Acme. It's definitely not a Motown thing to do that. The "magic" was always the preamps they used and the electronics going all the way through to the tape machine. Everything at Motown was heavily modified at one time. The least likely culprit was probably the DI. You may claim it was Jamerson, but Babbitt got a pretty good sound there, too. So which is it, really?
Motown had more than 1 good bass player. The gear was good enough to capture what they did, but the players were the magic.
In the 1960's, consoles were not something you bought at a store. Everything was purpose built - everything was custom, and if it didn't work, you modified it - as there weren't that many tracks, it was relatively easy to do, and most everything was "modified" - folks were just learning how to do recording, and as they learned stuff, they modified their gear so it would work better. It wasn't about any kind of boutique or snobbery stuff - it was just making it work as well as you could - if a better circuit or part came along, and you wanted to take advantage of it, you modified all 4 inputs on your "console". The Beatles recorded through electronics that were custom built. Motown did too, but that was normal - nobody had a production line making mixers.
In 1969, a big concert was held out East - Woodstock. The guys that did sound for that were working on a console (making one themselves - live mixing consoles just didn't exist). In the hopes that they'd get it working for the event, they shipped it to the site, and worked on it there. They didn't get it working - Woodstock was mixed on 5 Shure M67 mixers - 16 inputs max, the mics fed the first 4 mixers, and the outputs of those fed the 5th mixer, which mixed the "sub mixes". Woodstock was mixed with Shure dynamic mics and absolutely no EQ on anything. Then again, most records were also mixed with absolutely no EQ on anything. Those stories about Engineers preferring P basses come from this era - when all you have is different mics and mic positions (or a DI) to get your sound, having a known source helped you save time - in an era where studios were rare things, and their time was valuable, efficiency was key.
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