DI as a backup in case amp craps out?

I always carry a Whirlwind IMP-2 in my gigbag.

It's cheap. It's passive. It's small. It's usable.

Might come in handy for a bandmate as well. Never a bad thing to have in your gigbag.

 

Many on this board seem to have a SansAmp Bass DI for just this purpose. That way you can use the sansamp to spice up your sound too. Not that the Ashdown needs it...

 

if anything, that's why soundmen all force you to use their DI before the amp, cause, yes, your amp could fail altogether.

 

I love my BDDI, i always use it anyway, so the fact it has a DI out is just an added bonus, love the sound i get recording straight with it

 

I always carry a DI. The radial passive DI is a very good reasonably priced DI. In regards to a 1/4 cable, it depends. If you bass has enough output you might be OK but as cheap as you can get these things I would definitely make the investment. I have seen some for as low as $25

 

Actually, any decent board should be able to take a passive bass signal for live use without much of a hassle. Most basses would have enough output for a mixer if they can drive an average amp.

The issue is noise; unless you are standing next to the mixer and don't plan on moving much, a 1/4" won't cut it. You do not want to run a 50-foot 1/4" TS instrument cable for numerous reasons, but one of the main issues is the noise that you will pick up on your way to the board. If it is a passive bass (or you bypass the onboard preamp), a cable that long will also run off a large amount of high frequencies.

 

Long cable or no, without a DI there's going to be a massive impedance mismatch, with loss of signal, tons of high end roll off, and weak sounding bass. Even active electronics are going to be subject to loss due to impedance mismatch.

 

Depends on the board; 95% of what I see for live use in a small-to-medium sized club is going to be a Mackie VLZ or similar, and a VLZ can easily handle a -50dB instrument output if I remember correctly... not ideal, but not absurd, either.

A DI is better for many reasons, obviously. Most of which, in my eyes, it noise reduction due to a balanced line and less noise from the preamp (as the gain won't be cranked).