DI box live set-up question

[JimmyM]

I would be screwing over the band by plugging in the DI wrong. That is the whole point.

Point not taken. I've done it a million times with a tube amp and it sounds way more awesome in the house than some plain old vanilla SS DI.

Oh, and anyone tries to bypass my effects, and there will not be a show for you to ruin with your one-dimensional "this is how you do it and you can suck eggs even though you're a 40-year pro musician who's played arenas and amphitheaters" approach unless they replace you before showtime.

 

[Chip Dixon]

Point not taken. I've done it a million times with a tube amp and it sounds way more awesome in the house than some plain old vanilla SS DI.

Oh, and anyone tries to bypass my effects, and there will not be a show for you to ruin with your one-dimensional "this is how you do it and you can suck eggs even though you're a 40-year pro musician who's played arenas and amphitheaters" approach unless they replace you before showtime.

You can get an extra channel if you want. That is fine. But if you don't take a DI direct off the bass at a live show then you fail Bass DI 101 at FullSail. Full stop. You don't get take 2 at the concert. You need something that always works and doesn't have buzz, hum or other noise that might come from your amp to feed the subs. Noise fries subs and sounds awful. Nothing is cleaner than a nice DI from your bass for aux fed subs. If you want a second non mic feed for the mains, that is good. I like that. I still need a direct bass DI for my aux fed subs.

 

[Jack]

This has now jumped the shark from 'is he a troll?' to 'boring, he's a troll'.

So where do y'all put your di anyway? Now that I'm just running a helix I don't have a lot of choice (spoiler: it goes after the helix) but not everybody is me. When I was a little more traditional I'd have a di after the pedals if someone else was running sround, or use the effects loop on my amp if I was doing it myself.

 

[Wasnex]

You obviously have never read the countryman 85 manual. I have one right here. It says the amp out is for guitar amps. Bassist is still supposed to plug in from the instrument. Thank you for proving my point.

Not really, although the Type 85 manual does show a guitar amp, I believe they are being generic as the Type 85 has been used for speaker level bass applications for decades.

Although I believe the JDI speaker emulation is specifically designed to model a 12" guitar speaker, many bass players report favorable results using it. The only warning here is the speaker should not be daisy chained off the JDI as the internal traces can not handle the current. Run the JDI in parallel with the speaker, and it will be fine. Also you need to push both the 15 dB pad and the Speaker button which engages a band pass filter and a second pad.

Here is a clipped image from the manual, and note the instrument in the image is actually a bass

The C.A.B. M+ very specifically says bass.

Here's is an image from the Rupert Neeve Design RNDI instructions

Notice the bass hooks up on the right...it's not going through the efffects loop. The signal is taken out of the speaker out; then run to the speaker.

and see please post #98 for how I really feel.

 

[JimmyM]

You can get an extra channel if you want. That is fine. But if you don't take a DI direct off the bass at a live show then you fail Bass DI 101 at FullSail.

1. I hate blending clean and dirt. I have exactly one dirt pedal that requires it...an Animato clone. That pedal is so weird that I struggle to find uses for it, but I love what it does because no other pedal on earth does what it does. And that's the only reason I still have it. Most of the time, blends sound like bees buzzing from far away, and I hate that.

2. There was a time when dirt pedals required a blend to sound good with bass. That era ended about 25 years ago when pedal makers got hip to making dirt that sounds good without a blend.

3. I have used unblended dirt pedals since the 90's, including fuzz. Number of times I've blown a sub? 0.

4. I live half an hour away from Full Sail and remember the days when they used to have to beg for a studio where they could teach. I was one of the first people to record for them and have done so many times over the years. I've also worked with many folks who came fresh out of FS for their first live sound gigs and still do. Most of those who come out of there think they know everything, they think only the way they were taught is the only way to do things, and I'd say 90% of them suck until they've had a few years out there to get humbled a few times by veteran musicians who don't have to take their know-it-all BS. So if you want to impress me, you won't bring up Full Sail again.

 

[Wasnex]

One additional warning about running a speaker level DI with bass that I forgot to mention. This should not be done with amps that are running in bridge mode, as it can destroy the amp and DI.

The reason this is a problem is because bridge mode configures the amp with a differential output. In other words there is an output signal on both the + speaker terminal and the - speaker terminal. The sleeve of the DI will be connected to ground, which will short the output of the amp and release the magic smoke.

Hopefully this image will make my point clear:

Many Class D amps are actually operated permanently in bridge mode. So unless you really know what you are doing, I would recommend only running speaker level DIs with tube output sections. IMHO, there are few instances where it would make sense to run a solid state amp into a speaker level DI anyway.

 

[Downunderwonder]

1. I hate blending clean and dirt. I have exactly one dirt pedal that requires it...an Animato clone. That pedal is so weird that I struggle to find uses for it, but I love what it does because no other pedal on earth does what it does. And that's the only reason I still have it. Most of the time, blends sound like bees buzzing from far away, and I hate that.

2. There was a time when dirt pedals required a blend to sound good with bass. That era ended about 25 years ago when pedal makers got hip to making dirt that sounds good without a blend.

3. I have used unblended dirt pedals since the 90's, including fuzz. Number of times I've blown a sub? 0.

4. I live half an hour away from Full Sail and remember the days when they used to have to beg for a studio where they could teach. I was one of the first people to record for them and have done so many times over the years. I've also worked with many folks who came fresh out of FS for their first live sound gigs and still do. Most of those who come out of there think they know everything, they think only the way they were taught is the only way to do things, and I'd say 90% of them suck until they've had a few years out there to get humbled a few times by veteran musicians who don't have to take their know-it-all BS. So if you want to impress me, you won't bring up Full Sail again.

Full Sail experience explains all! Only time I ran into so much attitude they hadn't figured it out in 40 years, blaming my 210 for blowing up the mix on an outdoor stage. The drummer's monitor overpowered my cab from the other side of the drums, but it sounded great being fed from my mic.

 

[Geri O]

I live half an hour away from Full Sail and remember the days when they used to have to beg for a studio where they could teach. I was one of the first people to record for them and have done so many times over the years. I've also worked with many folks who came fresh out of FS for their first live sound gigs and still do. Most of those who come out of there think they know everything, they think only the way they were taught is the only way to do things, and I'd say 90% of them suck until they've had a few years out there to get humbled a few times by veteran musicians who don't have to take their know-it-all BS. So if you want to impress me, you won't bring up Full Sail again.

I certainly had a few show Full Sail grads up with impressively-long resumes and heads-full of room and book learning. They thought they should be sitting in the mixing chair with me setting up a console for them to run (that they couldn't even find the power supply umbilical to connect. One even broke the pins of a PSU connector by trying to spin the connector onto the PSU instead of the easy method of simply inserting the connector and spinning the lock ring. The only time I ever had to pull out a spare PSU cable ever)

The bad thing, I love Full Sail and the concept. They really do have a good curriculum and teaching methods. I just can't figure out what the hell happens to the grads once they, well, graduate.

(and believe it or not, I've met two Full Sail grads that were quite sharp. That tells me that they went in with a good head and intuition for production.

 

[Zbysek]

If you have a junk cab, cab simulation is the best you can do at that point. To not mic a nice 8x10 cabinet to compliment the DI signal would be just wrong though.

No, I don't have a junk cab. I use Bergantino and Epifani cabs. I have clearly stated my reasons for not micing my cabinets in post No. 74. Having junk cabinet was not one of them.

What I meant by stating that I don't use (proper) cabinet was that, for some of my gigs, I either use Eich Bassboard instead of a cab, or no cab at all...

 

[Zbysek]

So where do y'all put your di anyway?

I put my primary DI (wet) at the end of my pedalboard, and my backup DI (clean) at the beginning of the pedalboard.

When I use my all-tube amp (Ampeg PF-20T), I use its DI output as my primary DI feed...

 

[Chip Dixon]

The DI is for FOH. Not you. You keep it where they need it. Sabotaging the mix because you think you know better will not help you.

 

[Chip Dixon]

You showed a picture of the DI being used to record in the studio. Which makes that work in that scenario. Live shows and studio recording are two different things. For a live show, you still want the DI off the instrument. At a live show you are driving a huge stack of subwoofers. You're not doing that in the studio. Studio mixers often can't pull off a live show and vice versa. They are two different beasts.

 

[Chip Dixon]

Jimmy, if you put dirt into the subwoofer feed, you destroy the subs. They have to be kept clean. That is why at live shows you put a DI right off the instrument: for feeding the aux that feeds the subwoofers. The dirt still goes to the mains. They don't blend. They are band passed by the DSP.

 

[Jack]

if you put dirt into the subwoofer feed, you destroy the subs. They have to be kept clean

I keep telling myself I won't feed the troll any more but sometimes it's too riveting.

Qintar? Is that you? Don't forget to have a leg day, bro.

 

[Chip Dixon]

Funny how basic live sound reinforcement knowledge is called trolling here. You guys obviously need the sound guy. In the real world, protecting the PA system is more important than some band member's opinion. That is why we plug the DI first in line after your bass.

 

[Geri O]

Funny how basic live sound reinforcement knowledge is called trolling here. You guys obviously need the sound guy. In the real world, protecting the PA system is more important than some band member's opinion. That is why we plug the DI first in line after your bass.

Funny how you still don't know the difference. The band isn't the enemy. If your issue is PA vs band, please go home and play with your X-Box.

 

[Chip Dixon]

Of course the band isn't the enemy. That is why you don't let them sabotage the show with their ignorance. You guys should go to prosoundweb and ask the same question. You won't find any one saying to not put a DI first thing after the bass for a live show.

 

[Jack]

I'd say that.
Find me on there, I've been there 10 years next month. I assume you're on there using your real name too?

 

[JimmyM]

Jimmy, if you put dirt into the subwoofer feed, you destroy the subs. They have to be kept clean. That is why at live shows you put a DI right off the instrument: for feeding the aux that feeds the subwoofers. The dirt still goes to the mains. They don't blend. They are band passed by the DSP.

Boy oh boy...you have no idea how bass dirt pedals work, do you?

 

[JimmyM]

Allow me to lay out some wisdom here...

HOW TO KEEP BASS DIRT PEDALS FROM BLOWING YOUR SUBS:

1. Turn down the subs.

2. When in doubt, refer to rule number 1.