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Going Direct
- Thread starter MikeyFingers
- Start date
Alot of people have raved that Sansamps sound quite alot like miced Ampeg rigs with everything cranked, but after actually hearing them up close and paying attention to it I don't see the similarity. They both sound pretty driven and tubey, but the sansamp has a distinct top end to it which makes it sound alot less like one to me, haven't had that much experience with 'pegs or sansamps, but there is a trebleyness that you can't seem to get rid of with the sansamp, when I've sued one anyway, that seems very un 'peg like.
They are pretty good DIs though for the people that suit them, but I still don't think they still sound very much like a DI to me at least. Sound awesome when they fit though.
They are pretty good DIs though for the people that suit them, but I still don't think they still sound very much like a DI to me at least. Sound awesome when they fit though.
also another thing that crossed my mind...what about the line outs on the heads themselves..ive actually never used it but wouldnt that be an alternate solution??? anyone have experience with something like that
Depends on the head, if you have a quality head you probably have a quality DI too. Alot of heads DIs are after the preamp but before the EQ (or are switchable between pre and post) depends on the design, most DIs on heads are after the pre as far as I know anyway.
Word, I think I play better when I can feel the bass. As for going DI there are two things to think about. Either buy a really nice Preamp and there are tons out there I have a aguilar DB 680 and just got a glockenklang bass art preamp. Second do you run pre or post i like bass players running pre unless they have hooked there head up to a board and really put some time into EQing. Alot of players EQ to there rig and then run post which does not sound very good alot of times. Also I have never run into this problem, What kind of venues are you playing in.
Just Chancellor uses Mesa Boogie and Gallien Krueger on tour and I'd imagine he'd be fairly specific about his sound much like the rest of the band. I'd be surprised if he wasn't miked to capture "his" sound.
Personally, I see the pre EQ argument, I just think it'd be better if certain tone filters (enhancers, voicing presets etc) were included if I was gonna do it. All basses have certain tonal characteristics, as do all pres, so I don't see the harm in some filters goin to the DI as some of the are fundamental to people's sound regardless of whether those filters are through your cab or the PA. Obviously you can get rid of all those complications with a microphone 
I dunno man, just based on the recordings and stuff I'd imagine he's a DI kinda guy cos they sound pretty polished and I'd imagine they'd wanna sound that way live. Don't really know much about Tool though.
I didn't spend the money to buy my Mesa/Boogie cabinets and lug them to the bar to have some failed DJ use it as a bleepin DI box. I ask every soundman to mic my cabinet. Most are happy to do just that, they don't want to touch my stuff. But every now and again I get a stubborn one that thinks he knows best. This happened at our last show, the guy tells me he doesn't have another mic and stand. So he climbs back and plugs in the cord, then goes to his board and tells me to play. Then he asks me to turn up the DI level, which I do. Then he comes back up on stage looking pissed off, and goes behind my stack to check to make sure I turned it up. Once he's figured out it isn't working, he stomps off stage grumbling something about Mesa's being worth dog excrement and comes back up with, drum roll please, the mic and stand he didn't have 10 minutes ago. He didn't even set it up, he just set it down in front of me and said 'Here, you do it then.' What he doesn't know is that I opened up my amp and disconnected the leads for the DI. Yeah, I could have just said the the DI doesn't work, but this guy had already yelled at my guitarist because he has two cabinets, he was mad at the drummer because he uses two kick drums with triggers. By the time he got to me, he had major attitude with us, so I decided to let him figure it out.
Hahahah, you sir are a hero!
Your playing a risky tactic however, one of these days someone's gonna slam a nasty Behringer DI box on top of your amp so you won't get any amp sound at all through the PA... can't fault your dedication though!
Your playing a risky tactic however, one of these days someone's gonna slam a nasty Behringer DI box on top of your amp so you won't get any amp sound at all through the PA... can't fault your dedication though!
A friend of mine who is soundman, told me , on a show , he dealt with a trumpet player with an attitude (he was insisting on what type of mike to use) , he passed him through a pitch sifter to raise him a quarter tone
Just be carefull how you deal with soundmans.....
I have an Ampeg SVT 6-Pro head and I've got no problem with a soundguy DI'ing me throught the line out of my amp. I feel like I get "my tone" out of it and all of my effects go to the FOH also.
i also give a hearty +1 to the fact that using a di is a learning curve and is something you need to get used to just like you need to get used to following a drummer, playing with others, altering your playing style for the gig, learning to deal with not being able to hear everything on stage as well as you'd like, etc.......
Face it, you really do not know what it sounds like in the FOH unless you are there. Sure, there are idiot soundmen out there but there are also many many talented and more than competent sound engineers in the world. When it comes to a given syetem or venue, the soundman may know more about how to run that system/venue than you do.
Getting a direct signal, particularly pre eq, lets the soundman do his or her job much easier. If you really must have the sound of your rig amplified, as a soundman i'd much rather use a pre eq di AND mike your rig rather than just using a mic or getting the post eq/effects di off your amp.
for the most part, i have found that a quality DI will sound better than the DI off of MOST amps. some amps have wonderful DI circuits, many do not. Also, some amps like early swr models fry when they are exposed to phantom power, so if i don't trust a soundman, i'd rather have him use a cheap whirlwind di rather than giving him a pre eq di off my swr and having him toast it.
of course, many small to medium pa systems cannot handle the bass well, and that's where your amp will come into full play. To be honest, on most of my gigs my amp does all the work, and that's fine. When i play a larger place with a great PA i get to relax and let someone else worry about how loud i am.
Face it, you really do not know what it sounds like in the FOH unless you are there. Sure, there are idiot soundmen out there but there are also many many talented and more than competent sound engineers in the world. When it comes to a given syetem or venue, the soundman may know more about how to run that system/venue than you do.
Getting a direct signal, particularly pre eq, lets the soundman do his or her job much easier. If you really must have the sound of your rig amplified, as a soundman i'd much rather use a pre eq di AND mike your rig rather than just using a mic or getting the post eq/effects di off your amp.
for the most part, i have found that a quality DI will sound better than the DI off of MOST amps. some amps have wonderful DI circuits, many do not. Also, some amps like early swr models fry when they are exposed to phantom power, so if i don't trust a soundman, i'd rather have him use a cheap whirlwind di rather than giving him a pre eq di off my swr and having him toast it.
of course, many small to medium pa systems cannot handle the bass well, and that's where your amp will come into full play. To be honest, on most of my gigs my amp does all the work, and that's fine. When i play a larger place with a great PA i get to relax and let someone else worry about how loud i am.
I use a Hartke VXL Attack pedal to a passive Radial JDI DI pedal and it sounds good to the house. The Attack pedal shapes my tone and adds a bit of tube warmth and controlable output level (like an amp would if miked). The reason I don't use the Attack pedal's DI is that it got fried by the 48vdc phantom power from the board, which is a design flaw by Hartke that should be corrected. I have heard that the Avalon U5 might have that same probelm as well, but I don't know.
Im in the market for a good mic and an amp clamp. Problem solved. No reason to plug into the DI anymore, I will have my own mic setup and ready to go.
JimmyM speaks very highly of the Heil PR40, which I'm also now pretty interested in, very flat response to 30Hz or so and then dips a little all the way down to 20Hz as far as I can remember, deals with high SPLs very easily too accordingly. Apparently it was used to record the explosions for Saving Private Ryan, so the SPL thing is probably true
Apparently the price difference between that and an EV RE20 (Similarly high SPL handling and still pretty flat, not sure if it goes down as low though not that you really need it to go that low most of the time...) isn't that much over in the states though, think the Heil is a little cheaper still though. The EV definitely sounds awesome, used one on one of my NV215s 15s with a 421 on the mid driver and it sounded amazing, if only I could have a dual mic setup like that every gig...
Apparently the price difference between that and an EV RE20 (Similarly high SPL handling and still pretty flat, not sure if it goes down as low though not that you really need it to go that low most of the time...) isn't that much over in the states though, think the Heil is a little cheaper still though. The EV definitely sounds awesome, used one on one of my NV215s 15s with a 421 on the mid driver and it sounded amazing, if only I could have a dual mic setup like that every gig...
the avalon is ok with it IIRC. In fact, it even has an input to take speaker level inputs from your amp. In fact, i can't think of any dedicated DI units that can't take phantom power.
How's the whole speaker level DI work exactly? Does it just take the signal coming through and duplicate it at a much lower level? Don't really get how that would work without causing some nasty inefficiency.
I always use the DI out the back of my Ampeg SVT-4PRO, but I always carry a Radial J48 in case the sound guy doesn't want to use the DI off the back of the amp and want to use his cheap DI. Maybe I should just start using the Radial all the time?
If the guys that don't wanna use your DI mostly stick a cheap DI box infront of you, then you should probably start being a little more adamant with them. Not that if a guy has cheaper equipment they're a bad sound guy, just if they don't recognise that yours is better then some godforsaken Behringer thing and there might be other reasons for wanting to use yours then they probably are.
