Need help understanding Mesa subway di gain output

[cirrusbassman]

Im new here to posting, but have been lurking for some time and decided to jump in. Im having a little trouble understanding the gain on my di. I have been using it with a peavey cirrus 5 18v into active side of di. The problem I’m having is when using my new Lakland DJ5 passive bass into passive side of di, the signal is much hotter into my amp. Is this typical? I am going into the active side of amp with both Basses. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[markmck79]

The best person to answer this query is @agedhorse.

That's the best help I can give.

 

[cirrusbassman]

Ok thanks

 

[mmbongo]

Not sure what you mean by 'active side of DI', but it's very possible for a passive bass to have a hotter signal than a passive bass. There is an active/passive switch on the DI, in active mode you will get more headroom on the input. Try flipping it to active mode.

 

[cirrusbassman]

Yeah I just figured the passive bass was less signal but I guess not the case. It’s new to me

 

[Jamie_Funk]

I have a hot active bass. I have the Subway DI. I keep the switch in Passive mode and have no issues.

Usual advice - unless you hear something bad, use the passive setting - active simply pads the input I believe

 

[Nunovsky]

If you think the signal is too hot into the amp, the you shoul turn down the output volume until you find the sweet spot, either unity or a bit above.
Because a bass is passive, it doesn't mean it doesn't have a hotter signal than others. My Yamaha BB1024x has really high output pickups and if I switch basses in a gig, I need to regulate volumes to acomodate that.

 

[cirrusbassman]

Yeah, really the whole deal was for me that I just wanted to switch the active/passive switch and be able to normalize the input, wishful thinking . So much to learn about different bass signals. I have been a one bass guy for so long, but times a changin

 

[Nunovsky]

You can do that, but you need a switch pedal with dedicated volume for each line. Therefore you can balance the output signal and switch basses without worrying about volume peaks/drop.