Nice DI

[FDR Jones]

Hey, I bought a UA 610 Solo to use as a bass DI. I thought it would be fun to hear the difference compared to the built-in DI on my Focusrite 2i4. To be honest, I’m not sure I can tell the difference (listening with Sennheiser HD5XX).

Of course, the UA is plugged into the interface. Is this a case of a chain only being as strong as the weakest link?

 

[guts]

I think it's more a case of two devices trying to do the exact same thing.

 

[FDR Jones]

Cool... guess I can sell this thing.

 

[FDR Jones]

Anyone using an Eden Glowplug?

 

[EastCoastThump]

UA solo/610 is what I'd consider a "color" DI. Push the gain up for bigger, "sticky" bass notes—you should be able to hear it.

Also nice on snare and for getting some girth on thinner voices.

 

[Frank Tuesday]

It might be a matter of weakest link. Since the UA610 has balanced line level out, the best option would be to do directly from that to the ADC. Focusrite doesn't have a block diagram of the 2i4, so I don't know if your signal is going through it's own preamp before hitting the ADC.

 

[FDR Jones]

It might be a matter of weakest link. Since the UA610 has balanced line level out, the best option would be to do directly from that to the ADC. Focusrite doesn't have a block diagram of the 2i4, so I don't know if your signal is going through it's own preamp before hitting the ADC.

I think I remember reading something a while ago that it’s not possible to avoid the preamp in the 2i4.

 

[FDR Jones]

UA solo/610 is what I'd consider a "color" DI. Push the gain up for bigger, "sticky" bass notes—you should be able to hear it.

Also nice on snare and for getting some girth on thinner voices.

Thanks for the reply... I’ll try it with the gain up higher. Since I don’t go for distortion, I’m in the habit of turning the level pretty much all the way up and then slowly increasing the gain from zero until I can hear it.

 

[Aloe]

2gen Scarlett's DI is pretty decent (first gen had some clipping problems).
in fact, I prefer it to some big named external DIs.

if you cannot hear a $1000 tube device improves the sound, probably the Scarlett's DI is pretty good for you as well.
if you're running your Scarlett at 96kHz, it should not be the bottleneck.

buying and plugging a $1000 preamp in a $80 audio interface to me looks like you're desperately not happy with your tone. but just throwing a grand in equipment does not mean it all will sound like $1000 better.

 

[FDR Jones]

2gen Scarlett's DI is pretty decent (first gen had some clipping problems).
in fact, I prefer it to some big named external DIs.

if you cannot hear a $1000 tube device improves the sound, probably the Scarlett's DI is pretty good for you as well.
if you're running your Scarlett at 96kHz, it should not be the bottleneck.

buying and plugging a $1000 preamp in a $80 audio interface to me looks like you're desperately not happy with your tone. but just throwing a grand in equipment does not mean it all will sound like $1000 better.

I’m not desperately unhappy with my tone. My basses sound perfectly fine straight into the interface and perhaps I should be happy with that. The dollar amount doesn’t really mean anything to me— I bought it used and I can easily turn it around.