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The skinny on nice DI's

#81
Mark Reccord said:
Hmm, that does seem like credible information. I've never experienced a Countryman failing like that, but I can't guarantee that I've ever seen one with a dead 9V. I know that they'll work with no battery installed. I guess they're running their power supply differently than I thought.

In the active DI that I designed, a dead battery isn't an issue. It will automatically switch to the source with the highest voltage under any circumstance. I guess that Countryman aren't doing it that way.
Click to expand...

Just poking my head in for a second with further info on this subject. I have a Countryman Type-85 on my bench right now and with phantom power engaged and a dead as a doornail 9V in the slot. It works perfectly. I'm in the midst of taking detailed measurements on a bunch of DIs for comparison to my designs but I figured this was worth reporting.

I don't know what the LSI guys were smoking on that day, unless they had a bad batch of DIs.
 
#82
Mark Reccord said:
Just poking my head in for a second with further info on this subject. I have a Countryman Type-85 on my bench right now and with phantom power engaged and a dead as a doornail 9V in the slot. It works perfectly. I'm in the midst of taking detailed measurements on a bunch of DIs for comparison to my designs but I figured this was worth reporting.

I don't know what the LSI guys were smoking on that day, unless they had a bad batch of DIs.
Click to expand...

Mark: Thanks for posting this--maybe the article I posted was wrong. Or, maybe the phantom power at the location mentioned in the article wasn't the typical 48 volts. Don't mean to make you do a lot of work on this, but do you have the ability to see how low your phantom voltage can go before it won't work? If you do, try it with and without a dead battery and let us know. If not, I still appreciate the info.

Mark
 
#83
mbrain said:
Mark: Thanks for posting this--maybe the article I posted was wrong. Or, maybe the phantom power at the location mentioned in the article wasn't the typical 48 volts. Don't mean to make you do a lot of work on this, but do you have the ability to see how low your phantom voltage can go before it won't work? If you do, try it with and without a dead battery and let us know. If not, I still appreciate the info.

Mark
Click to expand...

Didn't get a chance to look at this today. But I will in the next few days and I'll post the results.
 
#84
I bought a Radial JDI for use with my active Roscoe at church and could not get a strong enough signal to the board. Also found the sound to be very colored, with a thicker tubey mid range which did not sit well with the Roscoe's already strong midrange. Switched to a Countryman and thought it added much less color to the sound of my bass. No problem with signal strength either. Might just be that the JDI and the Roscoe don't work together well.

Since the JDI didn't work well for that application, I tried sendng the output of Roland electric drums to the JDI to the board. Sounds good for that application but I need to crank the e-drums output almost all the way up to get a hot enough signal to the board. Anyone else have signal strength problems with the JDI or is their something wrong with mine? :(
 
#86
CLJMB said:
I bought a Radial JDI for use with my active Roscoe at church and could not get a strong enough signal to the board. . . . I tried sendng the output of Roland electric drums to the JDI to the board. . . . I need to crank the e-drums output almost all the way up to get a hot enough signal to the board. . . .
Click to expand...

Probably a stupid question, but are you certain you didn't have one of the pads on the JDI engaged? If so, that will drop the signal strength.
 
#87
CLJMB said:
I bought a Radial JDI for use with my active Roscoe at church and could not get a strong enough signal to the board. Also found the sound to be very colored, with a thicker tubey mid range which did not sit well with the Roscoe's already strong midrange. Switched to a Countryman and thought it added much less color to the sound of my bass. No problem with signal strength either. Might just be that the JDI and the Roscoe don't work together well.

Since the JDI didn't work well for that application, I tried sendng the output of Roland electric drums to the JDI to the board. Sounds good for that application but I need to crank the e-drums output almost all the way up to get a hot enough signal to the board. Anyone else have signal strength problems with the JDI or is their something wrong with mine? :(
Click to expand...

Sounds like user error on the part of the person running the board (i.e., assuming a line level signal, or not understanding how an input pad works). It's amazing how clueless some of these guys are.

This is assuming you didn't mistakenly have the pad engaged on the DI.
 
#89
mbrain said:
Probably a stupid question, but are you certain you didn't have one of the pads on the JDI engaged? If so, that will drop the signal strength.
Click to expand...


There are two pad buttons on the JDI. One on each side. On the input side it's there to reduce the signal of a hot instrument. On the other side is a bigger pad for taking a speaker signal into the JDI.
 
#90
I use a passive P-bass with my JDI, and I usually have soundmen asking me for more signal. When I tell them that's all I've got, they usually just turn up the input trim and all's well, always sounds great.

Though I've not had any problems using the JDI with my passive bass, I think I'm going to try using the second channel of my F2B in front of the JDI, so that I can give the soundman more signal strength, plus perhaps get some of the F2B's tubey goodness into the FOH (I created a thread about this in the Live Sound Forum, but not getting any response yet). I've run the F2B into the JDI a lot at home in a recording environment, but have yet to try it live.
 
#91
Um..yeah..first thing I did was check to see if any of the pads were engaged. :eyebrow:

And while the sound guy isn't the greatest, I checked everything from the DI box all the way back to the board and all the board settings (yes including the trim..while somebody else played my bass)..switched cables, tried another channel in the board, another channel on the snake...all the obvious stuff..as far as I can tell the cause is the DI.:bawl:
 
#92
CLJMB said:
Um..yeah..first thing I did was check to see if any of the pads were engaged. :eyebrow:

And while the sound guy isn't the greatest, I checked everything from the DI box all the way back to the board and all the board settings (yes including the trim..while somebody else played my bass)..switched cables, tried another channel in the board, another channel on the snake...all the obvious stuff..as far as I can tell the cause is the DI.:bawl:
Click to expand...

So, by checking the trim, you mean that you had it turned all the way up to maximum input sensitivity, and the signal was still low:confused: I've never heard of that. Something funky is going on. I've never heard of this before.

Just making sure, you are talking about the trim/input pad, and not the channel volume slider, correct?

Was there a mic/line setting on the board?
 
#93
CLJMB said:
Um..yeah..first thing I did was check to see if any of the pads were engaged. :eyebrow:

And while the sound guy isn't the greatest, I checked everything from the DI box all the way back to the board and all the board settings (yes including the trim..while somebody else played my bass)..switched cables, tried another channel in the board, another channel on the snake...all the obvious stuff..as far as I can tell the cause is the DI.:bawl:
Click to expand...


Sounds like it could be an issue with the DI. I'm sure Radial will help you out if it is.

mbrain said:
Mark: Thanks for posting this--maybe the article I posted was wrong. Or, maybe the phantom power at the location mentioned in the article wasn't the typical 48 volts. Don't mean to make you do a lot of work on this, but do you have the ability to see how low your phantom voltage can go before it won't work? If you do, try it with and without a dead battery and let us know. If not, I still appreciate the info.

Mark
Click to expand...


I just tested this. The Countryman will work on phantom as low as about 3V with an attendant reduction in output signal with a dead battery. It starts to fall apart below that. With a good battery it switches to battery power when the phantom dips below about 9V. I tested that by putting an ammeter in line between the positive terminal of the battery and the positive connector in the battery compartment. When current flowed, I knew the battery was taking over.

The J48 works down to about 9V from the supply, but under normal circumstances it sags the phantom on my little mixer down to 18V which is indicative of a fairly high current draw. The Countryman only pulls the phantom down to 45V, indicative of a low draw from the supply.

I have detailed measurements tabulated for the J48, Countryman, JDI and my active and passive designs. I don't know if it's cool for me to post them or not.
 
#95
Yes I turned the channel gain pot (not the slider) all the way up (of course I turned the slider all the way up too) and did not have sufficient gain from my active Roscoe (which has a healthy output). Additionally, if I run the output from the sound module of the electric drums into the JDI with the channel gain pot maxed (on a different channel on the mixer than I tried the bass on) I need to turn the gain for the drum module all the way up to get sufficient level to the board. Of particular note is that I can get PLENTY of level from the drums with the drum module (as well as the mixer gain pot) turned less than halfway up when I remove the JDI from the signal chain and instead use a cheap ART passive direct box.
 
#96
CLJMB said:
Yes I turned the channel gain pot (not the slider) all the way up (of course I turned the slider all the way up too) and did not have sufficient gain from my active Roscoe (which has a healthy output). Additionally, if I run the output from the sound module of the electric drums into the JDI with the channel gain pot maxed (on a different channel on the mixer than I tried the bass on) I need to turn the gain for the drum module all the way up to get sufficient level to the board. Of particular note is that I can get PLENTY of level from the drums with the drum module (as well as the mixer gain pot) turned less than halfway up when I remove the JDI from the signal chain and instead use a cheap ART passive direct box.
Click to expand...

Ah, then I agree with the above that something is wrong with your particular JDI. Bummer.
 
#97
Well, I ended up with a J48. I couldn't be happier. Took it out on a gig a this weekend, plugged in to check the bass through the house and the soundguy commented on how great the bass sounded. I think he said it was very clear and big sounding. I used my Fender J and my active 6 string with the volume matched to the J bass. Anyhow, great product, built like a tank and sounds great. I'm very happy with my purchase.
 
#98
emjazz said:
Well, I ended up with a J48. I couldn't be happier. Took it out on a gig a this weekend, plugged in to check the bass through the house and the soundguy commented on how great the bass sounded. I think he said it was very clear and big sounding. I used my Fender J and my active 6 string with the volume matched to the J bass. Anyhow, great product, built like a tank and sounds great. I'm very happy with my purchase.
Click to expand...

Excellent!!!
 
#99
Thats great Andy! I'm glad the J48 fit the bill for you. I've been using my JDI and have been generally happy with it. Its nothing fancy but it gets the job done well. And, it still leaves plenty of room for that Boutique tube DI gas too..... :)
 

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