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Here's what I think it does and what I want it to do.

I think you can run the speaker out from your amp into this little box. Then from this little box you can run to an interface, a PA and a speaker cab if you wanted. It appears to have built in speaker emulation.

What I want it for:

To inexpensively be able to record directly from my amps to my interface. I realize that there are free amp sims, cab sims, etc. but right atm I don't want to be bothered learning how to use that stuff. I sorta just want to plug my amp into something and record with minimal muss and fuss and without spending a ton of coin on something like a power station (which after seeing axe's demos is badass but way more than I need or am looking to spend).

So is this forever-noob correct that this would do what I wanted it to do?

Plug amp in.
Plug XLR cable in to box & interface.
Make noises that are converting to bits & bytes.

I believe you HAVE to have a speaker cab connected and powered - this doesn't provide a load to your amp.
So you can't record silently - but you can send a signal direct to your interface.
Not sure how good it's built in cab sim would be though.

I believe this is the one you are looking for

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/HeadloadV8

mamberg wrote:I believe you HAVE to have a speaker cab connected and powered - this doesn't provide a load to your amp.
So you can't record silently - but you can send a signal direct to your interface.
Not sure how good it's built in cab sim would be though.

Yeah, it wasn't super clear on that but that was my concern. Which would completely defeat the purpose for me.

Devin wrote:I believe this is the one you are looking for

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/HeadloadV8

Yeah, umm, maybe if you knocked one of the numbers off.

Keep seeing "build your own load box its easy!" threads when I search this on google. If I wanted to work I'd learn how to use cab/amp sims/impulses/whatever they're called.

I have amps. I want to use them.

But not have to buy something that cost more than any of them.

Do your amps have fx loops? There are some amps that will not pass sound to the speaker cab if the fx loop connection is broken. If yours are like that, you can use that device you posted in the OP and connect a cable from your amp's fx loop send to that device. You will still have to have a cabinet connected, but you might be able to record silently that way.

Devin wrote:Do your amps have fx loops? There are some amps that will not pass sound to the speaker cab if the fx loop connection is broken. If yours are like that, you can use that device you posted in the OP and connect a cable from your amp's fx loop send to that device. You will still have to have a cabinet connected, but you might be able to record silently that way.

Yeah all of them do. So basically just hook up to the FX send and it might work? Obviously leaving the speaker attached to the cab.

Hmmm. I can give that a whirl.

Yeah, you can record your speaker signal that way but you still need the cab connected through the "To Speaker" jack.

If you don't want a cab connected and want to record silently, you need a load box. There are cheaper ones built with resistors and more expensive ones built with reactive loads, like speaker motors.

You mentioned that you don't want to mess with cab sims/impulses...well if you want to record anything worth a shit, you'll have to learn how to use IRs, but it's not hard. I say that because all hardware speaker sims sound fucking awful, so don't let that be a selling point on any device.

Honestly, if you just don't want to deal with the hassle of miking up the cab and you aren't necessarily wanting to do this to get "cranked up" amp tone, then go with a DI box like the one in your original post (or a cheaper one, you can find decent ones for as low as $50 or so), obviously have your cab connected to it too, and just record at practice volume levels. Even though you're not getting a ton of power amp influence on the tone, it will still sound more authentic than just recording the preamp signal from the line out (because the speaker's impedance curve's effect on frequency response will be present in the signal), and you'll have tons of flexibility because you open up all the options of messing around with different impulses. Plus there are a couple of cool tube power amp simulators you can throw in your plugin chain that do a pretty awesome job IMO of simulating power tube characteristics on tone (resonance, presence, saturation, etc.). If not being 100% silent in the room isn't a dealbreaker, I think it's an awesome way to record and it's very inexpensive and flexible.

I'm planning on writing a fairly in-depth article about this for my little recording website in the near future. I'll shoot you a link to it when I do!

ovid9 wrote:

Devin wrote:Do your amps have fx loops? There are some amps that will not pass sound to the speaker cab if the fx loop connection is broken. If yours are like that, you can use that device you posted in the OP and connect a cable from your amp's fx loop send to that device. You will still have to have a cabinet connected, but you might be able to record silently that way.

Yeah all of them do. So basically just hook up to the FX send and it might work? Obviously leaving the speaker attached to the cab.

Hmmm. I can give that a whirl.

Also another thing worth mentioning is that some amps have FX loops where the signal level coming from the Send jack is tied to the master volume of the amp. If you decide to record your amp via the FX send (the amp's preamp) rather than spending money on a DI box to tap the speaker out signal, be aware that you might end up having to buy some kind of clean boost pedal (like the MXR Line Driver Boost) to get a decent signal level without noise if you're recording at low volumes and you're not able to get an adequate signal level (without tons of noise) from audio interface's preamp gain. However if the amp's speaker signal is defeated when the FX loop connection isn't completed (or by putting a dummy cable into the FX return) then that shouldn't be an issue since you could crank the master volume on the amp (and thereby increase the level of the FX send signal) but still have the cabinet be silent.

Alright, lots of good info.

Mark, yes, I know for optimal toneage I would need to learn about that stuff. But right now, I just need to focus on getting my playing to where I would like it to be. Once that happens and I'm getting some stuff together I don't hate (hah, like there's a chance) then it'd be time for the next step.

I just have a tendency to rage quit easily (like last time I tried this) and am trying to avoid that.

Markdude wrote:Yeah, you can record your speaker signal that way but you still need the cab connected through the "To Speaker" jack.

If you don't want a cab connected and want to record silently, you need a load box. There are cheaper ones built with resistors and more expensive ones built with reactive loads, like speaker motors.

You mentioned that you don't want to mess with cab sims/impulses...well if you want to record anything worth a shit, you'll have to learn how to use IRs, but it's not hard. I say that because all hardware speaker sims sound fucking awful, so don't let that be a selling point on any device.

Honestly, if you just don't want to deal with the hassle of miking up the cab and you aren't necessarily wanting to do this to get "cranked up" amp tone, then go with a DI box like the one in your original post (or a cheaper one, you can find decent ones for as low as $50 or so), obviously have your cab connected to it too, and just record at practice volume levels. Even though you're not getting a ton of power amp influence on the tone, it will still sound more authentic than just recording the preamp signal from the line out (because the speaker's impedance curve's effect on frequency response will be present in the signal), and you'll have tons of flexibility because you open up all the options of messing around with different impulses. Plus there are a couple of cool tube amp simulators you can throw in your plugin chain that do a pretty awesome job IMO of simulating power tube characteristics on tone (resonance, presence, saturation, etc.). If not being 100% silent in the room isn't a dealbreaker, I think it's an awesome way to record and it's very inexpensive and flexible.

Agreed with all of the above. If you absolutely don't want to deal with IRs and you want to go super cheap you could grab one of these:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audi ... ductDetail

I had one for a few years and didn't really like it for recording but as you can see from the reviews, some guys really do like them. Who knows, it might be a good match for those old Peaveys of yours.

I used mine live a few times and blended a mic'd signal with the Behringer. The sound guy added some magic on his end and it sounded pretty good through the PA.

Look what I found!

[video]https://youtu.be/kGV1k_2IPh4[/video]

When the camera went to him I thought "that dude looks like raf!" It IS our very own raf.

Wow, that actually seems like it'd be perfect for my current level of need.

Actually Slobber Rod aren't you selling one of these?

But wow, it has a decibel cut, just run speaker cable to out from the amp to it, from the unit to the speaker cab. XLR to interface. For $35 I'm pretty sure even I couldn't go wrong with this for utter simplicity.

ovid9 wrote::rofl: When the camera went to him I thought "that dude looks like raf!" It IS our very own raf.

Wow, that actually seems like it'd be perfect for my current level of need.

Actually Slobber Rod aren't you selling one of these?

But wow, it has a decibel cut, just run speaker cable to out from the amp to it, from the unit to the speaker cab. XLR to interface. For $35 I'm pretty sure even I couldn't go wrong with this for utter simplicity.

The one I'm selling is a direct box only. It can't take a speaker load and it does not have the cab sim.

Slobber Rod wrote:

ovid9 wrote::rofl: When the camera went to him I thought "that dude looks like raf!" It IS our very own raf.

Wow, that actually seems like it'd be perfect for my current level of need.

Actually Slobber Rod aren't you selling one of these?

But wow, it has a decibel cut, just run speaker cable to out from the amp to it, from the unit to the speaker cab. XLR to interface. For $35 I'm pretty sure even I couldn't go wrong with this for utter simplicity.

The one I'm selling is a direct box only. It can't take a speaker load and it does not have the cab sim.

Ahhh. Ok.

For $35 it seems like I should at least try this.

The one Slobber Rod is selling should work the way you described (amp speaker output to DI box input, cabinet to DI box Link ouput, DI box XLR output to audio interface input (with the DI box pad engaged)). No speaker sim though.

Markdude wrote:The one Slobber Rod is selling should work the way you described (amp speaker output to DI box input, cabinet to DI box Link ouput, DI box XLR output to audio interface input (with the DI box pad engaged)). No speaker sim though.

I am looking at the manual for the Behringer, and it looks like you can do this:

Amp speaker out 1 to cab.
Amp speaker out 2 to Behringer direct box with pads engaged.
Behringer direct box XLR out to audio interface.

My point is, the direct box cannot take a speaker load on its own. You need a cab to absorb that.

Slobber Rod wrote:

Markdude wrote:The one Slobber Rod is selling should work the way you described (amp speaker output to DI box input, cabinet to DI box Link ouput, DI box XLR output to audio interface input (with the DI box pad engaged)). No speaker sim though.

I am looking at the manual for the Behringer, and it looks like you can do this:

Amp speaker out 1 to cab.
Amp speaker out 2 to Behringer direct box with pads engaged.
Behringer direct box XLR out to audio interface.

My point is, the direct box cannot take a speaker load on its own. You need a cab to absorb that.

I've never tried it that way and I'm curious whether the impedance being sent to the cab changes in that scenario, but you should be able to also just have the the DI100 between the amp and the cab by hooking one speaker output up to the DI100's input, and hooking the cab up to the DI100's Link output (and using the pad switches so the XLR output isn't insanely hot). That works fine with many DI boxes. Might be a good idea to e-mail Behringer and check though.

The JDX requires a load, it's just a pass through DI box. However, Weber has a pretty inexpensive load you can use, in lieu of a cabinet.