Guitar Gear Forum

Right now I have a cheap Livewire Solutions passive direct box at the top of my signal chain.
It's so I can record dry guitar for reamping. This this thing really muddies up my tone. The dry recorded guitar sounds fine though. Is it because it's a passive di or because it's a POS? What are guys using for this situation? I have passive pickups BTW.

DI's can have an affect on tone , often one is chosen for it's color . A passive DI can alter tone with long cable runs but that is kinda normal with any loading of the signal . I would guess that is just the sound of it though . But Dry signals can sound weak or like ass without a preamp . So what are you doing with that dry signal after it leaves the DI ? There are a zillion DI's out there . The Countryman is a standard . I like The Cable Factorys Lundahl DI
http://www.cablefactory.com/catalogue/C ... evices.pdf
usually anything with a Jensen in it sounds good to me . Without going into the $$$ Tube DI's you can still get great DI's for under 200 bucks . So give us your full Direct signal chain though and we'll see if we can solve the muddle tone .

Radial has more choices, for passive & active, then you can shake a stick at: http://www.radialeng.com/index.php

I've got the Behringer Ultra G I'm selling. It's active. LYLT and all that

My signal path is Direct Box>Tuner>Wah>OD>Noise Gate>Amp
The direct box goes into an ADA 8000>PC
The recorded tone is fine. Sound from the amp sounds brighter and more open without the DI.

Play into a buffer before the direct box, maybe?

do you have any boss pedals you can just leave in bypass? Is your tuner buffered? You could put that before the direct box if it is.

I just bought this radial pro Di. Passive. https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... Aolq8P8HAQ

Haven't tried it , yet. So no help there. Lol

All my pedals are true bypass unfortunately. I think an active DI may solve my problems. May try a buffer as well.

the attenuation switch could be loading it , does that affect the signal in the Parallel Out ? The Parallel Out should be totally uncolored as it's just a out right from the input .It could be a bad cable .

fretless wrote:It could be a bad cable .

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLmVTr9hq8Q[/video]

fretless wrote:the attenuation switch could be loading it , does that affect the signal in the Parallel Out ? The Parallel Out should be totally uncolored as it's just a out right from the input .It could be a bad cable .

Not using the attenuation switch. Cables are fine. I was told over at Gearslutz that passive DI's load passive pickups, hence tone suck.

maggotspawn wrote:

fretless wrote:the attenuation switch could be loading it , does that affect the signal in the Parallel Out ? The Parallel Out should be totally uncolored as it's just a out right from the input .It could be a bad cable .

Not using the attenuation switch. Cables are fine. I was told over at Gearslutz that passive DI's load passive pickups, hence tone suck.

Your recorded tone "Is fine" That is using the XLR correct ? The Parallel Out is just an out , not going through any thing , unless the switch is part of the circuit . You could test that and see if it changes the Parallel Out level . If so I'd dump it if not then I don't think the DI is the problem . But it could be

fretless wrote:

maggotspawn wrote:

fretless wrote:the attenuation switch could be loading it , does that affect the signal in the Parallel Out ? The Parallel Out should be totally uncolored as it's just a out right from the input .It could be a bad cable .

Not using the attenuation switch. Cables are fine. I was told over at Gearslutz that passive DI's load passive pickups, hence tone suck.

Your recorded tone "Is fine" That is using the XLR correct ? The Parallel Out is just an out , not going through any thing , unless the switch is part of the circuit . You could test that and see if it changes the Parallel Out level . If so I'd dump it if not then I don't think the DI is the problem . But it could be

Yeah, I'm recording via the XLR. I'll try the swicth.

maggotspawn wrote:

fretless wrote:

maggotspawn wrote:

fretless wrote:the attenuation switch could be loading it , does that affect the signal in the Parallel Out ? The Parallel Out should be totally uncolored as it's just a out right from the input .It could be a bad cable .

Not using the attenuation switch. Cables are fine. I was told over at Gearslutz that passive DI's load passive pickups, hence tone suck.

Your recorded tone "Is fine" That is using the XLR correct ? The Parallel Out is just an out , not going through any thing , unless the switch is part of the circuit . You could test that and see if it changes the Parallel Out level . If so I'd dump it if not then I don't think the DI is the problem . But it could be

Yeah, I'm recording via the XLR. I'll try the swicth.

The switch should probably not affect the The Parallel Out if it does I'd say bad design and dump it , if not it's not doing anything , no loading nothing it's just a The Parallel Out to the pedals , so I'd start with that cable from the The Parallel Out to the first pedal and check it with a meter .

fretless wrote:The switch should probably not affect the The Parallel Out if it does I'd say bad design and dump it , if not it's not doing anything , no loading nothing it's just a The Parallel Out to the pedals , so I'd start with that cable from the The Parallel Out to the first pedal and check it with a meter .

Cables are O.K. I think this DI is just a POS.

Just tried the same setup with my GSP 1101. Tone suck isn't so bad, but still there a little bit.
I think I'm going to bite the bullet and get a Radial active DI for my mapz.

Derp. Turned out to be used error. The pad switch was set to 20db and I neglected to mention an ABY pedal before the amp. Systematically went through everything and the DI is OK. I need to try it with the pad engaged, but the ABY is a tone suck. I'm generally pretty out of it jamming after a long day and missed the simple things.

If you decide to try another, the Countryman gets tons of praise!

Cole