DI Box

Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 5:23 pm

Hello!
I was looking for a qualityt DI to record a variety of inputs.. E.Bass, E.Guitars (direct) , piezo pickups, acoustic guitars, keyboards etc...

I thought a good DI could take all inputs equally well, but the Radial website states otherwise...

I was looking at the countryman DI boxes, but they do not have a pad, and some guitars tend to clip my soundcatd inputs when the volume is full (i like it often like that, cheap guitars dont have volume/tone knobs that work well)...

Also, i have finally managed to find an online store that would ship to India, so id be pretty restricted to their inventory. For DI's :

http://www.proaudiosolutions.com/Direct-Boxes-s/33.htm

If i cannot afford a Radial or a countryman, would something like the m-audio DMP3 serve well ?

Thank you!
Sidhu

Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 9:49 pm

I don't k now about the M-Audio you mention but any and all of the Radial stuff is worth owning. I have had my Countryman DI for many years and it has always served me well.

As for level issues using any gear, do yourself a favor and pick up some in-line pads from Shure, AT, ect. You should not have to only buy gear that has specifc level matching to your existing gear. There is almost always a acceptable work around like using pads or chaining through other gear, ect...

Now you said you want "quality", so to me that would really narrow it down from the list you have availale to the Countryman and Radial for the cheaper, and the REDDI and Avalon at the higher end, both of which I would prefer.

I hate to admit this, but the Behringer DI is pretty decent. I have had to use them for live PA shows and recordings many times now and they are certainly worth the less than $40 they cost. I am tempted to pick up a few for my audio toolkit if I can get over my snobbiness about owning any "B" made stuff.

Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 4:17 am

I have the 4 channel Behringer DI - I haven't owned much Behringer gear, and this is the only piece I've kept. I don't have any better DI's to compare it to, but I've not had any reason to fault this DI. It has a 20dB boost and two 20dB pads built in, phase, ground lift, and I think it has an 8KHz LPF, but I'm not sure about that - never used that feature.

Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 4:40 am

Ironically.. I am looking to replace the Behringer DI20 (the 2 channel one). It's too noisy to be of any good... starange that it seems to be getting noisier by the day...

Honestly speakeing.. id do myself a huge favor by purchasing a cheap DI (Behringer DI100 ?), im almost bankrupt... upgraded my machine recently, and bought a lot more gear...

So is the Radial a HUGE improvement over the DI100, considering that im still in project studio environment... Another alternative i might have available locally would be the BSS DI boxes.. any insights into these ??

Thanks a ton!

cheers!
Sidhu

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