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anonymous 27 January 2009

I recently bought direct injection box BSS AR-133 as I heard that it is very good for bass recording.

But now I am confused as I don't know how to connect it to my soundcard which has only RCA connector.

BSS AR-133 has only XLR output and needs to be fed via phantom power or 9 V battery.

However my M-Audio Audiophile 2496 does not have XLR connectors - it has only RCA analog inputs.

What should I do now?

a) Take a soldering iron and make a XLR to RCA cable? (my DAW is in machine room, far away from a location where bass guitarist sits. ~7 meters from a bass guitar. I will be able to supply DI box only from 9V battery then.)

b) Buy a new soundcard with phantom power supply? (too expensive for me)

Now as a temporary solution I use ART Tube MP preamp to supply my BSS AR-133 with a phantom power and as XLR to "jack connector" adapter. Unfortunately ART Tube MP is a little bit noisy.

Please advice.

Thank you.

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Comments

Boswell Wed, 01/28/2009 - 04:14

There's pretty much a complete mis-match between the M-Audio Audiophile 2496 and the BSS AR-133 in all aspects of the specification.

The BSS AR-133 is indeed a great DI box, but if you want to get good bass guitar sound into your computer, you need an audio interface with serious headroom. These are not particularly cheap, but low-cost ones really don't cut it for bass, which has waveforms with a higher crest factor than ordinary guitar. You could look at something like the RME FireFace400.

Boswell Thu, 01/29/2009 - 06:25

Roughly, yes. Crest factor of a waveform is the ratio of peak amplitude to r.m.s. over a specified timescale. It can give you some idea of how unlike a sinewave (crest factor = sqrt(2)) your waveform is, and help in determining the minimum headroom required when you are setting up the gain staging of your signal chain.

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