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December 2004
Posts: 65
Location: Phoenix | For years, I've plugged my 1868 straight into the board. But with my "new" VXT, I'm wondering: would the acoustic signal benefit any from using a DI box, or KISS and stay straight to the board? The electric half will still go to a regular guitar amp. (This is for gigs where I'm not toting along an acoustic amp in addition to the other guitar amp...) |
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December 2004
Posts: 4394
Location: East Tennessee | I use a Direct Box when I play at church. |
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April 2006
Posts: 2491
Location: Copenhagen Denmark | Why ?..are you not pleased with the sound , do ya experience " hum " or " hiss "..
Vic |
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October 2005
Posts: 4081
Location: Utah | I plug straight into the board with my O at church. Unless I am looking for some distortion, in which case I pass it through a cool little $30 tube preamp by ART. It's got one 12AX7 tube that can be run clean or distorted. If I want any other effects, the guitar runs through a digital box, the Korg PX4. |
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December 2004
Posts: 65
Location: Phoenix | I haven't experienced any audio problems with it so far either plugged into an amp or plugged directly into my Tascam 488 recorder, but I wanted to hear other peoples opinions on whether a DI box could offer any advantages. So far I'm inclined to not use one, this Sunday we'll have a full band practice and I'll use the VTX for the first time with the band. |
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January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | Guitars go to a pedal board, then the last unit in the board chain is the Zoom A2.1u which has an XLR out to the house. Incidently, when using the VXT, I bypass the Zoom and switch to other pedals. It just seems to sound a little better to my ears. |
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February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | If you're running long cables or going to the board through a stagebox and snake then you must use a balanced line into a low-impedance mic-level input, so a DI box is essential. If you can get to the board with 10 metres or less of quality guitar cord then it's OK to go to an unbalanced line-level input. |
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January 2005
Posts: 206
Location: N.E. Pa | I'm sure a 20' cord is okay to use with no signal loss, and I've done it for years with my Legend with an OP24 first, and more recently my CS247. Lately though, for kicks, I've been running the 247 and my CC074 through my Sansamp Bass Direct Box, and it boosts it nicely, gives me some more tone choices and converts it to low impedance. |
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October 2005
Posts: 4081
Location: Utah | Originally posted by Paul Templeman:
If you're running long cables or going to the board through a stagebox and snake then you must use a balanced line into a low-impedance mic-level input, so a DI box is essential. If you can get to the board with 10 metres or less of quality guitar cord then it's OK to go to an unbalanced line-level input. Temp, interesting comments. At church we run into a stage box and then probably 100 feet of cable to the main board. What would a DI box do for my Elite? Obviously it converts the standard output to balanced output, but what kinds of improvements would it make for me, and what quality of DI box would be required to realize those improvements? |
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February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | A standard guitar cord does 3 things, it carries the unbalanced line-level signal to whatever amplification system you are using, but also, depending on length and quality acts as a big treble-bleed capacitor and a huge anntena, which will pick up all kinds of noise you don't want.
A DI box is basically just a transformer which converts the line-level unbalanced signal to balanced, low-impedance mic-level. Balanced cables can be several hundred feet long without experiencing HF degradation and are designed to reject noise (such as RF or mains-borne interference) So, using a DI box gets rid of unwanted noise and preserves the high-frequencies
Any DI box will be fine, There are basically 2 types - passive, which is a simple transformer, and Active, which use an Op-amp and require power, either phantom or an internal 9V battery. |
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December 2004
Posts: 65
Location: Phoenix | I guess part of my question also pertained to the Ovation preamp impedance and output voltage; are these optimum for most mixer inputs? I've notice with my 1868 with the orignal OP24 that it seemed rather quiet on some mixer inputs (particularly a couple of times I've had to use a house PA that had a cheap Behringer box mixer). |
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Joined:
February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | An Ovation preamp will operate perfectly into any high-impedance line-level input such as found on guitar amps, acoustic amps and mixers. If you want to use a low-impedance balanced mic-level XLR input then you'll need a DI box. Level issues with mixers invariably occur due to incorrect setting of gain structure by the operator, rather than a fault with the mixer itself. Cheap head-type powered mixers can be a compromise as they often do not have individual channel input gain controls. |
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Direct box or straight to board
