I want some Good Quality and really Durable DI’s; what should I get?

M

Matt Vivlamore

Senior
Jan 11, 2011
911
4
18
41
Southern MD, USA
www.meerkatsound.com
Alright guys… It’s time for me to break down and buy a new set of Quality & Durable DI’s. I for the last few years, I have been using all EWI Active and Passive DI’s, and they have plenty of shows on them, but for the last couple months I’ve had a few fail on me and now I am looking at dropping some coin and getting some GOOD Quality DI’s that will last.

Here is what I am DI’ing now with the Wedding Band.
- Acoustic Guitar (Active Pick-Ups)
- Electric Guitar (Line6 Spider Valve, XLR DI); need an XLR ISO & Ground Lift.
- Electric Guitar; Line6 POD or ZOOM (amp modulating pedal)
- Bass Guitar w/ Active Pick-ups
- Sample Pad (Roland's SPD-SX)
- Keyboard 1
- Keyboard 2
- Electric Piano/Keyboard


What DI’s would you put on each instrument?
 
Re: I want some Good Quality and really Durable DI’s; what should I get?

They're not the most compact things, but I've had excellent success with BSS AR-133 Active DIs. They work great on EVERYTHING!! They're also not too expensive. We also have quite a few Whirlwind DIs which have also worked well for us: HotBox, Director, Direct-JT. If I were starting out again today, I'd also look hard at Radial DIs.

Jeff
 
Re: I want some Good Quality and really Durable DI’s; what should I get?

You'll get a lot of recommendations for Radial. Looks like pretty much everything on your list is some kind of active output, so just grab a few JDI and maybe a J48 or two. If you do a lot of acoustic guitars there's one for piezo pickups, too.
 
Re: I want some Good Quality and really Durable DI’s; what should I get?

J48 on Electric Guitar; JDI on Bass; Countryman Type 85 on Acoustic; ProDI on keys, stereo models if you so desire. FWIW, my favorite consumer stereo in to mic/line DI is the pcDI.

These are the ideal choices for me; but the JDI is a good, solid guitar DI, and the ProDI is a good solid line source DI. If I were to only buy two, those would be my choice. That said, I love how a J48 sounds, and the Countryman is very natural sounding.
 
Re: I want some Good Quality and really Durable DI’s; what should I get?

BSS, 20 or 40dB of pad, XLR in, transformer isolation...

They may not be the best DI for one particular source, but they're what I'd get for a general purpose "do a pretty good job with anything" DI.

Chris
 
Re: I want some Good Quality and really Durable DI’s; what should I get?

Matt, is the band paying for these? And are they only ever going to be used with this band?

If the answer to either question is no, I have to ask that as a provider, wouldn't you only want to stock (2) models of DI - one active and one passive? It's the variable that if (when) something breaks, you're not waiting a couple days for a spare to arrive - you reach in the workbox and grab another because that's what you own multiples of.
 
Re: I want some Good Quality and really Durable DI’s; what should I get?

Matt Vivlamore said:
Alright guys… It’s time for me to break down and buy a new set of Quality & Durable DI’s. I for the last few years, I have been using all EWI Active and Passive DI’s, and they have plenty of shows on them, but for the last couple months I’ve had a few fail on me and now I am looking at dropping some coin and getting some GOOD Quality DI’s that will last.
Click to expand...

Hey Matt,

I agree with Brian and others - I can see having two, maybe three kinds of DIs. I would prefer mostly passive. If it were me, buying for what I am guessing your application is like, I'd get a bunch of ProDIs. They're simple and small and work great. Then I might pick up a few ProAV2 for keys and DJs, and a few Pro48 or maybe even J48 for special sources that are sensitive and you might find some advantage from the active DI on.

For problem solving and ground lifting I recently discovered this: http://www.radialeng.com/icecube.php
 
Re: I want some Good Quality and really Durable DI’s; what should I get?

For a passive DI, I'm going to recommend the LBP-DI: http://lbpinc.com/DI.html

Jensen transformer
Really robust construction
Very compact
Good price
Schematic is on the website so you can actually service it if you need to

Some people don't like that it has all the connectors on one side. I like it that way because if you lay it on its back, the connectors are up in the air where I can't step on them, or you can lay it over on the side and it still takes up far less space than a lot of DI's take up.
 
Re: I want some Good Quality and really Durable DI’s; what should I get?

Overall I'm very happy with my Radials, but have had many of them have screws back themselves out and get lost. I might have 6 on the bench right now. Loctite is in order, but requires bench time.. working on finding that. Anyone else having trouble with screws backing out of their Radial DIs?
 
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